Side Effects of Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is a sort of treatment based on various combinations of drugs that are meant to reduce the growth of cancerous cells within a patients body. Many side effects of chemotherapy treatments are permanently reported by people undergoing a chemical intervention.

Hair loss or alopecia makes the most visible of the side effects of chemotherapy although it is false to assume that someone suffering from thinning hair or alopecia is necessarily ill with cancer. Why does hair loss appear to begin with? Well, chemotherapy is a treatment relying on chemicals that are meant either to inhibit or kill the cells that grow or replicate too fast.

The trouble is that the treatment is directed towards all the cells in the body that have this characteristic disregarding whether they are cancer cells or healthy cells. That is why, besides hair loss, many cancer patients may also have to cope with other side effects of chemotherapy related to their digestive system or skin.

Even if this is one of the side effects of chemotherapy that most people are familiar with, few really have a clue about the temporary nature of such side effects. At the end of the treatment the hair follicles will resume normal functionality. After a while, hair will start growing back but its texture and color may be a bit different from what you were used to having before.

There are a few side effects of chemotherapy to say the least, but their intensity could be reduced. In the case of hair loss, prevention is achieved by putting on a cold cap meant to cool the scalp and reduce blood circulation in the area. As a result, the blood will not carry the drug to the hair follicles and this means that ones hair will be protected from the damage of the drug.

All in all, side effects of chemotherapy are a challenge and scientists do their best to discover ways to reduce them. Even if one solution to preventing side effects from appearing is available, the same solution may not work for another drug that leads to the same problem. The same goes for hair loss; the cold cap may have the wanted effect of doing away with alopecia only in the case of certain drugs, but it may not work with some other ones.

Filed Under: Chemotherapy