Month: April 2015

“I’m seeing a few hundred hairs in the shower drain every day. I really don’t think I am balding, but I came to ses you because I wanted to be sure that if I was balding, you could transplant my hair and keep it looking good.”

This comment reflected the comments, one way or the other, of many men who visit me, but this particular day, this 26 year old actor who just finished his first role in a major movie came to me with the above comment. He looked like a typical hairy 26 year old male and I thought that after I measured his hair bulk, that I would reassure him that he was not balding. Much to my surprise, the numbers from the tests surprised me but shock him. The tests indicated that he already lost 50% of his hair bulk in the front of his head just behind his hairline, and 40% in the top (between his ears) and crown (back) of his head. He came apart emotionally. “This can’t happen to me”, he said. “I am going to hit it big time in Hollywood, I have an interview coming up for my second film, now a leading man, and I just can’t go bald”.

I tried to calm him down. At 26, he could go on the drug finasteride and probably stop most of his hair loss, so that was the ‘good news’ I told him. But despite my reassurance, he had difficulty letting go of the idea that his career was going to be ruined. “They won’t take me on if they knew”, he said. Again, I tried to reassure him that the drug might very well buy him years on keeping his hair, but he would not, could not focus on what I said. Over and over again he said “It over, my life is over”.

Hair loss is devastating for many young men and they don’t have to be heading to the top of the Hollywood scene to feel the way this man did. Although the drug often turns out to be effective in 26 year old men, the reality is that some day he will have to face balding. Although preventive hair transplants are a terrible and improper decision for him now, if and when he starts losing his hair, this may become an option. He left very unhappy and even unwilling to consider taking the drug finasteride. I asked him to return to see me, but he was from out-of-town and not easily accessible, but I called him a week later anyway and he promised to see me in 4 months on his return to Los Angeles. I wonder if he will deny what I told him or if he will think this matter through and make the logical decision to try to slow down the balding process and fill the prescription I gave him.

Thank you for taking time to read this and I love how this site is very informative. I have always been wondering if there is anyway to let baby hairs grow into normal hair. Lots of my hair stops growing at a very short length and it gives the impression of the lack of hair. Hope to hear from you! Thank you!

Baby hairs you are referring you vellus hair or peach fuzz on your skin. It is actually all over your body except on your palms, soles of feet, and lips. It does not grow to normal terminal hairs. If someone can find a way to turn these hairs into longer terminal hairs, the results may not be what you expect or desire. or example, there is a condition called Hypertrichosis where there is abnormal amount of hair growth all over the body. I am not aware of any mediation or treatment that can change the morphology of the vellus hairs or target its growth specially.

Dr Joe Greco of Greco Med Group Florida claiming 80% success rate with infusing growth factors from ones own platelets into the scalp to regenerate hair. Really 80%? How can doctors make claims like this? Any safe treatment that had an 80% success rate would be duplicated all over the world wouldn’t it?

Anyone can claim anything. It may be true. I do not know. I cannot verify the claim personally. If these treatments do work, you are likely correct in stating that these treatments would be duplicated and offered all over the world – especially because it is such an easy and inexpensive thing to do. By that I mean, in essence, someone takes a vial of your blood and spins it down in a centrifuge to separate out the PRP (platelet rich plasma) from the red blood cells and injects it back to your body part (scalp).

I do know many doctors advertise Platelet Rich Plasma PRP therapy and discuss it in terms of regenerative therapy or stem cell therapy which definitely catches the attention of many consumers.

I also know that there are many articles and journals that publish positive results of these types of therapy but I have not found one that is truly a well designed research that has been replicated. What I mean by a well designed research, is called a Double Blind Randomized Control Study.

When reports come out that you get an 80% improvement, what does that mean? An improvement of what? If we get 90% of the hair to grow without it, does that mean that we can get 98% of the hair from a hair transplant to grow instead of 90% with it? There has never been a study done that shows value. We would have no objection to using PRP and may even do so one day, but as I believe that if a doctor needs to get an 80% improvement of their results by using PRP, then they have a problem in their technique and I would doubt that PRP would help them solve such a deficiency. I have seen doctors inject PRP into the scalp of balding men and women, but they do not do this as a charity, they charge for it, and charge they do. If we start injecting PRP which would be a push, we would not charge for it unless we demonstrated real value.

I have a question about the relationship between oily scalp and genetic hair loss, as I read a lot of your posts, it seems that the main reason of men hair loss is genetic factor, but I also heard that most balding men have a oily scalp, so my question is what the relation between oily scalp and hair loss? Thank you.

Oily scalp does not cause balding. Genetics cause male pattern balding. Other genes are likely responsible for oily scalp.

Guess if you know this famous celebrity on the left. Our patient has a hair loss pattern similar to Prince William, Duke of Cambridge shown on the right above. They both had the same original pattern of balding but our patient did something about it.

He is actually is on a weekly Reality TV show and his hair is the result of an absolute commitment to getting the most hair he can and had it done over the last 13 years! He had 9985 grafts and is back again for a bit more which will bring him up to well over 10,000 grafts. He had agreed to speak on TV about his wonderful experience with us. So stay tuned.

Compare this post to the one from BaldingBlog on Monday March 30th 2015. It is like night and day. The patient above relished the experience, every part of it while the patient from 3/30/15 went through a kind of hell that no person deserves. I hear this often from the patients who had surgery in the days before we introduced the follicular unit transplants in 1993.

Another previous patient came in for a touch-up yesterday, Dr. Pak did the surgery of 1000 grafts and I met him in the lobby. I knew him, of course, but I wondered if he needed to be seen more quickly as I had just finished a consultation. IF he was in a rush, I would expedite the visit. He told me, much to my surprise, that he had surgery yesterday and I had no clue that he was one day our of surgery. I even looked closely at his head, and could not find the 1000 grafts that were placed between the thinning hairs on the front and top area. Both these men were present at the same time, got to know each other and laughed with each other about their experience with us. This is part of the pleasure of this business that I have every day i.e. the interpersonal relationships we build and maintain over time, often a lifetime.