Dr. William Rassman – Page 1197

April 16, 2010

Eye Irritation from Rogaine for Women – Balding Blog

(female)
I tried using Rogaine a couple of years ago but stopped after 3 months because my eyes became very red and sore. I am considering starting to use the foam for men, 5%. Is there a known problem with the female version causing sore eyes?

Is it possiblle the foam will not have this effect – if it were indeed side effect of the Rogaine?

Rogaine Foam That could be an allergy to an added ingredient in the minoxidil liquid or it could even be the minoxidil itself. The liquid is known to cause eye irritation in the 5% solution. The female version that you used is likely the 2% formula… so if you had the problem with your eyes with 2%, I’d expect you would see it from the 5%.

That being said, it might be worth giving the Rogaine Foam a try since it is a different way to apply the medication.

April 15, 2010

Richest Man in the World Has a Bad Hair Transplant? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hey doctors! Love the site. Have you seen this article about how the richest man in the world Carlos Slim has a weird hair transplant? Thought you might enjoy it.

Bad hair transplants, number 3: Carlos Slim, richest man in the world

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For those that haven’t heard of Carlos Slim, he is the world’s richest man and owns many telecommunications companies throughout Mexico. You can learn all about him here. As for the article about his hair, well, we have all seen bad hair transplants… but this doesn’t appear to be one. Why? Well, because I don’t believe it is a hair transplant at all. Take a look at the hairline close-up:

Although the author of the article quoted an unnamed “expert” trichologist to give some added weight to his story, I think he’s wrong. What Carlos Slim is showing here looks like a natural pattern of hair loss, though if there was a transplant I certainly haven’t seen enough to make that claim.

April 15, 2010

Hair Loss After Radiation Treatment – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I lost a lot of hair due to radiation treatment last June. I had a benign tumor removed and my doctors wanted to be sure they effectively treated me after surgery. They pretty much covered the top of my head with the treatments. It all fell out but only some of it grew back. And it’s obvious. I had a full, thick head of hair before this and now it looks like I have male-pattern baldness (and a large scar on top of my head from the surgery is visible). Would finasteride be at all helpful in this case? I can’t seem to find any information that speaks to this particular problem.

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Finasteride will not reverse hair loss caused by radiation, as it only works for men with genetic hair loss. The good news is that hair loss from radiation may grow back, though it can take up to one year.

April 15, 2010

I’ve Been Losing My Hair Since 14 Years Old! – Balding Blog

Dear Dr.Rassman,
I am so scared about my hairloss because it is so severe. I started to have a receding hairline around 14 in which I had a NW3 hairline. Now at 17 (almost 18) it’s safe to say may hairline is fortunately still an NW3 however i am starting to lose a little bit of hair in the front of my head and at the crown. I cannot stop thinking about it and I don’t want to be bald by the time I’m 20. Am I too young for a hair transplant? If so am I old enough to use propecia? If not is there anything I can do to stop or at least slow down my hair loss? Please help me out!

First and foremost, do not let fear interfere with your choices. Empower yourself with education to learn about hair loss. Unfortunately, 50% of men will have some type of hair loss in their lifetime. When it is genetic it usually starts above the age of 18, though there are cases that I’ve seen start around the same age you saw your loss start. I can empathize that you are frightened and afraid of going bald, but if that is in your genes, it is something you are going to have to accept. Fortunately, taking Propecia may solve the problem if you have the correct diagnosis. Get a doctor to map out your scalp for miniaturization and with that metric in hand, if you have miniaturization present, then the drug Propecia is the right way to go. Propecia was studied in men as young as 18, and as you’re nearing that age you should be fine.

Just know that you have choices and there are treatment options and plans, but you need to first start by seeing a physician that will address your concerns and come up with a life-long Master Plan. Propecia can certainly help if you have male pattern baldness, but you need a diagnosis first. Something else to note — Propecia has limitations and it will not completely stop or reverse hair loss. Hair transplantation may also be an option later on, but it is very important that your physician address that master plan to determine a worst case scenario of how bald you may be not just one year from now, but 30 years from now. Right now, you are too young for surgery.

April 15, 2010

I’ve Got More Questions Since My Consult at NHI! – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Dr. Rassman,

I wanted to ask you a question about hairlines but first, I wanted to personally thank the staff at NHI, Dr. Pak and you for the wonderful visit I had at NHI this past Friday. This is a bit long winded but please bear with me.

I am a 25 year old caucasian male with light brown hair and am in good health. I started noticing a little thinning at my temples over the last year. To be honest, I was very nervous. I then went from nervous to hysterical. I could not stop thinking about it. Nothing can be more vicious than your own imagination and mine was painting all kinds of horrible scenarios.

In lieu of this, I made several appointments to see various hair transplant doctors here in Southern California. Of course, I never ACTUALLY meet with a doctor. Instead, I ended up talking to a consultant. To be perfectly honest, I did not gain a great deal of insight from these visits. I wanted something empirical to measure my hair loss, a metric I could use to stay informed and make an intelligent decision about my hair loss. None of these visit’s gave me that information.

The balding blog has been a part of my daily routine for a little while now and I decided to do what you suggest in so many of your posts and get my hair mapped for miniaturization and start my master plan. I was looking forward to my visit but also fearing it a little as well. So many things over the last few months have convinced me that I was going to bald to a Norwood class 4, 5 or 6. Pictures I had taken in the last few months, the look of my hair when it is wet or under bright lights. Except for my temples, I looked normal but I felt awful.

Then I came to NHI this Friday and that all changed in about 5 minutes.

I can’t tell you how much better I feel after visiting your office. I made an appointment to see Dr. Pak and he was very informative and understanding. He magnified my donor area for me to show me what non-miniaturized hairs look like. He then moved the scope to various parts of my head. This is the part where I held my breath. However, when he zoomed in on my crown, he saw no miniaturization. The same was true for my vertex and other parts of my head. In fact, the only area that showed any miniaturization was my temples, something my paranoid imagination would not let me believe.

Words can not describe how relieved I was. Dr. Pak was very helpful and he answered all of my questions. However, on my drive home I though of one more question I wished I had asked him and it is this: If none of my hairs, other than my temples, displayed miniaturization then where does my fight against balding go from here?

In your Hair Loss for Dummies Book (page 12) you say the following; “If you’ve inherited this pattern (Class 7), it is usually evident by the time you are 30“. In my examination, Dr. Pak said that my fears about progression to a class 7, 6 or 5 were unwarranted. In fact, he didn’t assign a class at all. He said my hair was healthy all over and my density (2.0) was normal (only miniaturization at the temples).

Am I simply developing a mature hairline? In this post from your blog you say that the mature hairline develops from ages 17-29. I guess what I am trying to understand is the correlation between someone’s age and their degree of miniaturization. At 25, is it too early or difficult to diagnose what class I may (if ever) progress to? Could a Norwood 7 be a lot easier to spot at my age that say, a norwood 3 or 4? I only ask because if I don’t progress any further in the next 5 to 10 years, would some moderate temple restoration be out of line with FUE?

I am 25, but I am not so naive as to think that the battle is over. I do not intend to let anyone else touch my hair except NHI now that I have visited your office. Dr. Pak put me on finasteride and I fully intend to visit your office on an annual basis to check on my hair. Like you say, tenacity and diligence.

Sorry again for the long winded question and many, many thanks to Dr. Pak and you for keeping me informed about my hair loss and educating me before I gave into my fears and did something drastic and foolish.

Sincerely and respectfully

If at any point in the future you want to address only the front corner areas, you can always do so with a small hair transplant procedure using FUE.

You may have a maturing hairline… perhaps in combination with slight recession in the corners. It remains to be seen as you age, but take comfort that Dr. Pak did not see miniaturization beyond the front corners. Stick with the medication and we’ll see you again for your follow-up appointment.

Finally, thank you for the kind email and allowing us to publish it.

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April 15, 2010

Will Beard Hair Grow Back After Pulling It Out? – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

If you pulled out beard hair some times it will grow back? When you say doctor you have to pull too long, that hair generally not to grow back, this means years or just a few times. Thanks in advance

Plucked out beard hair will grow back. I have plucked a few of my beard hairs (the stray ones I don’t like) many times in the past for many years… and at least in my case, they still grow back! I suppose if you keep pulling the same ones they may eventually not come back. There’s no exact amount of pulls before it becomes permanent, though.

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April 14, 2010

Amazing Results from Body Hair Transplants? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I have a question regarding hair transplants. I have come across this link on youtube.

This doctor claims to be an expert when it comes to extracting hair from the body. He even has some videos where he extracted 20,000 hair. I’ve seen the videos and the results look awesome. If I can get results like the videos maybe I might consider visiting him in the future. However, before I step forward I need your advise on whether these results are a form of deception or not ? Can this doctor really give such amazing results ? Should I consider this option for the future. Since I am from an Indian background I have a lot of hair in other areas besides my head.

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I personally do not believe in performing body hair transplants and have written about the problems with this type of procedure many, many times. The body hair transplant results that I’ve seen in person were not flattering, but these do look good. I can be a skeptic at times and if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

If you are looking for an endorsement of Dr. Umar, I cannot give that to you because I have not reviewed his work. If you are convinced these results are amazing then perhaps you should see him. But before you decide to go through with the surgery, I’d ask to meet patients that have already had it done so you can judge the results for yourself in person.

April 14, 2010

Have You Seen a Case Where Propecia Makes Hair Loss Worse? – Balding Blog

Dear Dr –
I know there’s quite a lot of anecdotal, somewhat brutal indictment of finasteride on the web, some perhaps more grounded in reality than others. And of course, part of this revolves around frontal hair loss and so-called hyperandrogenicity, blah blah. You’ve given quite a lot of first-hand, practical and scientifically-based advice to folks who may be scared off by these reports.

My question for you is the following: Have you yourself witnessed in your thousands of patients any number of these patients taking finasteride see their hair loss situation get substantially WORSE (particularly in the frontal regions) given, say, a year of regular finasteride treatment? And, if so, is there any case in your patient-load where you might speculate that the finasteride treatment itself accelerated the situation?

I have seen hair loss progression even while a patient was on Propecia, but I do not believe that taking the medication caused the loss I saw or accelerated it. I can’t think of any case where I’ve speculated that the reason for the hair loss was the medication prescribed to treat it.

April 14, 2010

I Don’t Care About Future Hair Loss, I Want a Transplant Now! – Balding Blog

i am a 19 yr old male, almost 20, and since i was 16 my hair has receded near the temple points. my hair line now resembles a narrow V. i style my hair in a way that gives me a youthful look and it covers it well, however i am wanting to get a transplant so that i may have a beautiful hairline. doctors have told me that i am too young but i dont care, if i get the hairline reconstructed and the rest of the hair continues receding, so long as i have a real hairline i dont mind wearing a hairpeice if it comes to that…what do u think?

If you are losing this much hair at such a young age, it is not a good sign. There is a risk that you may go on to lose all of your hair before you are 30 years old. Despite what you may think, you will still care how you look like when you are 30 years old (or 40, 50, even 80 years old for that matter). You have to accept the fact that hair transplant surgery in itself is not a complete solution to your problem. What I mean by that is you will never look like or have the “beautiful” hair you had when you were 16 years old. Just as your face will change, your body weight will change, and you will constantly adapt to different styles and looks over your lifetime. The same goes for your hair. As you lose more hair you will adapt and change your hair style to make it look full.

While hair transplant surgery can certainly address the balding and receding hairline, you have to think about how you may look like with more hair loss and think about the worst case scenario. This is what we mean when we often talk about the Master Plan involved when a patient decides to have a hair transplant surgery.

If you are sure you will go bald and you are totally fine with wearing a hair piece, then surgery to the front hairline and front area of the scalp can be a good compromise to give a full and natural look that blends in with a hair piece. But until you are 100% sure of this, I would wait. Surgery at such a young age can precipitate accelerated “shock hair loss” from the trauma of the surgery itself and your existing hairs will fall out faster than they otherwise would’ve and you will end up looking worse.

April 14, 2010

Increased Hair Loss from Laser Comb? – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

I have used propecia for over a year with good results but then I bought a hairmax laser comb. Now I using both the comb and propecia for hair loss. However since I started with the Hairmax laser comb, I am experiencing more hair loss and that is now for a year.

Have you ever heard of anyone having side effects for the Hairmax laser comb? Is it possible for the laser comb to cause increased hair loss? I know this is not normal shedding because it cannot last for a year.

I personally do not think any laser works for treating hair loss, and I think what you are seeing could be a coincidence. I have not heard of increased hair loss from a using a LaserComb.

Propecia is a great medication, but you will still lose some hair as you use it. The point is that you are losing less hair than if you are not taking Propecia at all. For some people it works just beautifully, others will have mixed results. As I’ve said many times, no medication will work exactly the same for everyone.

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