Soon after medical doctors diagnosed Paula Estrada with breast most cancers in 2009, the then 41-calendar year-aged Argentine made the decision she would not only defeat the sickness, but would do so with out dropping her long blonde hair to the ravages of chemotherapy.

At her residence in Buenos Aires, Estrada, a graphic designer by profession, established about generating a makeshift cooling cap out of ice packs to hold her scalp cold - and ward off hair reduction.

It worked, and "nobody understood that I was undergoing chemotherapy," reported Estrada, now 54.

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Scalp cooling, a way to constrict blood vessels and continue to keep chemotherapy drugs from reaching hair follicles, has existed in some form for decades. The Paxman Scalp Cooling cap, for example, was launched in Britain in 1997 and gained U.S. Food and drug administration acceptance in 2017.

Paula Estrada reveals off her cooling cap that helped her retain her hair although she was going by chemo therapy, and is now encouraging some others do the same by presenting the caps for only $2. (REUTERS/Matias Baglietto)

But in 2009, cooling caps ended up an unidentified in Argentina, Estrada said.

"When I completed, I reported 'I'm not going to retain this for myself, I want absolutely everyone to have this as a probability," she recalled.

Estrada's 'Quimo con pelo' cap can be created with gels that value as minor as $2 - a lifesaver in a country going through financial struggles and wherever different cooling caps can cost $100 a session.

On social media, patients in Argentina and all around the earth share guidelines on how to make the caps and donate them when they are completed.

The caps need to be made use of commencing with the to start with chemo session, held at -4 levels Fahrenheit (-20 levels Celsius), and improved every 30 minutes.

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"It truly is worthy of it," explained Mariangeles Fernandez, a 48-12 months-old liver most cancers individual. "It lets you battle the sickness in a different way."

Estrada, who is now producing a reserve about her experience, says she hears from sufferers every single day whose most cancers journeys have been improved by the caps.

"I assume the (cap) has been the important to my point out of mind," stated Elsa Ram, a 64-yr-outdated retiree with breast cancer. "This is a large section of a great cure."