Looking for information, personal experiences, etc, with Cold Capping

February 2, 2023 5:18 AM

Please share your experiences with and knowledge of Cold Capping.

Adding to the list of the many things I had never heard of til I was today years old, please help me learn more about Cold Capping, the process of keeping the scalp very cold during chemotherapy with the hoped-for result of preserving the patient's own hair.

I am particularly interested in anyone's experience with the process, the result, hints for getting through it while also taking chemo, really anything at all.

posted by Ginesthoi to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

A friend recently went through it. It worked well for her, she kept her hair.

She described it as "annoying, painful and expensive … but totally worth it".
posted by Hatashran at 6:00 AM on February 2, 2023

I personally know two people who have done it, a close friend and a sibling. In both cases it did not work, in a way that left both regretting they'd done it. In the category of "more trouble than it's worth" and also "it gave me false hope." Both later spent money on very high-quality wigs.
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:32 AM on February 2, 2023

A good friend of mine just went through chemo and cold capping last year. He works in a public facing job and keeping his hair was very important to him. It worked, but he says that if had realized how uncomfortable and painful (and expensive) it was he would not have done it.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:46 AM on February 2, 2023

I did not do Cold Capping because I too heard it was painful and time intensive, and I did enjoy just getting to relax during very long A/C Chemo sessions without having another thing to worry about. But, during Taxol, a shorter infusion, I did wear freeze-able gloves and socks to avoid neuropathy - wanted to put that on your radar in case you had not heard of it (seemed to work for me). IMHO losing head hair is not the worst part of chemo, it's the eyelashes and eyebrows (and nose hairs) that were most annoying and strange looking to me, and unfortunately cold capping does nothing for those.
posted by beyond_pink at 11:25 AM on February 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Be sure to check with your oncologist too. There are some treatments that have you avoid anything cold, even food or drink.
I wish I’d known about the hands/feet stuff for neuropathy- I seem to have it in both feet permanently.
posted by dbmcd at 4:19 PM on February 2, 2023 [1 favorite]