“Telling my mum to become horrible. I remember her coming domestic from work, and I stated, ‘Mum, everything is high-quality, [but] my hair is starting to fall out.'”
Nic Cumpilido, 24, faced surgical operation, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy while preventing most cancers, but the resulting hair loss took its toll.
Welsh health board figures advise guys are less likely to get the right of entry to hair-loss guides, offerings, or wigs during treatment.
Cancer charity Maggie’s Centre stated they need to be extra routinely supplied to men and entreated men to be open-minded.
Nic, of Bridgend, was identified with a mind tumor in 2015 while reading at Swansea University and is now in remission.
He lost hair all through the extraordinary stages of his treatment, and it has considering to have partially grown lower back, together with his surgery scars seen when it’s far cut brief.
“Losing my hair did have a large, vast impact on my self-assurance,” he stated.
“I felt chillier, no longer just bodily, emotionally as nicely.
“I felt any other massive thing become happening to me – to get used to. I just desired to be regular.”
However, Nic tried to preserve in angle, trying to “observe the humorous aspect” of the exclusive hair loss levels.
That determination noticed him have some “fun” with specific hairstyles, a mohawk, a shaven head with a beard stimulated through the TV show Breaking Bad, and one with an asymmetrical factor.
However, hair loss bobbing up from illness or treatment became taboo among men.
“Even though guys don’t communicate approximately it, that says lots approximately how guys are dealing with it, which is not nice,” he stated.
“Men do not communicate approximately feelings plenty besides, so it makes sense they would not simply speak approximately hair.”
Figures from 4 of Wales’ seven neighborhood fitness forums show handiest 14 of the 1,601 sufferers who received wigs or hair home equipment at the NHS in 2018-19 were men – this is less than 1%.
Cardiff’s Velindre Cancer Centre said the variety of guys who get entry to so-called bloodless cap treatments changed into “very low.”
The treatment can save hair loss by cooling a patient’s scalp during chemotherapy.
Alun Rees, eighty-two, from Mumbles, Swansea, decided to apply it while receiving a remedy for prostate cancer.
He stated: “Generally, you observed, as you are getting older, you are going to lose your hair besides. It’s a slow, natural process.
“But if you’ve got an excellent head of hair, I suppose it boosts your confidence [to keep it].
“You’re nevertheless at a completely low ebb, having long passed through that [chemotherapy]; however, human beings say to you, ‘you look true,’ and it lifts you.”
Alun said it turned into the best chance that he had heard approximately scalp cooling but hoped it would be promoted to more guys with most cancers.
However, he might now not have considered using a wig or a hairpiece because of the stigma.
“Men are quite bizarre, approximately men who wear wigs. It’s a joke, isn’t always it?”
One issue that could affect men in another way than girls is losing body hair through some treatments.
Sarah Hughes of Maggie’s Centre in Swansea stated that while hair loss was likely less difficult for guys than women, it was still a “massive difficulty,” especially for a few younger sufferers.
She believes clinicians and support corporations could “be better” about supplying information but also urged men to be more open-minded about the options.
She said: “It’s now not simply making those assumptions that guys are going to be ok with partial or overall hair loss; it’s giving them a choice too.”
