Author: Dr. William Rassman

If you keep plucking the grafts and sooner or later the hair will not return. In those grafts that you pluck you will eventually kills these hairs. We call this traction alopecia but it may take quite a few pluckings to kill these hairs.

Minoxidil is not effective to stimulate recipient area hair growth. I studied this on 50 patients with minoxidil on 1/3rd of the head and none on the other side. Both sides grew equally fast and well. What is the best way to get good growth is to have an excellent surgeon and surgical team do your hair transplant. There is nothing that will stop a good hair transplant from growing.

I am thinking about getting a hair transplant. Most places that I have consulted with recommend me getting between 1200-1800 grafts. I understand that the more grafts that I get, the higher they are paid. However, I am concerned about a few things. I am concerned how my donor area will look afterwards and I don’t want to lose donor area hair if the doctor did not do a great job. How would I know how many hairs were actually transplanted? I wouldnt mind doing another transplant if the first time was a good job. What percentage of those harvested get transplanted? thanks for advice.

Of course you can request a certain number of grafts, but you want to ask the doctor what makes sense when you take such a step. I believe strongly in a Master Plan as hair loss is a progressive process and the donor supply of permanent hair is limited. I refer to this as a Hair Bank where you can only make withdrawals. You need to find a doctor who believes strongly in a Master Plan, as hair loss is a progressive process and the donor supply of permanent hair is limited. What has to be done is to: (1) predict your short term hair loss pattern, (2) estimate your long term worst-case hair loss pattern and (3) give you quantitative number for how many hairs (grafts) you have in your hair bank. As you make withdrawals, it is a one-way process. I also like to give my patients a plan for surgery and an estimate of what they can expect in terms of result. I spend a lot of time with my patients just in the consultation and then similar amounts of time are spent prior to the surgery. We give hair washes after the surgery to make sure that there is no crusting so that my patients can go out in public immediately after the surgery (see here: https://baldingblog.com/one-day-post-op-with-photo/ and here: https://baldingblog.com/post-op-photos-6-days-after-3320-grafts/) . These patients can go back to work quickly using what hair they have to cover up the surgical recipient sites. We also use a special tape to prevent swelling in the few people that get it.

Is there a way to predict if you are going to respond or not? Like are there any patterns of hair loss that Finasteride significantly does not work for?

Not everyone responds to finasteride. You may not be a responder; however, if you are going to take it, stay on a regular routine and do it for at least a full year. Privately, I have been told that a new test will soon be available that will tell who will and who will not respond to this drug.

I had 4,400 grafts done, and I am terribly scarred with cobblestoning of my skin. I have a heavily scarred recipient and donor area. Can this be reversed?

Unfortunately, the answer here is no. Reversing 4,400 grafts would be an enormous challenge, and it would take far longer to try to reverse it than having it done in the first place. Scalp Micropigmentation may be your only option, but I would have to see you to understand the deformities you are asking about. We have performed Scalp MicroPigmentation in many people with similar problems as you have described, and it works very well (see here: https://scalpmicropigmentation.com/scar-covering/)

According to Google Search: “The amino acids present in rice water, in particular, help in the regeneration of hair and aid faster growth of your hair. Also, rice water contains vitamins B, C, and E, which further help in hair growth (7). The best way to use rice water to grow hair is to rinse your hair with it after a wash.Oct 25, 2017″. Instructions follow in this link on how to use Rice Water: https://www.google.com/search?q=rice+water+and+hair+growth&oq=rice+water+and+hair+growth&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l5.5077j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I keep seeing posts about how much Saw Palmetto to take to equal Fin. This makes me think people think Saw Palmetto is safe v fin. It’s the same mechanism, it isn’t dose dependent. Once you start altering DHT you start affecting the RECEPTORS. The receptors can shut down and that’s what people think causes the problems with both drugs. Your DHT goes back to normal. Test back to normal. But the receptors are basically off. You could do that with .0000001mg of fin or one pill of Saw Palmetto. What anyone chooses to do is up to them, but they should know that Saw Palmetto can definitely cause the exact same issues as Fin. Also, the problems mostly arise AFTER you stop. And the medicine (SP and Fin) works by literally making you less masculine, which is why trans people come in here looking like 16 year old Justin Bieber’s with all the hair gains. None of this is opinion. All the side effects listed are not side effects, they are direct effects

The placebo effect of both of these medications are the same but I doubt that there is enough DHT blocker in Saw Palmetto to product any significant sexual side effects