Hey
I have a question and would be glad to get a response.
Can the kind of water I use cause baldness? I hear that Chlorine water and the , metals inside the water we shower in can cause baldness.
If so, can applying small amounts of water everyday increase baldness?
The answer is simply: NO. Water is good for you, but you can be poisoned with salt water or chlorine water, not the metals in the shower water in the United States.
I was in a fight in high school, and my hair was pulled out in the back of my head. As a result my hair has never grown back correctly. My hair isn’t bald but short in this one spot. My mother told me about hair growth treatments in the salon what do you suggest.
I would need to see it. Hair transplantation works well for missing or short hairs and could be a solution for you. Generally, hair that is pulled out once will return almost 100% of the time, but if you were treated with strong chemicals to try to bring it back, the chemicals may have burned/damaged the hair follicles enough to make them weak.
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This is a continuation to last week’s post, Intercytex Announces ICX-TRC Phase 2 Results by Dr. Bessam Farjo. He had included these images with the text of his original article, but I didn’t have captions for them so I held them back until they could be presented in the proper context. The captions and images were provided by Dr. Farjo. Click to enlarge:
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MacroPhoto of tattooed study area prior to cell injections
Preparing multiplied cells in solution in GMP facility
Cell solution ready to be drawn up in syringe
Diagrammatic representation of the ICX-TRC trial concept
Cells Injected into volunteer
Top left to bottom right: Cells multiplying in culture day 0 to day 14
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Learn more about the author of this article, Dr. Bessam Farjo, on his BaldingBlog profile or at his website.
Dear Dr. Rassman,
I know there is no standardized evidence to say one way or another, but in your opinion is 2 mg of Propecia (1 mg taken in the morning, 1 mg taken at night) more effective at preventing hairloss than 1 mg Propecia?
The reason I ask is I have been taking 2 mg Propecia daily for almost 3 years now, and have started to experience “clumpy” semen and painful ejaculation. I am thinking this is due to a side effect of Propecia. I am kind of in a dilemma now because I don’t know if my fight against hairloss will be affected by cutting down the Propecia to 1 mg or altogether. I am 26 yrs old and single so hair is very important to me.
Thanks Dr. Rassman!
I would reduce the dose of Propecia to 1mg taken in the mornings. The higher the dose, the more side effects you are likely to see. The 1mg dose has been shown to be just as effective as higher doses in the formal studies of drug dosing done by the manufacturer. I recently saw a patient with a similar complaint, and he halved the dose and the side effects went away. He was taking 1mg and reduced it to half a pill of Propecia, which has been reported to be about 80% as effective (0.5mg vs 1mg). In your case, you’re taking too much of the medication to begin with. 1mg a day is fine.
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I work for a surgeon. He wanting to provide hair transplant services- some in office. He had said something about having a technician to assist with the hair follicle grafts- Does this technician require certification and if so where do you obtain this?
The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS) has information about fellowship programs for physicians here. It is very difficult to train a good hair transplant technician. It often requires months of daily constant practice, the initial work under close supervision. I have trained a few dozen techs and many of them want to quit within days of starting training. Errors on the part of the technician can kill the transplants from a variety of causes, including drying of a graft (usually killed in 10-20 seconds of air exposure), rough handling, killing the growth center, poor placing, and depth control. The hand-eye coordination is really difficult for placing a graft. Ask your doctor to visit an experienced hair transplant surgeon and try out some of the process. If you wanted to become a hair transplant technician, that may just change your mind. For the patient, the worst thing he can have is a technician given too much responsibility during the training process, as many grafts will die as the technician learns the process. Remember, I said it may take six months to a year to get competent and years more to get really good. As a patient, I would want an experienced technical crew. There are very few doctors that developed the skills to train a hair transplant technician so one might wonder where they got their training from.
Long story short, there is no certification for this job… just lots of training time and constant, daily practice. If your doctor expects to get growth from a hair transplant, the worst thing he/she could do is to pass on the responsibility to you (no disrespect intended).
Dr. Mark DiStefano commented on my Total Crown Renewal post, and I’m highlighting it here:
It is truly regretful that Dr. Rassman was so scarred, both physically and emotionally by scalp reductions performed on him nearly two decades ago. I have known Dr. Rassman since I entered this field from Emergency Surgery almost 15 years ago. He has been a leader, entrepreneur, academician and teacher in the field of hair restoration.
When I entered the specialty of hair transplant surgery, Dr. Rassman had already established his practice and was experimenting with new hair transplant techniques.
With his help, the (then) modern use of the FUE (follicular unit extraction) procedure changed how we view the use of “plugs” or punches. Most hair transplant surgeons stopped using the punch 10 or more years ago . But with his invention of the FOX™ Megasession technique, he helped to lead the rest of us to today’s FUE method. When he started with this technique, many physicians were skeptical and discredited the “punch technique. But now, after continued development and refinement of technique, this has opened up an incredible area for donor hair and seemingly scarless (lack of linear scar in the donor area) surgery.
This, too, can be said for the Total Crown Renewal®. Although it may appear this procedure is based on the “old” scalp reduction, the Total Crown Renewal® utilizes different techniques to make dramatic final results.
With the old scalp reduction, the area of balding was pulled closed with from 1 or more scalp reductions. The problem with the “old” scalp reduction, was that it used mechanical stretch, (brute force), to stretch the hair bearing scalp together. This usually resulted in “stretch back, phenomena that resulted in production of excessive scar tissue in the area. Also when the number of scalp reductions was done to complete the process, there was a slot formed in the midline of the scalp and the hair was now going in the wrong direction.
[See Dr. DiStefano’s full comments here]
I thank Dr. DiStefano for his comments. The number of surgeons capable of performing the correction surgery for the deformity created by scalp reductions are very limited I have seen many doctors attempts at this corrective procedure and it was botched. For our readership, most surgeons are cocky about their abilities to see a single surgery and then with a book in hand, do it themselves. This corrective procedure is a rare example of the failed logic of this premise.
But basic to my problems with this surgery is the logic of the scalp reduction surgery itself. When the scalp is stretched (even with the well designed Frechet Extender discussed above), the hair that comes from the sides of the head is diluted so much that the density of the donor area is significantly depleted. This means that the available hair to treat the front and top of the head is reduced substantially (robbing Peter to pay Paul). Unless a person has an unusually high donor density and a reasonably loose scalp, there may not be enough hair to properly treat frontal balding. My second problem with Dr. DiStefano’s approach is that the procedure always produces a deformity when it is successful (the famous “slot deformity”) and the only way to manage this problem is with the Triple Flap Procedure that Dr. Frechet has personally defined. That would leave me asking, “Why would anyone want to have a Total Crown Renewal and get a deformity that still needs another surgery to correct?”. Certainly not me!
Hi Dr. Rassman!
I have a question regarding DHT and its effect on estrogen.
Isnt it true that DHT is essential to keep estrogen levels at bay? And by removing up to 70% of DHT with a drug like finasteride youre exposed to amounts of estrogen not normal to a male body. That could make for ex building muscles harder, cause you to develop gyno (male breasts) and or other feminine atttributes? What can be done to keep the estrogen levels normal when youre on a drug like finasteride.. or does it matter much if estrogen is roaming freely? whats your opinion Dr. Rassman.
This is a huge concern of mine. Thank you
Your questions are all over the map and many of your facts just don’t fit together. You do not wipe out 70% of DHT, you just block 70% at the hair follicle level. There is no feminizing effects of taking a DHT blocker and if by rare chance you got breast enlargement, it is thought of as an idiosyncratic reaction, not a feminizing process.
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I was diagnosed with folliculitis 2 years ago that caused hairloss at the crown. I noticed it got much worse everytime I took a haircut. After a rigorous course of antibiotics and avoiding the barber I am seeing improvement and regrowth of hair. This regrowth, however is exceedingly slow. The doctor recommended hair force to help but its still quite slow. Given such a lengthy time frame of 2 yrs. do you think my hair will fully recover?
Without examining you, I can not give you an answer to your question. What you need to know is whether you have genetic balding. This can be answered with a genetic test to see if you have the balding genes (HairDX) or a miniaturization mapping of your scalp which will show if the hair is in the process of balding. With the history of folliculitis, I would suspect that you precipitated a genetic balding process, but without examining you, I can not tell.
I have read through this blog but cannot find a question that is very similar to mine. Much appreciate an answer.
I’m 40, been balding slowly for many years now, and when the middle part of the scalp started showing up, decided to do something about it. The dermatologist prescribed fin-minoxidil combo. But I have been only on minoxidil for over 6 weeks now. For the first five, I’ve been applying about 1.5ml twice daily; then I realized I was reading the meter on the injector wrong, and have been doing 1 ml twice a day since.
My hair has thinned at a much faster rate after starting the treatment. I know that some people experience minoxidil-induced shedding initially, but here is what perplexes me: I did not notice any visible shedding. By ‘visible shedding’, I mean that I did not see hairs falling off, but the appearance on the scalp is one of heavy loss. In fact, visible shedding has come down quite a bit. My hairs are thick, and prior to beginning the treatment, I would see a lot of hairs on the floor at workplace, or on the pillow, or in the bathroom sink. I see far fewer hairs now after minoxidil. Yet, overall, my hair definitely has thinned at a much, much faster rate.
I am not sure what to attribute this to. Should I assume that minoxidil is working, and that thinning has happened because I shed miniaturized hair that naked eye couldn’t quite spot well? Or am I experiencing a rare adverse reaction due to first 5 weeks of overdose?
Is it possible that minoxidil can cause permanent hair loss that wouldn’t otherwise have occurred without the drug? Thank you very much.
First, you should meet with the doctor that recommended the treatment. I would have mapped out your scalp for miniaturization so without those baseline measurements, I would not know what is going on with you.
Is the finasteride/minoxidil combo a 2 step approach (oral finasteride, topical minoxidil)? Either way, two months is a short time for these medications to give you an effect, but your doctor should check you out to be sure you are not harming yourself (doubtful).
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Hi,
What if we do not want to take propecia (too many side effects). Can we still do a hair transplant? I am not happy taking hormome changing drugs for life, but want to stop hairloss.
Thanks
I can’t offer you more advice than I have already posted. See these posts:
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