Dear Dr. I am 29 year old Indian. I want to measure my hair density before undergoing hair transplantation. My doctor has trichoscan with him. I want to know if it is as accurate as your densitometer. Please reply.
Probably yes, assuming that he can see the individual hairs. Ask him to show you the miniaturization so you will know as much as your doctor knows.
according to the FDA and Reuters (see links below), generic 1mg finasteride was approved about a month ago (not in 2011 as you stated) for production by Reddy labs (a legitimate NYSE-traded public corporation.) any idea when distribution to US pharmacies will start?
The Reuters link doesn’t say anything about the 1mg pill, but the 2nd link (from the FDA site) does.
However, as of writing this reply, only the 5mg pill version of finasteride is currently available. I had no idea that the 1mg generic would be approved so soon, as the patent still has a number of years left on it. Perhaps an agreement with Merck was reached by Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. Regardless, that is excellent news for those that should be taking the drug but could not afford it previously. I’ve made some phone calls to find out when the 1mg generic would be available in pharmacies, but so far I haven’t gotten answers other than, “could be a month or two”. Generic 5mg finasteride was approved in June and is available now, so I’d assume if generic 1mg finasteride was approved a month later it should be available any time now. As soon as I know more, I’ll certainly discuss it on this site. If any US readers discover that their local pharmacy now carries generic 1mg finasteride, please let me know.
Thanks for pointing this out.
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I am female, age 71 and have a question. My hair has been breaking off quite badly for over a month. My Physician says I am not taking medication that would cause it. I have never dyed, bleached, or stripped my hair but I do wash it daily. I have been treating it with the Nioxin treatment kit for about 3 weeks but see no improvement. I do not brush it, use wide comb and have it man cut short. Have any suggestions for stopping the breakage?
Try a good conditioner made for dry hair and see if it helps. Check with a good stylist for suggestions.
Hello, doc.
I’m a 25-year-old Chinese male. I’ve been suffering from hair loss since high school. I began to take Proscar a month ago. I have some questions:
- Will finasteride lose some of its effect when exposed to the air? Since I currently split a pill into 4 parts.
- I take part in sports very often like jogging, soccer. Do such sports do harm to my hair?
- What kind of foods will help the treatment of hair loss?
Thank you for any help.
Hello Dr. Rassman,
I am replying to the Aug 25 post about Propecia. If data suggests that after 5 years of usage, that patients return to where they were when the drug was started, am I wasting my $50+ a month on Propecia? I have been taking it since Spring 1998. I had 2000 grafts at NHI in Feb. 2004, but have been continuing Propecia to help keep what’s left on the top of my head. If Propecia stops working after 5 years, should I stop taking it? Thanks a lot! Love your Blog!!
No, no, no. Propecia (finasteride) does not just stop working after 5 years. Somehow I am not getting that message over to my readers. If you see no benefit from it and you stop it and lose your hair, then you will know that it was working. Unfortunately, Propecia is a drug that you must believe is working for you, if you use it. I believe that it always works on men, if not in retaining hair, at least in slowing the loss down. Stopping it brings you back to where you would have been had you never taken it. There is no guarantee that it will keep being as effective as it was the day you started it but some hair is better than no hair.
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When I was young I had a bad habit of pulling strands of hair in the back on my head. It’s been almost ten years now and I noticed that I have slight baldness and different thickness in that area compared to my hair in the front and sides. This bothers me alot, because it is hard for me to style it. Is it safe to use hair regrowth products like (rogaine) so I could restore thickness and regrow hair? I am only nineteen years old.
For a well-picked scalp with permanent hair loss, no product/drug will regrow the hair. If you are absolutely sure that you no longer pull at that area, then this is easily transplanted — but if you pull the hair out again, it will also bald again.
I recently went throught a very stressful situation.. Husband had an affair lost 26lbs in 6 weeks and 2 mths. after all this happened my hair started to come out. first slowly then it got worse, it’s starting to slow down on most days. Could all this have trigged this loss. My physician think yes and told me the hair will regrow. I’ve never dealt wiht anything like this and it make me sick to my stomach to try to do something to my now thin hair. I’m 37 and pretty healthy other than the rapid weight loss.. I went days sometimes wihtout eating.. Now I take a multi-vitamin and eat 3 meals a day.. How long will it take to correct the damage I did? My blood work came back good and my TSH is normal..
I agree with your doctor that your situation could’ve triggered the hair loss and that it should regrow, but you need to get good dietary management. If you have no genetic hair loss present, then the hair should return once you return to a normal, stress-free environment. If you need help getting there, see a good doctor and/or a good therapist to help you manage the stress.
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i recently had a hair transplant about 8 months ago and i’m not happy with the results and now i am left with a signicant scar on my head. would much rather shave but i am hesitate becuase of the scar. is there anything that i can do to not make the so visible. or will time make the scar smaller! thank you for your time!
There will always be a scar on every person who had a hair transplant if they shaved their head. I have had two hair transplants, and although few can even find my scar, I am sure that if I shaved my head I would have a smile on the back of it. Sometimes, during the first half year or so, scars may contract so they may become less obvious. Also in that same time frame, some scars stretch. After a year or so, the scars will be stable. My scar (only the one scar for two surgeries) measures about 2-3 mm in width and what there is, has not changed over the years.
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I just met a patient who, while doing comparative shopping, came to me as the fifth doctor on his shopping list. He was 46 years old and had some thinning in his crown. He lost the first inch of his hairline, but his hairline did not bother him and therefore was not his focus. He was fine with where the frontal hairline was. He was able to see through the crown for the first time in years. Below, is the spirit of what he told me his experiences were, I simulated quotes of a conversation to demonstrate what he described to me —
Doctor #1:
“You are going bald in the crown”, he was told. He was quoted a surgery cost of $12,000 for 1400 grafts.
“Will I lose any hair from the transplant?”, he asked.
“It happens sometimes,” the doctor answered, “but if it does happen, it will grow back”
Doctor #2:
“I can fix it with 800 grafts for $3,000 and if you do that now, I will throw in another 100 free grafts”.
Doctor #3:
The man had researched this doctor and found that there were reputation problems evident through industry-specific bulletin boards and in internet reference sites. He felt that the visit to this doctor reeked of sleaziness.
Doctor #4:
On the visit, he met a patient in the crowded lobby. The patient (who already had surgery) warned him to stay away for his own good. When he visited the doctor, he was told that for $12,000, he could get 2000 grafts into the crown and it would make his crown appear full.
Dr. Rassman (Doctor #5):
I mapped out his scalp for miniaturization and found that less than 50% of the crown hair was miniaturized (no other doctor did this). The frontal area had 80% miniaturization just behind the balding area, suggesting that his hair loss will continue in the frontal area. I told him that with only 50% miniaturization in the crown, a drug treatment would be the best approach, not surgery. When the hair is 50% miniaturized, there is usually reasonably good cover and surgery runs the risk of causing irreversible hair loss (which usually does not grow back in men). If this happened, it could make his crown more see through than it was now. I recommended against any surgery.
I was personally frustrated with my colleagues in the hair transplant field, particularly for what appeared to be a lack of moral fiber in managing this man’s problem. I have always believed that doctors should put their own welfare behind the patient’s welfare. What the above cases clearly showed me was that the first four doctors were behaving like used car salesmen, selling this man the car driven by that little old school teacher who never abused it. I have no difficulty condemning the opinions of these other doctors and their behavior. Every one of the four wanted to take this man’s money and preyed upon his vanity.
Of interest, when he first started talking with me, he was at first baffled by the wide discrepancies between the recommendations and the pricing, but after receiving my explanation of the miniaturization assessment (something that none of the other doctors did on his examination), his confusion cleared up. His initial question to me was why was there such a wide descrepency between the estimates of work and price. That was not his focus after the consultation with me. In his case, good comparative shopping saved him from being victimized by doctors who behave like crooks and con men. They are still out there.
Again and again, I warn people, ‘Let the Buyer Beware!’
I forgot to mention this a week or two ago, but I caught an interview with 8th generation wigmaker Ruth Regina on the Late Show with David Letterman. Along with her celebrity clientele, Ruth also makes wigs for dogs.
I’m serious.
