“Going through cancer, no one knows what it’s like unless they’re going through it themselves. Getting access to Irish Cancer Society-funded counselling really helped me.”
Ciara Moran, 30, from Offaly, was first diagnosed with cancer in 2016 at age 21. Her treatment included chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
“I was in a lot of pain and everything happened so fast,” says Ciara. “They wanted to start chemotherapy immediately.”
During treatment, Ciara began to lose her hair and eventually shaved it off. Otherwise, her treatment went well.
“When I lost my hair after my first diagnosis, I didn’t take it well,” she says.
When Ciara was diagnosed with cancer again in 2024, her treatment plan included chemotherapy. Ciara wanted to do everything she could to keep her hair the second time around and wanted to use a cold cap.
“I was transferred to oncology in Tullamore, they said I needed six months of chemo. I wanted to try a cold cap, but we knew Tullamore didn’t have them – only a handful of hospitals in Ireland do. The staff in Tullamore said they’d look around, but because they didn’t have a cold cap, I’d have to transfer to another hospital to do it.
“We found out the Beacon Hospital in Dublin had one, and luckily, I had private health insurance so I could go there. They said they had a cold cap machine there, that I’d to get a referral sent to them and they’d see me.”
Ciara’s care was transferred from Tullamore to the Beacon, so she could use the cold cap. In general, you can’t prevent hair loss entirely if it is a side-effect of your particular treatment. But for some patients having certain types of chemotherapy, it may be possible to reduce or delay hair loss by using a cold cap.
A cold cap is a hat you wear during chemotherapy to reduce blood flow to your scalp so less of the drug reaches your scalp. The cold cap does not always prevent hair loss, and it only blocks the action of certain drugs. Your doctor or nurse can tell you whether a cold cap is available in your hospital and if it might work for you.
“There’s a 50/50 chance of your hair being saved when using a cold cap, it doesn’t work for some people. Fortunately, the cold cap worked for me. I was out and about a lot more than I would’ve been if I’d lost my hair. I went back to work as a secretary a month after I finished treatment, which I probably wouldn’t have done if I’d lost my hair.
“The cold cap isn’t comfortable. It gets to minus 40 degrees and it adds four extra hours to your treatment. You have to do it for 90 minutes before your treatment, and again for 90 minutes after.”
Ciara and her family researched cold caps before she started her treatment, so they knew they didn’t work for everyone.
“We’d read up so much about people starting and not being able to finish it because the pain was so bad. I think everyone has a different pain tolerance. I brought gloves and a scarf but I actually didn’t end up feeling the need to use them, but I did use a flask with hot water, and they gave me a tablet beforehand to help me relax.”
Ciara attended Irish Cancer Society-funded counselling sessions in her local cancer support centre, Dochas Tullamore, which helped her as she grappled with her second diagnosis.
“It made a huge difference,” says Ciara. “I went in for counselling before my treatment even started. It really helped me, because I was able to speak to a counsellor who was also speaking to other people who had cancer too."
Ciara finished her treatment in January 2025 and is doing well and kept her hair throughout. She’s now scheduled to go for scans every six months and looks back positively on the fact that she was able to keep her hair through her treatment after overcoming the initial shock of her cancer returning.
“Initially, when I was told my cancer was back last year, I didn’t handle it well. I couldn’t talk to anyone without bursting into tears, but I eventually started to see the positive side and knew I’d get through it.
“I looked forward to getting back to having a normal life. The fact I kept my hair made my diagnosis more tolerable, physically and emotionally.”
