Author: Dr. William Rassman

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Can I Go to Work Less Than a Week After a Hair Transplant? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Really quick question. Can I go to work after a hair transplant in less than a week without it being swollen and scabby? Thanks!

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Not everyone will heal the same, but this is an example of a patient from last week who had 3,169 grafts just 3 days from the day these pictures were taken. Please note that this was a large procedure and he had no post-operative scabbing or swelling. The secret to this type of post-operative look is the washing we do during the procedure and the daily washing we do after the procedure.

Click the photos to enlarge:

Just 3 days after hair transplant of 3169 grafts:

 

Before:

 

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In the News – Newspaper Suggests Cayenne Pepper and Vodka Can Regrow Hair – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Snippet:

Q. My beautician told me to add 8 ounces of vodka to a whole can of cayenne pepper, let it sit overnight, strain and apply it to the top of my scalp with a cotton swab to counteract hair loss. Does this work, or will it cause more hair loss?

A. Our first impulse was to discredit such a remedy. We feared that the ingredient in hot peppers, capsaicin, might be too irritating.

To our surprise, however, we discovered an article in Current Medicinal Chemistry (No. 29, December 2008) reporting that capsaicin can stimulate growth factors in the hair follicles of mice and in human volunteers with hair loss.

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Read the rest — Can cayenne pepper help reduce hair loss?

This was from a Q&A section that is syndicated to a bunch of different newspapers, but it’s not like they finally revealed the secrets we have held back from the public. The article they reference has no information about the human volunteers, nor does their response even mention the vodka that was part of the original question.

Cayenne and vodka will not regrow your hair, alone or combined.

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Hair Loss InformationNot Hair Loss News – Coffee Lowers Risk of Prostate Cancer Recurrence? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Snippet from the article:

Drinking 4 or more cups of coffee a day is associated with a lower risk for prostate cancer recurrence and progression, according to a prospective study published online August 2 in Cancer Causes and Control.

The study authors found that men who drank that much coffee daily had a 59% reduced risk for prostate cancer recurrence and/or progression, compared with those who drank 1 or fewer cups per week (P for trend = .01).

The coffee consumption was measured before a prostate cancer diagnosis, not afterward, note the authors, led by Milan Geybels, a PhD candidate in the Department of Epidemiology of Maastricht University in the Netherlands. He worked on the research while studying at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, where one of his coauthors, Janet Stanford, PhD, is codirector of the program in prostate cancer research.

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Read the rest — Daily Coffee Tied to Lower Risk for Prostate Cancer Recurring

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Does Rogaine Cause Hair Loss in Normal Hairs After I Stop Using It? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I understand that I have to use Rogaine throughout my life if I want to retain my hairs but my only concern with it is its impact on other natural hairs (not affected by DHT yet). I have read somewhere that when you stop applying rogaine, not only the hairs which were grown by it would be gone but along with, your natural hairs will also be affected due to the way it works. Is it true doctor?? As you can see in the picture, my hairs are quite thick except the crown area so if I have to use rogaine, I will only use it on crown area, which means if I stop using it in future for some reasons, I will only loose regrown hairs (on crown area) and not anywhere else. But if that publication is true about the impact of rogaine on other hairs as well then don’t u think it is risky to use it as I may end losing more hairs if I have to stop it??

So to sum up, my question is that once the rogaine treatment is stopped, does other hairs (not effected by DHT) will also be lost along with rogaine dependent hairs?? Secondly, I also read that with years of using rogaine, your body becomes immune to it thus negating its positive effect. Is it true?? For how many years, it can be used before it stop working on your body.

In the end, I would like to thank you again for taking the time out to reply to me….It really means a lot to me to get an answer back from the world most renowned doctor. Thank you so much.

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If you stop Rogaine, the only hairs that may be lost are those that grew as a result of this drug. What you’re asking me is something people refer to as minoxidil dependence, but that only applies to the hairs that minoxidil grew. You can learn more about that here.

Rogaine (minoxidil) should not impact normal hair in any way, nor does it impact DHT in any way. The impact of Rogaine is strictly a side effect of this drug, and DHT will still cause hair loss on genetically impacted hair. Finasteride (Propecia) is a DHT inhibitor, but Rogaine is not.

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I Emailed Other Doctors And They Said Stress Doesn’t Make Genetic Hair Loss Worse – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Doctor, you keep mentioning that stress impacts Genetic hairloss, and im sure it might in a way, but I emailed a lot of hair transplant Doctors, and even dermatologist and they said stress doesn’t make genetic hair loss worse in men.

They say stress usually causes hairloss in women rather than men and its very rare for stress to impact the speed of genetic hairloss in men. A few Doctors said it might cause telegen effluvium but it will grow back. An these are all prominent Doctors I emailed from the ISHRS website. Especially if a guy is on propecia stress can do nothing. But overall its better to be stress free as it can help with the overall body and not damage other organs.

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Opinions differ, but I am certain that stress can impact genetic hair loss, as I have made this correlation for years. It is possible that the loss is temporary, but that is not always the case in my experience. Also, Propecia is no guarantee to cure stress related hair loss or stress-related acceleration of your genetic loss.

Take a look as some of our previous posts on this subject here.

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Not Hair Loss News – Cancer Vaccines and Patent Law – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Snippet from the article:

Six years from now, when my daughter turns 11, she will get a three-part human papillomavirus vaccine that will reduce her chances of getting cervical cancer by around 70 percent. Currently a little over half of American girls get the HPV vaccine, a public health intervention that will prevent tens of thousands of cancers. It’s one of modern medicine’s few success stories in finding a means of preventing cancer.

Maybe the reason we have so few cancer vaccines is that they’re harder to develop than treatments for patients who already have cancer, which are more common. But in an as yet unpublished study, economists Eric Budish and Heidi Williams teamed up with patent lawyer Ben Roin to argue that the scarcity of preventive measures and relative abundance of late stage cancer treatments can also be blamed on the distorting effects that the U.S. patent system has on medical research.

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Read the rest — Why Aren’t There More Cancer Vaccines?

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What Can Someone with MPB Do If Doctors Won’t Prescribe Finasteride? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

hi doc
i have serious miniaturisation but the doctors i met didn’t even look at my hair closely and gave me some vitamin pills. what can mpb sufferers do if the doctors wont prescribe drugs like proscar? i seriously doubt those docs have heard about fin

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The answer seems pretty obvious to me, but if the doctor you went to won’t prescribe you finasteride to treat your MPB, seek out another doctor. It might be possible that you don’t have genetic hair loss, in which case, finasteride wouldn’t be necessary.

Finasteride has been available for over a decade, so I don’t know how your doctor might’ve not heard of it. It sounds like your doctor didn’t understand hair loss if he didn’t even examine your scalp.

I should also point out that if you were looking specifically for a Proscar prescription to treat your hair loss, your doctor should prescribe it with the direction to cut the pill into 4 pieces. Propecia is for treating hair loss, Proscar is a higher dose for treating the prostate.

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Persistent Scalp Pain 5 Years Following a Hair Transplant – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi,

I had a hair transplant 5 years ago. Some months after the procedure, I noticed some persistent pain and sensibility in my scalp, mainly in the scar and areas near it (example: where the eyeglasses touch my head). But it did not heal. The areas near the scar are extremely sensitive. I need eyeglasses to work but its impossible to use them (my astigmatism is incompatible with contact lenses), so my situation is very hard.

Some surgeons said that its necessary to remove the scar, because I could have some neuromas. The scar is very homogeneous, it is not wide, and the HT was made by a very experienced surgeon. He said that this never happened to his patients and has no idea of what happened with me.

I went to some pain specialists (psychiatrists) that told me to take amitriptilin (50mg/day) and pregabalin (Lyrica, 225mg/day). None of them had any effect. Other things I already tried are: laser therapies, topical capsaicin and local injections of corticoids. No results.

Now, the surgeons think that the only thing to do is to a surgery to completely remove the scar, like a new strip (very very thin) for hair transplant, without transplanting follicles. Do you think it is a good idea or the situation can become even worse?

I already did lots of search and some web sites and surgeons comment that it is possible (very rare) to have persistent pain after years of HT, but I never found suggestions of how to treat it.

Thank you.

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You have risk no matter what you decide. Have you had injections of steroids into the painful part of the scar? I would need to evaluate you before giving you a recommendation. I’ve written before about nerve damage from a hair transplant in some past posts that might have some value to you:

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Hair Loss InformationMasturbating After a Hair Transplant – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Can grafts be displaced or dislodged, although they look normal and well stuck in the scalp? I had hair transplant with a combination of HUT and HUE techniques 3 days back. I had a tight dressing on my head after surgery, which was removed 24 hours after surgery. Everything was normal except that I had banged my head sitting in car a few times while going home and jerked off after 6 hours of surgery unaware of the consequences.

The hairs look well stuck in the scalp but is it possible that they may be misplaced from their original position and are lying at the skin border and may fall off. I have seen a few grafts dislodged while cleaning my head, but that no. could hardly cross 5.

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I doubt that masturbating after a hair transplant would be a problem. I guess it depends on how vigorous you are with yourself. If you are concerned that some grafts were dislodged, I’d talk to your surgeon about that.

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Study – Microneedling with Minoxidil for Treatment of Genetic Balding – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Snippet from the study:

Hundred cases of mild to moderate (III vertex or IV) androgenetic alopecia (AGA) were recruited into 2 groups. After randomization one group was offered weekly microneedling treatment with twice daily 5% minoxidil lotion (Microneedling group); other group was given only 5% minoxidil lotion. After baseline global photographs, the scalp were shaved off to ensure equal length of hair shaft in all. Hair count was done in 1 cm 2 targeted fixed area (marked with tattoo) at baseline and at end of therapy (week 12). The 3 primary efficacy parameters assessed were: Change from baseline hair count at 12 weeks, patient assessment of hair growth at 12 weeks, and investigator assessment of hair growth at 12 weeks. A blinded investigators evaluated global photographic response. The response was assessed by 7- point scale.

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Read the rest — A randomized evaluator blinded study of effect of microneedling in androgenetic alopecia

DermarollerThere is an interesting pilot study that looked at the use of minoxidil and wounding in 100 balding men. Using a microneedling instrument (a dermal roller) and 5% minoxidil the following results were reported:

“In the Microneedling group, 41 (82%) patients reported more than 50% improvement versus only 2 (4.5%) patients in the Minoxidil group. Unsatisfied patients to conventional therapy for AGA got good response with Microneedling treatment.”

I was not surprised that some value for this combined treatment showed some effectiveness. I personally wonder if this is the type of service I should offer. I would appreciate your feedback.