Dr. William Rassman – Page 1002

June 11, 2012

In the News – Could Hair Club Be Purchased By Aderans (Bosley)? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Snippet from the article:

A group of doctors contracted by Hair Club for Men and Women, a unit of Regis Corp., is seeking to block the possible sale of the unit to Aderans Co., according to documents obtained by the Star Tribune.

In a recent letter to Regis Chief Operating Officer Eric Bakken, the doctors say they fear the Japanese hair company will eliminate Hair Club’s surgical business, their financial lifeblood, citing previous statements from Aderans executives.

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Read the rest — 10 doctors try to derail Regis’ sale of Hair Club

If the sale should occur, it will reduce the 800 pound gorilla numbers from two to one. Aderans (owners of Bosley) purchased another hair transplant chain, Medical Hair Restoration, in 2007 and merged the two under the Bosley name a few years later.

June 8, 2012

I Saw Great Results From Propecia In the First Month, Then Stopped Taking It – Balding Blog

hello, sorry for disturbing you. i have used propecia for hair thinning and hair loss. i have seen great results just in a month. hair loss totally stopped from the first week and hair became very thick just with in 30 days of use. but i stopped using the medicine. after some days again my hair started shedding and thinning.

after five months again i started taking the medicine. i have completed one month on the medicine but still my hair sheds a lot and hair appears very thin. it is not working as it worked before. what might be the problem? is my body showing tolerance towards the medicine? should i continue or discontinue the medicine? please tell me…..

I have a hard time believing the Propecia caused your hair to become very thick in just a month. Maybe it was a placebo effect. Propecia usually takes about 6+ months to start working to that degree. It works on the new hair that is growing out of the skin, which grows at about 1/2 inch per month. Regardless, why did you stop after a month and then decide 5 months later to restart? The medication has to be continued daily for it to be effective, but I can’t tell you whether you should take a prescription medication (I am not your prescribing doctor).

Please follow up with your doctor who prescribed you the medication and discuss these issues to determine your next course of action. You need a good solid diagnosis of your hair loss and measurement of a baseline (miniaturization study, photographs, bulk measurement, etc).

June 8, 2012

I’m Bald After 13 Radiation Therapy Treatments – Balding Blog

I am bald now after 13 treatments of radiation therapy for a brain tumor. Is there a treatment for my dead hair follicles other than just wearing a wig? Now I cover my head with scarves but they fly away when the wind blows.

It is possible that some of the hairs will grow back within a year after the radiation. There is no medication or treatment to bring back hair lost from radiation treatment. All you can do is wait. Temporary hair loss is more common, but hair loss is known to be permanent depending on the dose. A small study about this was published in 2004.

There are other options that may be available, but one can not guess wildly here without waiting out the year.

June 7, 2012

Any Miraculous Results from Unusual Hair Loss Cases? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

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?

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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.

June 7, 2012

Bald Booth App for Mobile Devices – Balding Blog

Hey doctors,
I saw a funny app for the iPhone called Bald Booth that you should check out. I can see how I’ll look when I’m bald, and it’s a scary sight.

App — Bald Booth

I guess this could be entertaining for some, or a glimpse to a possible future for others. For those curious folks with an iPhone or iPad, you can find the app in the iTunes Store; and for those with Android devices, you can find it in the Google Play Store.

June 6, 2012

Hair Loss InformationDoes Finasteride Eventually Stop Working Completely? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

What happens when a drug like finasteride loses its effect?

I read somewhere that when finasteride loses its effect, you will actually advance to the stage you would be at if the drug was never used in the first place. Does this apply only for the hair that was regrown, or for the hair that was maintained as well.. so that if you started using the drug at a nw2, you could rapidly become a nw4 when it loses effect?

I also read that the reason it loses effect is because the body starts producing more dht, if this theory and the above is true, wouldn’t you be even worse off than if you didn’t take anything at all, in other words completely bald before you should’ve been? I realize this might just be a crazy theory, but I would appreciate you giving a shot at it anyway.

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I feel like I answer this type of question on a regular basis. The questions have little twists in them and are asked in different ways, but the answer remains the same. Male pattern baldness (MPB) or androgenic alopecia (AGA) is due to genetic causes. Men who are born with the gene will be susceptible to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Controlling the DHT levels will not stop the balding forever, since genetics will have the final say.

In the grand scheme of things your genes win out over any drug; however, I have seen some men on finasteride for 13 years and have had complete reversal of the balding in the crown without any loss of effectiveness of the drug over this period of time. If you are going to lose your hair, it will happen. Drugs such as Propecia (finasteride 1mg) will prolong the inevitable, but as we don’t always know the timeline (as in the cases where a 13 year history is available), there’s no way we can really know how long you’ll see cessation of the hair loss. So it isn’t really about finasteride that stops working, but more about you aging and the gene(s) expressing its fate. Also note that everybody responds differently to drugs.

People also ask if the body produces more or less DHT to counteract the finasteride. In an article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology in 1999, they studied this very question and found that DHT levels went down under finasteride treatment at varying doses.

One of the interesting findings of this study is that the lower doses of finasteride (lower than the recommended hair loss treatment 1mg dose) shows significant reductions of DHT at the skin and blood level. This lends credence to our approach of reducing the dose (but continuing on the finasteride) when sexual or other side effects occur. The drug seems to continue to be effective at lower doses.

June 6, 2012

Doctor Recommended Vitamin D to Cure My Son’s Alopecia Areata – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

My seven year old son is suffering from Alopecia areata since december 2010 (first appearance: 7 spots of different sizes, stopped in june 2011, regrowth till mid-end september 2011, then hair loss starts again on other places, stopped in november 2011 and normal growth till february, new hairloss with 7 spots, actually regrowth…). A lack of vitamin D(25-OH vitamine D2-D3 is 10,7 ng/ml) has been diagnosed by a physician (who has some experience with AA patients) and he prescribed a vitamin D cure (choleciferol 25000 UI twice a week for one month, than once a week for two more months). But the dermatologist that is treating the AA thinks that this treatment is useless and that it could be harmful (he said that he would not administer vitamine D to his own kids…).

So my question: is there a risk for my son? can it help to cure the AA (or at least have less hairloss, longer periods without hairloss…)

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I am not your doctor, nor your son’s doctor, and I am not an expert in vitamin D deficiency, so I couldn’t give you a personalized answer. If you’re concerned about one doctor’s recommendation, consider getting a second opinion.

I do know that alopecia areata is a self limiting condition that will resolve without any treatment in some people. A good resource for alopecia areata information is the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. I don’t know that they would consider vitamin D as a “cure” though.

June 6, 2012

Hair Loss InformationDoes Toppik Work On My African Hair? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I am a African American woman and i was chemical burn by relaxer about 7 yeas ago. I do not know how and if you can help me with me living in the Caribbean. I was thinking of getting toppik but will that work on my African hair? please help

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Yes. I know many African American men who came into our office to get a consult with us and when they are using Toppik, it seems to work well. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work in the same way for women. Give it a try!

June 5, 2012

Can My First Hair Transplant Be a Megasession? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi, I’ve got a “virgin” scalp, ie. no previous hair transplants.

Although, I’m not there yet, my hairloss looks like it will eventually end up in a Norwood 5-6 pattern.

Taking that info for face value I have the following question. Assuming a patient will need at least two to three procedures, is it better for someone with a virgin scalp to have their initial transplant be a large “mega-session?”

In other words, is it harder to have a larger subsequent done down the road because of laxity issues caused by a previous smaller surgery?

Basically, is it better to knock-out a mega-session first while the scalp has its best scalp laxity?

Thanks

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Generally, we do not preemptively transplant hair to non-balding areas and prefer to treat the impending balding area with medications like Propecia. How do you know you will end up as a Norwood 5 or 6?

We pioneered the “megasession”, but just because we can do it does not mean we recommend it to everyone. Every case is different, and both the long term and short term goals must be discussed with each patient. For example, one patient may choose to have several smaller sessions over their lifetime as they are balding. Or another patient may wait until they are bald and have one big megasession.

Having a good scalp laxity works at making a megasession on the first surgery easier to do. Scar laxity usually returns to preoperative status after a surgery. If you have an FUE procedure instead of a strip surgery, the surgeon will take out what you need… and take out more and more of what you need as your balding progresses. No recurrent scars with FUE is clearly an advantage, but without seeing you, I am not sure how what I said applies to you.

June 5, 2012

Hair Loss InformationStrip Scar Length and Graft Numbers – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

If I don’t require to have a lot of grafts placed on my scalp, and I want a strip surgery, can the doctor cut a small strip of hair, lets say, 3-4 inches in length so the linear scar is not big and doesn’t go from ear to ear?

My other question, if a person doesn’t require to many grafts placed on the scalp, why do the surgeons still cut a long strip that is from ear to ear?

Thank you

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This is one of the things the doctor should go over with you during a consultation. There are many patients who do this! Requiring a small number of grafts will give you a shorter scar. Some patients wait a year after their first small surgery for another small surgery, and they end up with a single short scar (replaced from the old). Many patients are not informed about this opportunity prior to coming to see me, but learn of the option during the first consultation. This is a part of the Master Plan we create with every patient.

On the flip side… if you want to have as many grafts as possible in one surgery, a larger scar is necessary to obtain the grafts needed.