Coping With Hair Loss During Treatment
- Clea Shearer, 43, star of “The Home Edit,” turned her stage 2 breast cancer diagnosis into a mission of support, launching a new book titled “Cancer Is Complicated” to help patients and loved ones feel less alone.
- Shearer shares her emotional experience with hair loss during chemotherapy, framing it as a personal milestone and confronting how deeply tied her hair was to her identity and femininity.
- Hair loss usually begins about three to four weeks after chemotherapy and continues throughout treatment. Most people can expect regrowth four to six weeks after treatment.
- Hair loss is one of the most challenging stages of the cancer journey because hair is so closely tied to your identity. If losing your hair is a concern for you before cancer treatment, know you have options like wigs, hats, wraps, and scarves, among other things, to maintain your self-esteem.
- Scalp cooling devices such as the one Thurston uses constrict the blood flow to the scalp; the caps limit the amount of circulating chemotherapy that reaches the hair follicles, protecting them from some of the chemo’s damaging effects.
Now, Shearer is reaching even further with her new book, “Cancer Is Complicated,” which was created to make patients and their loved ones feel seen, supported, and less alone.
“I decided to shave my hair off before the second round of chemo, when it might start to fall out on its own,” she shared in excerpts published by People Magazine.
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“If I was going to lose my hair, it was going to be on my terms. For my own mental health, I framed it as an emotional milestone instead of a painful event.”
But even with that resolve, the moment was raw.
“I couldn’t help but completely break down when I saw my bare head in the mirror.”
Hair, for many, is deeply tied to self-image. Shearer’s vulnerability speaks to a universal truth for cancer patients: the physical changes can feel like emotional earthquakes. She was still healing from a double mastectomy (removal of both breasts) when she began to question what remained of her femininity.
“It was tough not to feel like all my femininity had been taken from me.”
Her thoughts quickly turned outward—to her children, her family, and how they might perceive her new appearance.
“Would my kids be embarrassed to be in public with me — or even be uncomfortable in private with me? I tried to get a grip. This was just hair. But why did it feel like so much more than that?”
Shearer described the shift from invisible patient to visible survivor.
“After my surgery, I was just bandaged up — I didn’t look like I had cancer. Now that I didn’t have hair, it was a neon sign flashing to anyone and everyone.”
While hair loss from chemotherapy is temporary—typically beginning three to four weeks into treatment and regrowing four to six weeks after its completion—the emotional toll can linger. Shearer’s regrowth marked a turning point.
“The second I had even the smallest amount of fuzz on my head, something like a fresh peach, I acted as if I had a full head of hair. I ditched the scarves and the wigs and decided to finally accept my appearance once and for all.”
While embracing her new normal, Shearer found clarity in what truly matters. Her eight-year-old son reminded her of a truth that no diagnosis can erase.
“With his precious voice, he said, ‘Mommy, you’re beautiful.’”
Through her book and her journey, Clea Shearer continues to show that cancer may complicate life—but it can also illuminate personal strength.
Resources to Help Navigate Hair Loss During Treatment
- Living With Cancer: Coping With Hair Loss & the Anxiety it Brings
- Preventing Hair Loss During Chemotherapy: Scalp-Cooling Devices
- Making Peace With Hair Loss Stephanie Hess Shares Her Ovarian Cancer Story
- ‘Acknowledging the Grief’ – Losing Your Hair During Chemotherapy
- Coping with Hair Loss During Ovarian Cancer Treatment
Clea’s Cancer Journey
Shearer’s cancer journey began early last year after discovering a lump.
“I found a lump myself (in) the last week of February,” Shearer posted to Instagram.
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“I had been trying to make an appointment with my OB(GYN) for several months, and even when I told them I found a lump, they couldn’t accommodate me. I had to request a mammogram from my general doctor, which led to an ultrasound and then an emergency triple biopsy,” she added.
She would later be diagnosed with breast cancer, but the popular star chose to share the intimate news with her millions of followers on social media. She was initially told her cancer was stage 1, but during the nine-hour surgery in April 2022, doctors found cancer in one of her lymph nodes, which elevated the cancer to stage 2.
Shearer was diagnosed with “aggressive and fast-moving” breast cancer, but she thankfully “caught it early.”
She had two tumors, one measuring 2 centimeters in size and the other 3 centimeters.
WATCH: Treatment for early-stage breast cancers.
Early-stage breast cancer means that there’s a small tumor in the breast and that there are no lymph nodes affected.
“For stage one breast cancer, the first step is to remove the cancer. If a woman needs a lumpectomy, most often, she will have radiation after that.
“In some instances, depending on her age, she may not need radiation,” she added.
“Depending on the size and other features such as family history, a patient may opt for more aggressive surgery. So even for an early stage 1 breast cancer, a woman may elect a mastectomy to remove her whole breast. Then, once that surgery happens, a pathologist is able to look at that tissue underneath the microscope and decide what treatment a woman needs after the surgery has removed it.”
Shearer underwent treatment, which included a double mastectomy.
WATCH: Understanding a double mastectomy.
Shearer’s treatment also included both chemotherapy and radiation. During chemotherapy, patients receive cancer-killing drugs either orally or intravenously. Radiation therapy is also aimed at killing cancer cells, except it’s administered using high-energy X-ray beams aimed at cancer cells.
Shearer’s first round of chemotherapy occurred in May 2022. However, a common side effect of chemotherapy is hair loss, and the reality TV star also experienced it during this emotional phase of the journey.
“Very short hair, and really don’t care,” she wrote in an Instagram post about a week after cutting all her hair off. “This first round of chemo has been a lot, both physically and mentally. It wiped me out for a few days, but it makes the good days feel that much better.”
WATCH: Coping With Hair Loss & the Anxiety it Brings.
Chemotherapy can cause hair loss. It usually begins about three to four weeks after starting chemotherapy and continues throughout treatment.
This happens because this treatment targets quickly dividing cells throughout the body, including cancer cells and hair cells.
Radiation is another treatment that can lead to hair loss if the hair is in the path of the tumor being treated. Radiation for a brain tumor, for example, may cause hair loss.
“If you do lose hair, it will regrow several weeks or months after treatment,” radiation oncologist Dr. James Taylor told SurvivorNet. “Fortunately, for most patients, hair loss is not a concern when having radiation therapy.”
Fortunately, hair loss during cancer treatment is not all bad news. Most people can expect regrowth four to six weeks after treatment. However, when your hair grows back, you may notice some changes in its color and texture.
If losing your hair is a concern for you before cancer treatment, know you have options like wigs, hats, wraps, and scarves, among other things.
In November 2022, Shearer revealed she was “cancer free”; however, she still undergoes regular checks to ensure the cancer has not returned. This stage of the cancer journey, called survivorship, can be equally filled with anxiety as concerns may grow if a recurrence (cancer returning) is taking shape.
Questions to Ask Your Doctor
If you’re going through cancer treatment and experiencing hair loss, here are some questions you may consider asking your doctor:
- Are there any treatments to help manage or minimize my hair loss?
- What are scalp-cooling devices, and how do they work?
- Do you recommend scalp-cooling devices?
- What other options are available to help me cope with hair loss?
- Can you recommend a wig maker?
- I’m struggling mentally with my hair loss; can you recommend a therapist to talk to?
- How can I find a local support group with people going through similar things?
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