Hi Dr.
What is the most unusual case you have come across during your time dealing with hair loss patients.
Has there been any miraculous results or otherwise unusual results that may give some of us extra hope?
The usual hair loss cause in men the vast majority of the time is genetics. There’s not much you can do to change what your mom and dad gave you. At times the hair loss is not uniform or symmetrical and this leads to some interesting patterns. In many patients, I have seen one side balding much faster than the other. Unusual hair loss patterns in men include a completely Norwood class 7 pattern except for the first 1/2inch of the hairline, which is completely intact. Many of these men grow out the frontal hair and use it as a strange looking comb-back hair style, and it works.
For men, we can postpone the inevitable with drugs such as Propecia (finasteride 1mg) or Rogaine (minoxidil 5% topical). I suspect in the coming years, there may be new drugs or other medical breakthroughs such as cloning, but that may take years just to get FDA clearance.
The hair transplantation methods of the past have created many interesting problems today. In the old days, plugs were put into the crown before the hair was lost, and then as the balding progressed, an island of plugs remained in the middle of a bald crown — a very weird look. Hair transplant surgery today provides awesome results. Not to toot our horn, but our patients seem to think they get miraculous results… which is a prejudice induced because of the life changing nature of the process! Look at our photo galleries to see for yourself.
