Mary Anderson,Oral Chemotherapy Registered Nurse Clinician, with the Norton Cancer Institute, explains the different types of chemotherapy treatments available and what to expect while going through treatments.
Unfortunately many other treatments that we give to treat cancer today, especially the ones that are given in the vein do cause your hair to fall out. This is because medication chemotherapy treats your cancer cells but it also affects the good cells in your body. Our hair follicles are very fast growing cells therefore they are affected by the chemotherapy.
We don't only lose the hair on our head, we also lose the hair on the other parts of our body as well. It could be your eyebrows, your eyelashes, your nose hairs, your under arm hairs, your leg hair then even your pubic hairs may fall out. Once your chemotherapy has finished you might start seeing your hair grow back within three or four weeks and as a general rule about a quarter of an inch a month is what we see. Your hair can come back a different color or come back a different texture. We have seen ladies and men with dark hair come back with gray hair or ladies with straight hair come back with very curly dark gray curls. We cannot predict how your hair will come back.
Many patients say they experienced taste changes with chemotherapy also. Things might not taste good or they might not be able to taste anything at all.
So unfortunately they might have an appetite but the pleasure of eating is not there. There are a few things you can do to help this but as far as regaining your taste that might not happen until the treatments are over. Some patients have found it useful to use plastic utensils. If they have a metallic taste in their mouth they avoid their stainless steel forks and they eat with a plastic fork.
Learn more about chemotherapy [ Ссылка ]
