Author: Dr. William Rassman

I’m currently a 3 on the Norwood scale and I see some miniaturization in my crown. Someday I’ll probably reach a 6 on the Norwood scale like my father did, but lets say for some reason I were to progress as far as a 7, when would that miniaturization be present? Would a doctor be able to find it now even though I’m only a 3?

I am not a psychic and I cannot predict the future. If I could, I’d be 100% correct with my Oscar picks. Alas, I was not.

Not everyone loses hair at the same rate from a Norwood 3 to a 6. More importantly, you may never progress to Norwood class 6 or 7. Maybe you will just be a Norwood class 3 or 3V. The Norwood Classification is not meant to be seen as a progression of balding. It just describes the many variations of how bald men look. You can, however, influence what type of balding pattern you will get by treating it with medication (finasteride) which may halt your hair loss. It almost certainly will slow down the rate of progression if you will follow in your father’s footsteps.

I just read this article about hair loss on MSN — The Naked Truth About Baldness

They basically say that you shouldn’t bother medicating for MPB because the results aren’t worth it. They don’t even mention surgery as an alternative to medication. I was wondering if you believe this had any merit or if it is just lazy irresponsible writing.

The author of that article concludes the piece by saying, “From a medical point of view, there is no need to treat male pattern baldness. At best, the treatments are expensive and only partially effective.”

The medication treatments aren’t necessarily that expensive and effectiveness depends on the person. Surgical hair transplantation cost can vary depending on how much is required, but there have been some beautiful results. From a medical point of view, he is right — you do not need to treat male pattern baldness. It isn’t a life or death issue. But from a social point of view, I think millions of men would disagree as hair plays a very real and important role, defining our youth, virility, and sex appeal. Celebrities like Michael Jordan, Bruce Willis (pictured), and Jason Statham may be the exception, but hair is very important to most of us! That should be fairly evident by the thousands of emails I’ve answered on this site.

Male pattern hair loss is not a disease and there is no cure for it, though medication such as Propecia and Rogaine can slow the process down dramatically in some people, possibly even reversing it in younger men. Hair transplantation may not be worth it for some people (such as the writer of the quoted article), but the solutions are absolutely natural and undetectable when done in the hands of an artistic and competent hair surgeon.

My hair seems to fall out every year and then it grows back. I can comb my hair and the comb is full of hair. Right know my hair is falling out and I noticed a bald spot on the left side of my head. I read so of the other people’s concerns and you stated that your hair don’t fall out year to year. In my case it does I wrote it down and it always happen in Feb-April each year. Please tell me what I can do about this.

I would want to know if you are using a tight hat or if you have done anything different during this time period that might cause the hair loss you see. Normally, humans have asynchronous hair cycling, which means that we lose on average 100 hairs per day and regrow the same numbers of hairs. In a 3 1/2 year hair cycle, the entire 100,000 hairs will replace themselves.

Some doctors think that humans may have more hair loss in the spring and less during the winter when it is colder, but frankly, I don’t believe anyone really knows. I can not explain your problem, but if the hair did not come back on schedule, I would be more than concerned.