Month: May 2014

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Hair Loss InformationIn the News – More Korean Men Seeking Hair Loss Treatments – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Snippet from the article:

The number of Korean men seeking treatment for hair loss is seeing an annual increase of approximately 4.8 percent, according to the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service in Seoul.

The institution said the number of patients increased from 180,000 in 2009 to 210,000 in 2013. They spent 12.2 billion won ($11.88 million) for their treatment in 2009, and 18 billion won in 2013.

About 30 percent of the patients are in their 30s and 40s. “Hair loss can have many causes,” officials of the organization said in a statement.

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Read the rest from InsideKorea.com- More men treated for hair loss

This is great news for our branch in Seoul, Korea.

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Hair Loss InformationHow Many Procedures Will SMP Take? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

There are many providers of SMP on the web that discuss how many procedures it takes and how long the procedures will be to get a good result. Since the answer seems to be all over the map, can you tell me your answer and please justify it as well?

Just trying to get an idea of what I’m possibly in store for. Thanks

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There are two classes of SMP: (1) for a donor area scar or set of scars, and (2) for the entire head. Obviously, the entire head will take longer for each session (6-8 hours) than just the scar area, which might take up to 3-4 hours. The number of sessions also vary, from 2-4 sessions depending upon the many variables that each patient presents with. The first session is usually done lighter in color and is more delicate than sessions 2-3. We go lighter on the first session because we do not want to induce pigment bleeding in the surrounding area. Some person’s skin takes up the pigment easier than others, so the touch we develop is based upon the take up of the pigment. After the first session, we get the ‘feel’ and for further sessions we adjust the technique to match what we learned on the first session. Some people absorb the ink quickly, so the pigment can fade after session #1, so we have to again, adjust what we do on subsequent sessions.

You must remember that the tattoo pigments we use are foreign bodies which precipitate a reaction in each person who has it done such that the person’s immune system attacks the pigment. This attack can cause the pigment that you see to fade. Also, areas of scar tissue will react differently to the pigment than non-scarred areas. This can be ‘felt’ by the person doing the SMP, so adjustments for scarring is something that each person learns as they do the SMP. The area of the scar is significantly smaller than the area of the rest of the head, so the costs for the process more than doubles for en entire head.

We generally invest between 20-25 hours for an entire head SMP and about 12-15 hours for a scarred area. The scarring is approached with pigment placed not only in the scar itself, but also in the surrounding normal scalp, because there must be blending of the colors so that the pigment can not be seen distinctly from the surrounding area. This process is not perfect, because the scars are still there. Be sure that you don’t expect the scar to completely disappear, because it never will. SMP only camouflages the scar.

Check out Scalp Scars with SMP and you will see a huge variation in the results of the SMP based mostly on the degree of scarring and the skin deformities that go with that scarring. We are starting to use permanent fillers to try to correct some of the skin deformities that show up after a complete SMP patient is finished; however, we are not able to fully camouflage every scar, as shown on the referenced link.

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Hair Loss InformationNot Hair Loss News – Stem Cells Can Reverse Brain Damage from Stroke – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Snippet from the article:

People who received the world’s first stem cell treatment for strokes have shown measurable reductions in disability and handicap a year after the injection into their damaged brains.

Some can move limbs and manage everyday tasks that were impossible before they received an injection of neural progenitor stem cells, which were clones of cells originally taken from the cortex of a donated fetus.

Apart from physical rehabilitation, there are few treatments for people left severely disabled by a stroke. Demand for more options is high, with 800,000 new cases each year in the US and 150,000 in the UK.

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Read the rest — First stem cell trial for stroke shows lasting benefits

Results were presented from 11 people disabled by stroke that were given injections of stem cells. This announcement was made in Nice, France at the European Stroke Conference last week, and it shows the power of stem cells in treating damaged organs.

We have seen remarkable benefits from stem cells after a heart attack where these cells changed into muscle cells to help the heart handle its output load. The future here is very bright! Who knows, one day we may even be able to create hair!

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Hair Loss InformationAround the Web – How Dating Works When You’re a Bald Woman – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Snippet from the article:

Besides the odd proposition, dating is getting to know someone from the ground up. It’s sharing the deepest secrets about your childhood and family and bathroom habits. But above all, it’s about being hyper vigilant about your appearance. And that’s the crux of the unpleasantness for me: a huge part of dating is about making yourself appear attractive enough for someone to want to spend time with you and potentially have sex with you — a task that is, in my experience, fraught with feelings of anxiety, deception and fear.

I’ve been bald from an autoimmune condition called alopecia areata for most of my dating career. The condition causes your immune system to mistake your hair follicles for foreign bacteria, halting the normal hair growth cycle and resulting in bald patches (alopecia areata), the loss of all scalp hair (alopecia totalis), or the complete loss of all body hair (alopecia universalis). Alopecia affects around two per cent of the Australian population, which is close to half a million people. I’ve experienced alternating periods of complete baldness to having a full head of hair, but for the past three years I’ve had no head hair, no eyebrows and have lost most of my eyelashes.

It makes dating hard. Particularly as a young woman — someone whose physical appearance is weighted above all else as her most defining and valued characteristic.

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Read the rest — How dating works when you’re a bald woman

This is a great article by Michelle Law as she talks about how life in the dating scene can be a challenge when you’ve got alopecia. Bald women should not be made to feel alienated.

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Hair Loss InformationWhy Isn’t FUE2 the Gold Standard? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Regarding the articles you posted recently about FUE versus strip procedures, I was wondering why FUE 2 isn’t the gold standard for transplant surgery. If the graft yield is just as good as strip from FUE 2, doesn’t that mean It has all the advantages of FUE and none of the drawbacks?

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There is a series of reasons as to why FUE2 isn’t the gold standard, and I’ll list and expand upon that to address why the traditional FUE also isn’t the gold standard:

1- FUE2 is not available at this time for commercial use. We have not proven that the FUE2 can be as effective in 100 consecutive patients with comparable results, as we have shown in the two examples we demonstrated here. When we get it manufactured, it will have to compete with all of the other FUE drills out there, including the ARTAS robot. There will be a general reluctance for those doctors who feel comfortable with what they are presently doing, to switch to the FUE2.

2- I’ve discussed in great detail the limitations of traditional FUE in the hands of many surgeons (see part 1, part 2). Doctors may want to believe that FUE is better than strip surgery, something that I presently doubt with traditional FUE mechanical solutions. The strip harvesting produces the best quality grafts in most surgeons’ hands. I am certain there are many doctors who claim FUE expertise, that are not being honest with their patients. I know this because I often see the failures of FUE from known surgeons who claim expertise in this technique.

3- It is not generally agreed by many knowledgeable surgeons that the donor area can supply as many total grafts as strip surgery. In strip surgery, the surgeon always takes out the strip in the “sweet area”, which means its best concentration of quality grafts. This area can be harvested over and over again with only the risk of scarring. FUE, on the other hand, may produce irreparable damage to the donor area as the number of harvested grafts increase. In recent presentations given at physician meetings, there are suggestions that the donor area does get damaged as more and more grafts are excised with FUE.

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Hair Loss InformationIf I Damaged My Follicles, Why Aren’t They Repairing After a Few Years? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

So a few years back i had a scalp problem that involved flaking and i got into the habit of picking the flakes which also led to hair loss because of it. The hair never grew back but when i decided to shave my hair due to having patchy looking hairloss i noticed that in fact the hairs had grown back (well kind of). It was the exact same colour as the other hairs and not the blonde vellus looking hair i would have expected when damaged hair was growing back. But they were much thinner looking than the surrounding normal hairs and they also never grew past 1/2 a millimetre in length.

From what i have read once a hair follicle has been damaged it takes a long time for it too repair and that is why the hair is thinner and not growing like normal hairs ….. But these hairs have been like this for well over a year and have shown no signs of growing back any thicker and longer? but at the same time haven’t disappeared and left the areas bald.

So what is going on? are they gonna grew back or is the damage done and if so why are they still growing to half a millimetre

thanks

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The normal hair cycle is somewhere between 2-4 years, so if your hair can recover, it might take that long to see it in its next hair cycle. Also, it is possible that the damage produced by picking has irreparably damaged these hair follicles (traction alopecia), so what you are seeing are miniaturized hair as a step towards total loss of these follicles.

Hair transplants can work very nicely in these areas if you do not have a massive hair loss, as the grafts would be transplanted from the back of the scalp and not subject to the old damage you caused from the picking. Have you seen a doctor for an examination?

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How Does a Doctor Know When Hair Loss Stabilizes Before a Transplant? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

hi

i have two questions. i am planning on getting a transplant done. i have read on a couple transplant sites where the doctor has posted pictures of young patients under 35 saying “patients hair loss stabilized”. How exactly does the doctor know the hair loss has stabilized and no further loss will occur in a younger patient if he is on meds? is the doctor just pretending or assuming no more loss will occur?

my second question is about my own hair. My own hair under bright lights my hair looks terrible, thin and disgusting more so in the front. In pictures and normal light my hair is thicker and nobody can tell. so if I go for a procedure can I ask my doc doing the surgery to look at my hair under the harsh light and give me grafts according to the harsh lighting and so it looks thick under those lighting conditions?

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I am not sure what your doctor means by “stabilized”. In young men, the hair situation is progressive, so unfortunately stability is not the rule. After a hair transplant, some of the hair loss will increase (shock loss)… so a hair transplant is destabilizing. You should be on finasteride for a good few weeks before you get the hair transplant to help minimize this destabilization. You and your doctor should talk about the surgery that he plans on doing.

Your second question needs to be directed to your hair transplant surgeon, who should be sensitive to your desires for where the transplants will be done and in what quantity. Keep in mind that harsh lighting commonly makes hair look terrible, but your doctor should be able to create a Master Plan modified for your individual desires and your best interest.

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Hair Loss InformationWho Came Up with the Term “Scalp MicroPigmentation”? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I have seen a number of clinics that claim that they invented the term Scalp Micropigmentation. Who is the true inventor of the name.

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Alvaro Traquina, M.D. used the term “micropigmentation of the scalp” in an article published in the Dermatologic Surgery medical publication back in 2001 (see Micropigmentation as an Adjuvant in Cosmetic Surgery of the Scalp). His title, text, and pictures clearly define the use of the pigment as a concealer.

We started using the term Scalp MicroPigmentation in 2010 and started referring to it as “SMP” and purchased the Internet domain names since the terminology was not being used. Since then the term “SMP” and “Scalp MicroPigmentation” caught on all over the world. We did apply for the SMP trademark and the (R) symbol with the U.S. Patent office but were denied trademarking a common terminology abbreviation. Thus no one can claim TM or (R) symbols.

For those who claim that they invented the SMP term or place the TM or (R) symbol, you know that they have poor moral character.

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Hair Loss InformationNot Hair Loss News – Exercise and Cardiovascular Disease Linked? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Snippet from the article:

Two new studies published this week lend credence to the idea that when it comes to exercise, there apparently can be too much of a good thing.

In the first study, led by Dr. Nikola Drca (Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden), and published online May 14, 2014 in Heart, investigators report that men 30 years old, who exercised for more than five hours per week, had significantly higher risks of developing atrial fibrillation later in life compared to men who exercised less.

The report also showed that older adults who walked or rode their bicycle for about an hour per day had a significantly lower risk of atrial fibrillation compared with older adults who almost never participated in such recreational physical activity.

In the second study, led by Dr. Ute Mons (German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany), also published in Heart, researchers studied the association of self-reported physical activity in 1038 subjects with stable coronary heart disease and confirmed previous findings of an increased risk of adverse events among inactive patients. However, they also found those who participated in daily “strenuous” physical activity had an increased risk of dying from cardiovascular causes.

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Read the rest — Too Much Exercise: Studies Report J-Shaped Link Between Exercise and CVD Risks

I guess it boils down to: “Bike riding for older folks is good. Exercise for 30 year olds is bad.”