October 2010 – Page 7

October 8, 2010

Taking Finasteride After Kidney Transplant? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi
I had a kidney transplant 5 years ago. I use immunosupresants (Tacrolimus 2 mg/12 hr and micofenolic acid 1 g/12 hr). And im balding

Is it safe to use Finasteride to help regrow some hair?

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Finasteride is a safe medication, but before you start or stop any medication, check with your doctor who knows your medical history and medications. This is not a place to receive personal medication reassurance or endorsements.

You may not even have androgenic balding and finasteride may not work for you. I don’t know enough about your medical or hair loss history to make that determination. Since finasteride is a prescription medication, your prescribing doctor will be able to tell you.

October 8, 2010

Good Surgical Candidate Vs Bad Surgical Candidate – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Dr. Rassman,

Thank you for your very informative blog, it’s a daily read for me.

My question for you is simple. I’ve heard Dr. Bernstein say that one of the reasons why he has not undergone a surgery is because he is not a good candidate.

First, what makes him a bad candidate, and second, at what age would it have become apparent that he would become a bad candidate? I’m only 29, and although I’ve been told that I’m a good candidate for surgery now, I worry that down the road I’ll turn into a bad candidate because of future loss or donor thinning.

There are many things that make someone a good/bad candidate for hair transplants. A key problem for any candidate is a low donor density and a large balding area, which may mean the donor supply is insufficient to address the needs of the recipient area. I have had many patients that ran out of donor hair before they completed the transplant procedures they could’ve used. That is why I always stress a Master Plan for anyone undergoing a hair transplant.

Someone like Dr. Bernstein, with low density and a very large bald area, needs a great deal of hair to achieve any degree of fullness. The most he could have accomplished is to transplant the frontal area and leave the crown bald, so maybe he felt that the benefit was just not there. Dr. Bernstein is happily married and is not motivated to change his look. He looks handsome with his short hair style and is satisfied with that.

For you, at 29 years old, with the early use of Propecia you may slow down or stop the process and if your hair loss is confined to the front and top, then transplants may offer you a good option later if needed. Too many doctors want to push patients towards hair transplants because that is what they do for a living. The not-so-good doctors just do transplants without a Master Plan communicated to the patient. Many patients want hair, will pay for hair, want a bargain for the graft cost, and really have no concept of a plan.

In reality, they get no bargain and will pay for that ignorance in the future when their hair loss gets out-of-control and they find themselves out of hair and money. I see people every day in this situation and somehow I can not get the message out there that everyone needs to plan ahead for their worst case hair loss, because they will continue to lose hair for the rest of their lives. The question that should be addressed, as you so nicely pointed out, is about what you will look like 5, 10, 20, 30, and 40 years later.

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October 8, 2010

Did Propecia Just Go Up in Price? – Balding Blog

Hi Doc.

My Propecia price have just been raised almost 20% from one day to another. We have a different currency in my country, but the price was 79 US-$ before pr. month and now it’s 100 US-$. This seems extreme. I’m buying Propecia on prescription and at a pharmacy so I’m buying it legal. Have you heard anything about this???

Please help!

Best regards!

I don’t know anything about international Propecia pricing. You might want to call around to different pharmacies to see if perhaps it isn’t increased everywhere. Any international readers out there experience a recent price increase?

My costs for Propecia have not changed in a while. The price did go up about a year and a half ago, but currently we sell it for $190 for a 3 month supply (which breaks down to about $63/mo).

October 7, 2010

Does Cutting a Month of Proscar Really Lose Effectiveness? – Balding Blog

Does cutting Proscar a month’s in advance really reduce its effectiveness?

Cutting a month of Proscar pills (5mg finasteride) in advance could reduce the effectiveness like any pill would if exposed to air and humidity for a prolonged period of time. I don’t know what the exact point is that the medication starts to degrade, but that’s why I suggest splitting one pill at a time. The protective coating on the outside is what extends the life of the medication, and a cut pill obviously loses some of that.

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October 7, 2010

Are My Antibiotics Causing Hair Loss? I Read They Can Cause Growth! – Balding Blog

Doc,

Was put on antibiotics for a persistent infection. After 3 weeks of cipro was switched to doxycycline. 2 weeks into that noticed extra hair loss. one week was looking at my hair commenting how well it was doing and a week later noticed much more thinning at the hairline and crown. Are you familiar with any connection between these drugs and hair loss in clinical practice? I suppose any drug could cause TE, huh?

Ironically on some hair loss sites I’ve seen references to monocycline to actual hair growth.

Thanks

Why are people so caught up trying to associate hair loss with a certain medication? First of all, you’re taking antibiotics to treat an infection. It is just a wild guess, but have you considered other reasons why you would be losing your hair… such as the infection that you are taking the antibiotics for, or genetic causes, or just coincidence?

While it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the medication could be the cause of your hair loss, neither doxycycline or ciprofloxacin list hair loss as a common side effect. I don’t know that either officially list “hair growth” as a side effect either, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone attributed weird side effects to various treatments.

October 6, 2010

Hair Loss from Coronal Brow Lift Scar – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I had a coronal brow lift in Feb. 2009. I had a wider than desired scar. I also had a spot the size of a quarter of permanent hair loss. The plastic surgeon who performed the brow lift has tried to do a scar revision by excising the scar. But I am 3 weeks post revision and I see where all along the new revision scar I have hair loss. The line where he cut is pencil thin, but I have hair loss in front of the scar.

Is this going to be permanent like before? I thought that maybe the staples I had in initial surgery were the problem. But he used sutures to do revision and I still had hair loss. Why is it that every time my scalp gets cut I have hair loss in front of the scar? And what can be done to fix this?

Thank you

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This is a real problem. You must wait out the course (about 4-6 months) and then you will know if the surgery succeeded. I suspect that you will see that the scar is the same or worse and the hair loss may not go away. I see many female patients with this problem and end up transplanting most of them with good results.

October 6, 2010

Teen Girl Losing Her Widow’s Peak – Balding Blog

dear doc,
i am a 15 year old female and im starting to bald. its scaring me very much. i have a not so noticable widows peek and im thinning really bad rite there. also on the side of my head by my temples and a small patch on the back. if you could please please answer me back that would be great!!

I tried replying to you directly, but the email bounced back. Folks, if you want a better shot at a response, use a real email address please.

There’s many possible causes of female hair loss, including birth control, stress, malnutrition, iron levels, etc, etc. You can learn more about this here. You should talk to your doctor about this and get a parent involved. There’s no easy answer I can give you, unfortunately.

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October 6, 2010

My Donor Hair Got Weaker After My Hair Transplants! – Balding Blog

I’m a year post-op on my 2nd HT procedure, 6300 grafts total including my 1st round.

While my results are dramatic and I am quite pleased for the most part, the crown area is still somewhat sparse, and upon my recent 1-year follow-up, I am told there is the issue of some donor hairs that have, according to my doc, become thinner in diameter or possibly even miniaturized due to genetic programming that came with those grafts (in other words, at the time the grafts were transplanted, they were of even diameter and size, but some weakened and shrunk according to him). He took some extreme closeups and showed me the photos on a computer.

I had always believed from my research, that miniaturization is halted or cannot occur in transplanted hairs. Is this not true, and what do you recommend to protect my investment other than finasteride and/or minoxidil?

It’s difficult to provide an accurate answer to your question, because I do not know what you have…

Donor hairs do not normally miniaturize for men with male pattern baldness (MPB), so I must assume there is something more going on or there’s something that wasn’t diagnosed. I would ask your doctor about the cause of your problem and what you can do to for it (in other words, you need a diagnosis). If you do not receive a satisfactory answer, get a second opinion from another physician!

For example, I have seen a few patients over the years who had hair transplants by other doctors, but didn’t know that they had diffuse unpatterned alopecia (DUPA). Their donor hair had significant miniaturization and the transplanted hairs eventually were also miniaturized. I am not implying that you have DUPA, but this gives you an idea of how things are not so simple when undergoing a hair transplant.

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October 5, 2010

Hair Loss InformationHow Can I Thicken My Side Hair to Blend with My Hairpiece Better? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I’ve worn hairpieces for years and have been generally satisfied with them. As I’ve aged (now in my 60’s) my side hair has also thinned considerably-but it’s still there and I wonder if anything can stimulate its growth? I don’t expect crown hair, of course, but thicker side hair would make wearing a hairpiece much easier and more natural, as there’d be a better base to “comb into”.

Any thoughts or suggestions will be much appreciated. Thank you.

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Usually you cannot thicken or regrow hair on the sides unless you have a hair transplant to add the hairs to those areas. Sometimes minoxidil might work. These are generalizations though, and your case may or may not be amendable to either of these two approaches. You should speak with a hair transplant doctor to get a better idea of what your options are.

There are significant number of patients who do have hair transplants to augment their hair piece. Some have hair transplants to the frontal hairline so that at the start of the hairpiece it would look more natural.

October 5, 2010

I Want Finasteride to Maintain Minoxidil Growth! – Balding Blog

Hello,

I just started taking finasteride for two months now and I am thinking of adding minoxidil to my regime. After 12 months I plan just to maintain taking finasteride. If the minoxidil added extra hair growth will I loss that hair if I discontinue minoxidil but remain on finasteride?

Thank you

Yes, unfortunately any benefits (hair growth) you saw from minoxidil will disappear if you stop using it. Finasteride (Propecia) won’t maintain hair grown from minoxidil… and vice versa. Some patients elect to use both medications, but they’re lifelong commitments.

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