Month: April 2012

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Would You Restore a Mature Hairline to a Juvenile One? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Greetings, Doctor. I’d like to ask a couple of questions if I may!

How unique can hairlines be, in your experience? Can the hairline position at a young age predict hair loss?

How do you feel about restoring a juvenile hairline, if the person that comes to you has a perfectly fine mature hairline?

I’m asking this because most of the pictures from the hair transplants I’d seen on your website and others have had people’s hairlines restored to a ‘mature hairline’ and not a juvenile one. Am I wrong?

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer!

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ReaganMany men into their 30s have juvenile hairline. For example, Ronald Reagan had one for his entire life (see photo at right)… and he was well past 35 years old at the time he died.

If a man developed a mature hairline and had no signs of balding (with good measurements), I might restore the juvenile hairline if I thought the patient was mature and level-headed. I have rarely restored the juvenile hairline, but I have repaired some that have had erosion and an incomplete migration to the mature hairline.

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It’s Been 7 Months Since I Chemically Burned My Scalp – When Will I See Regrowth? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I am a 25 year old black female and I recently permed my hair. I burned my scalp pretty badly. But there are no bald spots or scabs, or anything. My hair started to fall off, not everything though. Will my hair grow back. It’s been seven months. I haven’t seen any hair growth. And I usually see hair growth within 2 or 3 months of perming my hair.

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Wait out a full year to see if there is regrowth. When a person has a bad burn from chemicals, the results are often permanent hair loss. Transplants can help and might be considered an option at the 1 year point if the hair hasn’t grown back.

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In the News – Tissue Engineering and Follicle Regeneration – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Snippet from the article:

A hair-raising trick may lead to better hair transplants. Engineered hair follicles patched into skin can be coaxed to connect to surrounding tissue and to grow hair in an organized way, a study in mice finds.

Unlike current hair transplant methods, which simply move existing hair follicles from one area of the scalp to another to cover a bald region, the approach would spur the creation of new hair follicles from existing cells.

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Read the rest — Engineering better hair transplants

Progress moves slowly and consistent in the direction of solutions that will eventually allow doctors to produce the entire hair organ, essentially producing new hair. These articles are very exciting. To quote from the Nature Communications article: “Concepts in current regenerative therapy include stem cell transplantation and two-dimensional uniform cell sheet technologies, both of which have the potential to restore partially lost tissue or organ function” such as hair. The article demonstrates “fully functional orthotopic hair regeneration via the intracutaneous transplantation of bioengineered hair follicle germ” (i.e. stem cells).

In the discussion, the author Koh-ei Toyoshima et. al. states: “In this study, we successfully demonstrate fully functional bioengineered hair follicle regeneration that produces follicles that can repeat the hair cycle, connect properly with surrounding skin tissues and achieve piloerection. This regeneration occurs through the rearrangement of various follicular stem cells and their niches. These findings significantly advance the technological development of bioengineered hair follicle regenerative therapy.”

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Dr Gho Patient Diary – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hey Dr R.

i jave a question about your opinion on Gho. Recently there has been a very well documented case from a patient, with obvious donor regneration.

Link: Hairsite

I think that this is the real deal because this patient has no incentives to lie and he provides close up donor pictures.

He was also said by other clinics that he has only around 2500 available grafts. Gho extracted already 1400 and the next time this patient is gonna get 1400 additional Grafts extracted.

Also this patient has scarring alopecia.

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Oh, I can’t wait to see some of the vitriol that is sent my way for this one. These pictures are confusing and do not tell the full story of what was done. I am sorry, but what is presented here does not move me to believe anything had occurred other than a nicely done FUE with healing. When I watched Dr. Gho do his thing (on video) at the Amsterdam ISHRS meeting, I thought he was performing a partial FUE, leaving some of the hairs behind.

He obviously has supporters (I received basically the same email half a dozen times), but this doesn’t change my opinion as previously stated.

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Pro Hockey Player Dion Phaneuf’s Hair Loss? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi doctor Rassman, can you please tell me what norwood class pattern this is? This guy is a pro hockey player for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3, Photo 4, Photo 5

in your opinion do you think this is just a mature hairline? do you think he should take propecia or not?

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Based on the photos, he appears to have an advanced Norwood class 3 pattern of balding. It is hard to see if his central hairline is impacted as well.

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I Saw Amazing Results from Medication, But Quit and Saw Massive Loss – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi, I had a hair transplant a year ago January 2010. I had a thinning crown and little hair on top. I had 3000 follicle transplant and use Minoxodile and 1.25 tab of finisteride daily. Wow. 6 months later I was so happy with the results.

Then in November due to published side effects of propecia I quit everything and now am experience a massive hair loss. I hate even washing my hair seeing all the hair on the shower floor. I can lose 50 hairs just by brushing in the morning. My hair is finer than it used to be and when I walk outside without a hat I feel the cold on the sides of my head like never before. I’ve started everything(finesteride and Minoxidle) back up about two weeks ago in hopes of reversing this. What should I do and can I expect some or most to regrow? Thank you

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You have experienced what I’ve called “catch-up hair loss” which means that the full benefits of finasteride and/or minoxidil may be lost within a few months of stopping the drug routine. Your hair loss then catches up to the point you would’ve been at had you never used any medications.

I can not tell you what you can do, but just wish you luck. It’s possible you’ll see some benefits restarted in a few months, but I have no way to know if you’ll regrow what was lost. The wild internet postings about side effects from finasteride that persuaded you to abandon your successful treatments may have unfortunately lead to more hair loss, even though you didn’t mention seeing any side effects yourself. The reality, of course, is that if you were to have developed sexual side effects from finasteride (about 2% of men), you would have seen them within the first month of so of starting the medication.

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Cutting Proscar and Even Distribution – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Dear Dr. Rassman,
Congratulations on the new NHI site. Very nice and user-friendly. I noticed however in the frequently asked questions section on Propecia you recommend against doctors prescribing 1/4 Proscar, as it is not certain that the active ingredient is distributed evenly. In past posts you have referred to the use of 1/4 Proscar without mentioning such risks. Would it be possible to clarify this? Thanks for your insight

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For treating hair loss, the daily finasteride dosage should be close to 1mg when you cut the Proscar (5mg finasteride) tablet into quarters. Finasteride fixes (attaches) to the tissues, so blood levels which are relatively short (under a day) will not be impacted by varying the dose from (let’s say) 0.75mg to 1.5mg/day.

You are safe with the 5mg dose divided into four pieces. The information you found on the NHI site about not cutting up the generic finasteride is outdated and we will update the old reference. There’s more recent info about this here.

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Nanogen Serum VEGF – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

What are your views on the new Nanogen Serum VEGF, and the (very big!) claims it makes?

I read about it in a magazine and wanted to yawn, but sucked my yawn back in when I saw the excitement of some of its supporters…

Link: £30 serum goes on sale to beat baldness

Reason tells me it will not make hair transplants redundant…but what about minoxidil? If not, is it worth adding to one’s arsenal of hair loss products?

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I have no experience with Nanogen’s Serum VEGF, but the notion that increasing blood supply to the scalp increases hair growth or reverses balding is wrong, illogical, and not scientific. The link you sent looks to be a press release disguised as a news article.

To me, it sounds like yet another product in a long line of products that try to dangle a carrot in front of balding men in hopes that they chase it. In other words, you can try it out if you’re curious, but I wouldn’t expect it to regrow hair.

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Is There Any Link Between Weightlifting and Hair Loss? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I have read your past answers on weightlifting.

I understand that you don’t believe there’s a proven link between hair loss and weightlifting – but do you think there is any risk whatsoever? If there is even a minuscule risk, I’d rather not weight lift.

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There could be a connection if your body increases its testosterone levels in response to prolonged extreme exercise. Most people who exercise normally should not increase their testosterone levels. Some professional weightlifters take steroid-like drugs that accelerate the genetic hair loss process.