If you're suffering from cancer, the doctor may recommend radiation therapy as a curative procedure. This is a life-saving treatment, and is often successful in curing cancer or at least controlling its spread. The discovery of radiation therapy as a cure for cancer is undoubtedly one of the greatest medical breakthroughs in recent times.

But radiation therapy is not an unmixed blessing. It has its side effects, ranging from mild to severe. In itself it is a painless process, and you will feel nothing while you are actually taking it. The acute symptoms start to appear between 7 and 10 days after starting the therapy. More long term symptoms may manifest later as the treatment continues.

How does radiation therapy work, and why does it have side effects? You have probably heard about the hazards of being too close to radioactive materials, like those used in nuclear power plants or in atomic bombs. Radioactive elements like uranium, plutonium, radium etc. emit a kind of radiation that is harmful to biological processes and entities. That is why scientists handling these substances have to protect themselves so carefully, and that is why people near a nuclear accident site or a nuclear bomb site die by slow degrees as their bodies disintegrate as a result of exposure to those radiations.

Radiation therapy works by applying controlled doses of similar radiations to those parts of your body where cancer cells have been detected. Cancer cells are among the fastest growing cells of the body, and this type of radiation is mostly harmful to fast-growing cells. So cancer cells take the greatest damage from radiation therapy. And that is the principle behind this kind of treatment. But that is not to say normal cells aren't affected at all. They also take damage, though to a lesser degree. This is what gives rise to the side effects of radiation therapy.

As a result of radiation therapy, the fine soft linings inside your mouth, food pipe, stomach and intestines may decay. Limbs and joints may develop painful swelling. Your skin may suffer considerable and multiple types of damage. Your sexual potency (the ability to reproduce) may be damaged. Most importantly, secondary cancers may develop in response to radiation therapy itself.

But still, any side effect is preferable to leaving cancer untreated. In situations where no other treatment will work, doctors and patients will resort to radiation therapy, because whatever the consequences, it gives you a chance to fight back against the killer disease. The effects of radiation therapy are not pleasant, but the alternative is still less pleasant.

As a minor side effect of radiation therapy, you may lose some or all of your body hair. Among the so much more important consequences of this kind of treatment, hair loss may seem to be too minor to pay attention to. And indeed what is hair loss when compared to becoming impotent or losing the ability to digest food properly or becoming bed-ridden or even dying from secondary cancers? Survival comes first. The vital functionings of the body follow next. Cosmetic concerns are very low on the scale of importance for cancer patients. What does it matter whether you have a few hairs more or less, compared to life and limb?

Still, people who have successfully recovered from cancer through radiation therapy will need to be rehabilitated back to their old lifestyles as far as possible. They will want to come back to normal life as best they can. They will want to socialize, to re-create their image. One's appearance depends to an important degree on one's hairstyle, so they will also want to style their hair.

Except they will have too little of it, or maybe none. In some rare cases, lost hair grows back some time after radiation therapy has ended. But in many cases, the hair loss is permanent. Expensive surgical procedures are sometimes used to help hair grow back, but some people simply choose to wear wigs, turbans, hats and such headgear to cover their weakness in that department.

There are many, however, who are only so much affected by hair loss as to cover their head in public and not in their homes or private situations. And some very rare people have the moral strength to be able to ignore the appearance of their head, and choose to keep it uncovered at all times.

If you belong to this last section, then you don't have a problem with hair loss. But if you care even a little about how your head looks, you need to consider your options with advice from your doctors and cosmetic specialist.