Meet Cassie, a breast cancer patient who discovered scalp cooling following a discussion with her oncologist prior to her first chemotherapy session. Cassie felt that the scalp cooling information her oncologist gave her was limited, so she supplemented this with her own research. 

Cassie also reflects that her introduction to scalp cooling was not as thorough and gentle as she had expected: “I remember the nurse wheeling the Paxman cooling machine over to me and not really saying much about it.”  

Cassie says that a lack of explanation surrounding the scalp cooling process “made my anxiety worse”. She says that cold capping “is definitely not pain free, but over the course of each round, I used a number of techniques to help me through the first hour which tends to be the worst.”  The coping techniques Cassie used to help her through the discomfort of cold capping were meditation and soft movement, as well as hypnotherapy and maya beads to help with nausea. Cassie reiterates that her scalp cooling was not without pain, but she is so pleased she stuck with it as she managed to retain so much hair. 

Often, when patients are going through chemotherapy treatment, many can feel the need to wear a head covering to maintain their identity. However, due to her hair retention, Cassie didn’t feel the need to do this. Despite some shedding over several rounds of chemotherapy, Cassie says that her hair never came out like she had been told to expect. While her experience of cold capping was overwhelmingly positive, Cassie does express her fears for other women who are told like she was how painful it is and it’s “unlikely you’ll retain your hair”.  

Cassie fears that many women will listen to these warnings and “they probably won’t even try cold capping when they could have had good results.” For Cassie, more needs to be done to raise awareness of scalp cooling, and as such, she has created an Instagram account ( @all_the_breast) to document her journey. 

Asked whether she has any scalp cooling haircare tips for other cap users, Cassie recommends washing your hair using minimal motion, “let the water fall onto your head, and instead of using circular motions to get the shampoo into your hair, just stroke it into your head”. Cassie also suggests simply laying a towel on your head to dry it, as opposed to putting “your hair upside down.” Other haircare tips that Cassie found useful during her cold capping journey included sleeping on a real silk pillowcase and wearing a silk cap. As a final tip, Cassie says that it is important to refrain from the use of any heated styling tools. 

When we asked Cassie how she feels about her scalp cooling experience, she explains, “I wish the cooling machine would have been explained to me properly, no one said a word and I was just expected to go along with it”. Cassie is of the opinion that more needs to be done to ensure nurses fully explain the cold capping system and how it works. Cassie says that she was “reduced to tears” the first time she used it because she didn’t know what was happening and was scared. Despite having a lack of nursing support and thorough explanations throughout her treatment journey, Cassie says that cold capping was the best decision she made during breast cancer treatment.