Author: Dr. William Rassman

Some variation of this question has been posted on this blog before but I would like to ask:

Can hard water indirectly cause hair loss? I am not asking about the effects of hard water on genetic baldness but whether hard water can aggravate scalp conditions in sensitive subjects, thereby accelerating hair loss. I suffer from seborrheic dermatitis and I am noticing more aggressive hair loss when washing with hard water compared to soft (my parents have a water softener).

If so, what do you recommend doing? Is there any benefit to washing with soft water or distilled water? Is this hair loss permanent?

Hard water just means it has higher mineral content in general. It does not cause or accelerate hair loss as far a I am concerned. If you think it is affecting your hair, you can always try soft water. But I personally do not see its benefit with respect to genetic hair loss, more of a washing issue

Stopping the drug is the right thing to do. Dutasteride is stronger and the long term history of this drug for hair loss is unclear. The previous post here shows just the opposite impact of finasteride on this young man with an increase in his sex drive.

Suffering from intense sides from dutasteride from tressless

My question is; does finasteride and dutasteride lost effectiveness over-time in the body? Like, say in decades, would my body become used to dutasteride and it will lose its effectiveness and hair loss will resume or can I preserve my hair forever (until I’m a senior, theoretically) just from taking 0.5 mg of dut everyday for the rest of my life?

Another question, will the hairs that grew back become thick like how they were before they fell out? Is there anything I can do to make them thicker or do I just have to keep taking the drug and wait longer?

It is not the blood levels of these drugs that are important, but the tissue fixation that occurs after taking the drug. The tissue fixation of finasteride is about 7-9 days while the tissue fixation of dutasteride is about 6 weeks. These drugs generally do not lose effectiveness but the balding pattern is tied to apoptosis (cell death) which these hairs undergo over time. These drugs slow the process down but will not prevent the outcome, which is inevitable.

In the early stages of use, when miniaturization is high and newly formed, the probability that these drugs will reverse the miniaturization process, making these hair stronger and less miniaturized, will be good.

Famous people are like everyone else. We all experience the same pain of looking older and with hair loss it is looking older too soon as shown here. You don’t have to be famous and rich to get your hair back, it is straight forward as tens of thousands of men and women are having a hair transplant done every year.

Since the brain is androgen-dependent, and males do not stop fully developing mentally before age 26 and physically before age 22, wouldn’t supressing DHT with finasteride stunt growth in a male who hasn’t hit 26 yet?

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1346-8138.14719

Abstract

Men under the age of 25 have a better chance of getting these type of results. The younger you are, the better the chances.

I’m so happy! (Fin is working) from tressless

A while ago, Men’s Fitness ran an article about men with hair. The article noted there is a perception that men without hair were not as trustworthy as men with hair. This article was written at the time of the primaries for a US presidential election. They noted that, since President Dwight D. Eisenhower, there has never been a bald president. A while ago, I had a radio program called ‘The Inner Man”, and one of the programs focused on hair loss. I remember a call from the Vice President of marketing for a multi-million dollar company. He called in and said, “I would never hire a bald man because balding men can’t be trusted”. He did tell me that he was the exception to that rule, as he was bald himself.

Looking at Elon Musk, I would then ask: Would you loan this man money to start a business (looking at his 1999 photo)? Of course, we all know that it is not the outside of a man that is important, but the inside of the man. Elon Musk has to be one of the greatest men in the US today and his new look reflects and matches the outer man with the inner man, a man with a brilliant mind and one of the few 20 and 21st-century geniuses and great visionaries.

Hair definitely makes a difference in the way his image is projected. A good hair transplant is what he must have had.