Just wondering, im 30 years old hair starting to thin, i’m on propecia and curious about taking HGH. I want to get a bit bigger, but will this cause my hair to fall out? and is the safe to take this many drugs at once?
Human growth hormone (HGH) can cause hair loss, though one could speculate that Propecia might reduce the possibility of loss. Talk to your prescribing doctor about your plan.
Hi, if you do scalp micropigmentation to correct a donor scar with non-permanent ink. Can you later do FUE into that scar afterwards if you don’t like the results of the micro pigmentation. How long do you have to wait before doing it ? Must all pigments be faded ? Are there any risks ?
Thanks
Since we have been performing Scalp Micropigmentation (SMP), there have been various clinics that started offering something like SMP, but with non-permanent ink. Non-permanent ink is just like makeup or just drawing something on your head with a pen, in my opinion, so you don’t have to worry about other procedures (it will erase off like a pen eventually).
On the other hand, SMP is permanent… but like all tattoos or cosmetic/medical pigments, it fades to a lighter color over the years. You may need a touch up, but it will NOT just erase. SMP is great to disguise an old hair transplant scar if you are going to shave your head or buzz it short with a zero guard.
There is no issue if you choose to have another hair transplant (strip or FUE) after the SMP, or even transplant into the scar if that is what you want. It just means that there will be more scars (linear scar from strip or hundreds of FUE scars) and you will need to pay and go through the entire SMP process over again if you want to hide the new scars. Very few patients have actually had another transplant into the scar, because our satisfaction rate is extremely high.
Snippet from the article:
For some men with prostate cancer, hormonal therapy to beat the disease could be safely cut from three years to half that time, a new clinical trial suggests.
When men have cancer that is confined to the prostate gland but at high risk of worsening, one treatment option is radiation therapy plus drugs that cut testosterone levels, because this male hormone feeds the cancer.
Right now, doctors routinely give that hormonal therapy for two to three years, during which time men may suffer unpleasant side effects.
But that routine is based on a clinical trial from the 1990s that found that adding three years of hormonal therapy to radiation could cure certain prostate cancers. That doesn’t necessarily mean three years is ideal.
Read the rest — Could Duration of Prostate Cancer Hormone Therapy Be Halved?
In 1967, I was an intern with the cardiac service of CW Lillehei at the University of Minnesota. Dr Lillehei had just performed a surgery on a 16 year old girl with a Tetralogy of Fallot (a congenital heart defect). Being 16, Maria was unusually old for this type of surgery as most children with this condition who are left untreated typically would die from the disease before reaching adolescence.
Maria had severe heart failure when she came to us for treatment. It was a very risky surgery for her, which at 16 and extremely ill, had very low chances of survival. I was the intern on the case and followed her into the coronary care unit after the surgery. She suffered 260 cardiac arrests over the first week (I believe a record). For this reason, I stayed with her day and night, addressing each and every cardiac arrest episode as quickly and as efficiently as possible. She was fearful if I ever left her room, even for a bathroom break. I ate my meals beside her and slept in the adjacent bed next to her if it was not occupied, or on the floor, or in a chair.
After the multiple cardiac arrests, her chest wound incision (the mediastinum incision from the base of her neck to the bottom of her breast bone), could not tolerate the repeated cardiac compression episodes and electric shocks for defibrillation, and the chest wound eventually opened up, exposing her heart. When she would sit up, her heart came out of her chest. Eventually, the heart became infected and I was assigned the job of washing out the chest cavity, putting my gloved hand into the chest and breaking up pockets of pus that formed around the heart and great vessels. The process of clearing up the infection went on for many months and eventually another intern took over that responsibility.
I always dropped by to see her, to talk to her, to tell her jokes as her English improved, and to hold her hand. Her English was quite poor in the early days of her hospital stay, but we communicated nonetheless. I don’t remember precisely how long she was in the hospital, 7 to 9 months is my best guess, but I do remember receiving my first letter from her about a year later. It was a letter of thanks and gratitude. She eventually returned to Greece, a frail and skinny girl with tremendous fortitude, to live and love life.
I found out that she put on some weight and eventually entered the Miss Universe pageant, where she was one of the finalists. She went to college, formed her own school after college, taught English, married, and gave birth to a daughter in 1978. She wrote to me every Christmas in the earlier years and I looked forward to her letters. As the years passed by, life got busier and the letters became infrequent until eventually they stopped altogether. Going through a pile of old family photographs I came across a picture of her with a note on the back dated 1978. It was a picture of her smiling as she held her baby girl. She radiated with beauty inside and out.
I tried to reach out to her after finding this photo and was fortunate to locate her sister, who now lives in northern Minnesota. I was informed of the details of her hard won life, her becoming a finalist in the Miss Universe Pageant, her love for her students and of teaching, and the unfortunate details of her death in 1985 from complications of pneumonia.
The memories of my time with Maria in that hospital room and her struggle compelled me to share this with you. Maria gave back so much and touched the lives of countess people in the 18 years she lived since her surgery. Life is truly a gift that is worth fighting for and one should never give up despite the odds. If you ever feel overwhelmed at life and the tide is against you, just remember this story.
I’m 31 years old. For the past year I’ve been in an area with hard water. It’s damaged my hair. i’ve got 50% of hair loss, lost shine, itchy scalp weak roots with white bulb at the end, and my hair comes out easily as i put my fingers or comb. Also from the front my hair breaks. New hair have started to grow which looks really bad. Please tell me something to mix in water and to use!
There are water softeners you can buy, which will soften the water. Hard water can make washing and styling very difficult. Hard water likely didn’t cause 50% of your hair to fall out, though. Have you seen a doctor about your hair loss or are you just speculating on the cause?
I did note that the internet seems to have many shampoo offerings for those with hard water, however, I have little experience in this area. You might try washing your hair with bottled water that is not hard and comes from a reliable source.
Is it safe to take my prescribed thyroid medication (desiccated) and carbamazapine (seizures) at the same time I take propecia?
Would two hormone affecting drugs (thyroid & propecia) taken together interact. Or carbamazapine interact?
Thanks for the website.
I don’t know of any interactions between desiccated thyroid, carbamazepine, and finasteride. You can probably take them at the same time, but you should discuss it with the doctors that prescribed the medications to play it safe.
Would a patient be able to achieve a shaved head look straight after a transplant? By this I mean, once the scalp heals do the transplanted follicles look like shaved hairs until they start growing properly or are they invisible? I wouldn’t mind having a shaved head until they started growing if this is the case- as long as it looks full!
You can shave your head after a hair transplant, but you have to be careful until all of the scabs fall off and the donor scar is healed. If you wait until the scalp heals, the scabs will be gone by then.
There will likely be redness in the recipient area, which may make a very short hairstyle something you won’t want to do, but each person is different and the redness could subside quickly if you’re not histamine positive.
Transplanted hair may appear thinner when first growing, but after 9-12 months or so, it should look just like the hair in your donor area.
Hi,
I have had 2 successful transplants, the last being about 28 months ago. My scar is still a light pink colour. My scars usually take a long time to fade, so I think this is probably normal for me. Is it possible to use lasers get the scar to fade as I would like to get SMP into the scar. Or alternatively, can you get SMP and then reduce the scar redness with lasers, or would this likely cause the SMP dots to fade too?Thanks!
If you let your hair grow out to a reasonable length, the pink color of the scar will be covered. That’s the easiest solution, really. Was your scar pink for a long while after your first hair transplant?
You may just have to wait it out. You can try topical hydrocortisone (a small dab spread over the scar) for up to to 7 consecutive days, then pull back for two weeks and try it again. This might work to lessen the pinkness.
Can you tell me if this could prevent minoxidil from working? Liquify the foam so you can apply it with a dropper. Fill the cap with foam. Hold the cap in a glass that’s filled with hot water. The foam will melt. Then apply with a dropper.
I do this because I get irritated by liquid Rogaine and I find that the foam doesn’t reach properly the scalp.
I haven’t heard of this being done before, but I’d think that this is a reasonable solution to your problem.
Hi Dr.Rassman,
I am 27 years old suffering from male pattern baldness for over two years. I want to know whether spironolactone lotion (used on the scalp) really works as some of such brands said:(1). Spironolactone significantly reduces the amount of DHT in the scalp by inhibiting the conversion of precursor steroids to DHT.
(2). Spironolactone reduces DHT in the scalp by converting localized testosterone into estrogen, which is thought to be protective of the
hair follicles.
(3). Spironolactone blocks the follicular androgen receptor sites, thereby rendering any residual or circulating DHT harmless to the hair follicles, and it doesn’t have such side effects as Propecia; and whether it is widely used in treating with male patten baldness.Thanks for the your answer!
Spironolactone is generally used for treating high blood pressure. While I realize there is a theoretical anti-androgen property associated with spironolactone, there is no conclusive evidence that it really works to re-grow hair. I also realize that many doctors may prescribe spironolactone for hair loss as an “off-label” use, but I personally do not see (or have seen) any benefits from it.
In conclusion, it is still a “buyer beware” mantra that I maintain. It’s also worth noting that Spironolactone has its own list of side effects.
