Hairloss - shave it all off?

[jason137]

Is it easy to tan a part of your body that has never seen sunlight?

Haven't gone through chemo, but at various times I've shaved my head. Once I did it before a July 4 picnic. In the afternoon of the picnic my Mom was telling me, "Jason, your head is getting really red, you should put some sunscreen on." "Nah, I'm fine." Let me tell you that a sunburn on the scalp is not fun, I had large flakes of skin peeling off. You may want to consider a hat and sunscreen.

For tanning, just go slow, you certainly don't want to burn, even getting red or pink is bad.

[63days]

Thanks for all your guidance on this. I shaved my head a few days before chemo, and I think I look pretty good with this cut. It might be a little high maintenance, and I haven't totally mastered the shaving my head with a razor, but I might actually keep this look after I'm all done.

I look pretty badass!

[Vinny]

You may want to consider a hat and sunscreen.

Uh, yeah, that's the understatement of the century. I got an SPF 50 hat from our local gardening center. Stocking caps are a good idea for the fall/winter - you can get sunburned just as easily in January as in July.

I got clippered by the barber and then my wife shaved me. By the second or third time shaving my noggin, my wife had figured out how not to cut me.

And we kept Nair strips as well as a lint roller handy to get the stray hairs that showed up from time to time.

But what was worse than the face and head was the hair loss on the rest of my body. I lost hair everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. I wore t-shirts to bed at night to catch the chest shedding to keep the bed somewhat habitable for us. But it was all gone - chest, arms, legs, pubes, even eyebrows and eyelashes. YMMV. You never think about eyebrows and eyelashes until you get caught in a rainstorm and your eyes get flooded.

[kewlkane]

I went with a Mohawk! Didn't leave much & I always wanted to see how I'd look with one & was fun! Re: tanning - be careful - I hadn't seen my chest for 20 years & then I got to. You won't need deodorant as much when you don't have hair either! Wear a cap outside & nobody even notices! I lost my go-T, eyebrows, eyelashes everything & people still never noticied!! And it'll grow back!

[wannalive]

eventually you get used to it

I got a very short cut before 1st cycle
and it start to fell of around day 12-14 slightly

then most of it is fell of during shower on day 15-16
hair lenght was about 1 cm
it took a lot of time to wash it off but it didn't stop
the more I wash and pull the more I got in my hands,

I checked on the mirror it was very sad to see my had partially bald
then I dry it, cut with a beard shaver and then with a razor

so I recommend a clean shave when you start to have chunks when you pull with fingers and then have a shower

at least I manage to cut on saturday so I get used to it before I go to work on monday, sunday was very sad of course

now I joke with colleagues, warning them before creaming for a sun glasses etc.