Author: Dr. William Rassman

Hello Dr Rassman, I have a question. I am on 5mg of oral Minoxodil a day. I have been told by a few people it may be too much. Thing is, my hair is not getting better. Been on it for 8 months, hairloss is rapidly increasing to the point I am nearing NW3 when I was barely even NW1 8 months ago (Shedding hundreds of hairs over the sink) My question is, if I lower my Minoxodil dose to 2.5mg every day, will that cause even more hairloss? I’m worried about being stuck on 5mg of minoxodil for the rest of my life

This is a balancing act between safety and effectiveness. Lowering the dose to 2.5mgs shouldn’t have an impact on you; however, with continued shedding, maybe finasteride is worth considering

Many videos shows the promotions that try to tap the billion dollar market for hair regrowth. Unfortunately, too many young men fall for this and put out too much money and pin too much hope trying to do these impossible cures. I decided to post this in an attempt to let our readers know that there is no quick fix to the balding problem. The videos I have seen use a person with a convincing voice and a well written script to try to sell the naive viewer on some magical cure. Little bits of truth are used like DHT is the cause of hair loss, but that is not true of people who do not have the genes for balding who have lots of DHT and no hair loss. I’ve even seen such videos blame DHT for cancer of the prostate and suggested that if you stop your DHT, you can stop the hair loss, and prevent cancer. It is true, of course, that testosterone contributes to cancers of the prostate and that is why men with prostate cancer take medications to block testosterone or have their testicles removed if they get cancer of the prostate in order to control it. I saw a video recently that just wanted you to send $39 for their product. That is a waste or $39, so I would suggest that you donate that money to some good charity instead.

This is a very comprehensive video that might save your life and your parent’s lives

Multiple articles have been appearing in scientific and medical journal lately that show that the infusion of blood from young people into older people can improve brain function in people with aging diseases of the brain including dementia. In the recent issue of New Scientist, a small article reflecting work done at Stanford University in California where human blood was collect from people of different ages and then the plasma was infused into mice whoch were, in human terms, 50 years old. The greatest effect was seen when human cord blood from babies umbilical cord was used. The mice learned better and faster and show enhanced activity in the part of the brain called the Hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory.

This 22 year old, very obsessed with a very early thinning of his right and left corner hairline, went to a doctor before seeing me. The doctor recommended 1500 grafts for him. In my opinion, there was not way that such a recommendation was warranted because (2) he was too young to have a hair transplant, and (2) if he was over 26, it will would not require 1500 grafts other than for the doctor to pay his car expenses. There seems to be a license by doctors to victimize patient at will, and as a patient comes in holding the doctor in great esteem, this is a full abuse of his license and his profession. I condemn this practice, all too common by doctors in this field of hair transplantation. In the photos you can see marginal thinning and with his hair shaved, some thinning is clearly present. This will be best treated with finasteride which will probably reverse the process but unfortunately, the doctor won’t make any money for prescribing this medication

This is a 44 year old male who had a juvenile hairline in 2010 when he came in as the corners were eroding. He didn’t like that and although I rarely will transplant these corners, I did on him because he was 36 and still had his juvenile hairline. Today he came in with a complaint of some increasing hair loss on his right side just outside the area that was transplanted in 2010 which shows nicely on the first photo. The left side has held nicely since that 2010 surgery.

I performed a HAIRCHECK test on him which showed that his hair population is now 80% of what it was 8 years ago, so he is losing hair in the first 3 inches of his hairline (what I call the frontal area). He has been on Avodart since 2010 and this recent hairloss, has occurred while he was on this drug. He wants his juvenile hairline back with its tight look. I agreed to do this and also recommended that he address the 20% thinning in the frontal 3 inches with Scalp Micropigmentation. The pictures below show what was done on the day of the surgery.