Saving Your Hair During Chemo with Scalp Cooling.

The day you get a cancer diagnosis is the day everything changes. You go from your
normal daily routine to a series of tests, procedures and therapies that you never
imagined would be your reality. If you’re told that you have to undergo chemo, it
used to mean that you’d definitely be losing your hair, but now there is hope that
you don’t have to. Scalp cooling, or cold-capping, is a medical technology that is
saving the hair of thousands of women across the globe, and giving cancer patients
access to a little more control over how they look during and after treatment.

What is Cold-Capping?
Although cold-capping is relatively new to the United States, it’s been successfully
saving the hair of people undergoing chemotherapy for solid-tumor cancers across
Europe and Canada for decades. How it works is by bringing the temperature of the
scalp down significantly during chemotherapy infusions in order to restrict blood
flow to the scalp and prevent the harsh drugs from attacking the hair follicles. In
general, 50%+ hair retention is considered to be successful, but a lot of people save
much more. Even if your hair looks noticeably thinner after chemo, scalp cooling
helps with re-growth, so you’re back to normal quicker than you would have been
without it.
USE COLD CAPPING VIDEO HERE FROM HAIRTOSTAY:
http://www.hairtostay.org/scalp-cooling/

For years, the only cold caps available were the manual caps, like Penguin Cold Caps
or caps made with Elasto-Gel. With manual scalp cooling systems, you rent four to
five caps from the company and then manually cool them down in an ice chest with
dry ice. You bring that chest to the infusion center with you, and then every 20
minutes, your chemo buddy helps you switch out the cap with one that’s just off the
ice—so your scalp remains below a certain temperature that’s determined by your
specific therapy.

The two-part cold cap in Paxman’s scalp cooling system. Source: Paxman

Scalp cooling machines are the new kid in town, so to speak. They’re making the
process easier and more precise, and systems like Paxman and Dignicap have even
recently earned FDA approval as a therapy for the prevention of hair loss during
chemotherapy. With these machines, there is a single cap that you wear throughout
your infusion, through which the machine circulates sub-zero fluid to keep your
scalp at a constant low temperature. Although more and more cancer centers are
investing in the machines, they’re still not as widespread as we’d like to see, in part
because it’s a costly machine and a costly process, and is not covered by health
insurance providers.

Hope Within Reach
The big downside to cold-capping is the cost, which can run into the thousands for
either manual or machine scalp cooling. For this reason alone, a lot of people in the
past opted out of scalp cooling, as it was another cost they couldn’t afford in an
already-expensive treatment schedule. Despite the FDA approvals, most health
insurance companies treat scalp cooling as an experimental therapy, and refuse to
pay for it.

This is where HairToStay comes in.
HairToStay is the first and only national nonprofit dedicated to helping cancer
patients afford scalp cooling, whether they choose manual cold capping or an
automated scalp cooling system. They bring in money through donations and
fundraisers that goes directly to grants for women who cannot otherwise afford
cold-capping. The grants are need-based and cover up to $1,500 per patient, putting
cold-cap therapy within reach for those who would otherwise never be able to
afford it. They also devote efforts to spreading the word about scalp cooling so more
people going through chemotherapy know it’s even an option.

Bringing It Home
As stylists who deal with our guests’ hair every day, we at Josephine’s Day Spa & Salon
know how connected your hair is to how you feel as a person. When it comes to
having cancer, retaining as much hair as possible means retaining as much of your
old self as possible, too.

When we learned about HairToStay, we knew we had to get involved, and we’re
proud to announce that we’re partnering with HairToStay to raise money so that
more women across the country, even right here in Houston, can use cold-
capping to prevent hair loss during chemotherapy.

 

You want to get involved?
You can always donate online at http://www.hairtostay.org/donate/.
If you know someone who might need help from HairToStay, they can get the
application here, and either email it or send it by mail.

We’re so happy to be showing HairToStay love and support all the way from Houston , and we hope to see you in our salon to do your part soon.