Category: Hair Loss Causes

Hi Dr.

Yesterday in a prank a friend of mine put duct tape in my hair and when I tried to take it out, I ripped out 7 or 8 hairs. I am very sensitive about my hair and would like to know if I should be concerned with these hairs not growing back.

Thank you for your support.

Nice friend. Chances are, those 7 or 8 hairs weren’t going to make a difference in your appearance anyway — unless you only had 10 hairs left.

No need to be concerned — the hair will grow back.

I have a question about baldness. I’m only 21, but kinda was rudely pointed that I may have a balding spot. I’m kinda nervous, as I have long hair (I’m a musician), and wanna keep it. Here’s a link to my Facebook (it’s the only pics I can find), with some where the light could be misleading. A friend told me it’s because I’m so blonde it looks thin, but I also may have thin hair naturally. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

I didn’t want to post your Facebook profile link so that I could keep some anonymity for you, but I was able to see a few photos.

I don’t know if it’s lighting or a thin hair character (I can’t tell just based on the small photos I saw), but your hair looks thin to me. You need to get analyzed with a miniaturization mapping and a bulk analysis of your hair to determine if this is a progressive process and beginning of balding. From there, you and your doctor can figure out the best course of treatment.

Since you’re local to Los Angeles, you may wish to see us for a consultation. You can call my office at 800-NEW-HAIR (or locally at 310-553-9113) if you’d like to setup an appointment.

Hi Dr. Rassman,
I have a question regarding my hair loss situation. My hair texture and quality seems to change frequently. One day my hair is thick and curly, and another day it is flat and thin. Could this be due to a hormonal imbalance? Also even though I am 28 years old I am unable to grow a beard, and do not have any chest hair. However, my hair seems to be receding at times. As I mentioned before could this be due to a hormone imbalance? I thought DHT was responsible for promoting facial and body hair growth? So if DHT is responsible for my hair loss why can’t a grow a beard and chest hair? Thanks for your help.

I doubt that you hair character changes daily, but your hair can reflect things like humidity in the air that make make it appear to change its character. I don’t know what kind of climate you live in, so I’m just speculating, of course.

The presence of chest and beard hair is genetic. DHT does play a role in the process, but not on a one-to-one basis. Some men just don’t have much body and/or facial hair. There is no direct correlation between body hair and the hair (or lack thereof) on your scalp. But, if you are receding one day and it reverses another day… you probably need eye glasses.

I’m a male patient. i’ve been recommended to go to your practice for grafts by another CA doctor. he says i’d need maybe 1000 at most…can that be done in one session? I have a severe case of stress/surgery-induced telogen effluvium and a maturing hairline not MPB according to my doctor, who is a member of ISHRS. he says he does not see miniaturization beyond the mature hairline position, only thinning (effluvium). my concerns are…will the FUE grafts (when placed) be put over live hair follicles and damage them? Or is the magnification procedures used during surgery good enough to make sure the grafts are placed over dead follicles? Thanks,

Telogen effluvium could be a contraindication for hair transplants if the process is still going on. A visit to my office is critical before any conclusions be drawn. I would want to do a pull test and measure your hair for miniaturization and bulk. That will help me confirm your active diagnosis.

A website called ‘faces of meth’ shows mug shots of men and women before and after abusing the drug. Here is an article – link.

The included picture shows a man with a notably receded hairline before the use, then after one year, a ridiculously full head of hair. Anything could have happened in that year I suppose but I was just wondering what your take on this was.

Those are some… disturbing photos. People see what they want to see. The two pictures are not comparable, as the one with long hair does not give us a view of the frontal area in details worthy of my opinion. He could still have thinning at the hairline that we can’t see. I doubt he styled it that way on purpose for his mugshot, and in all likelihood it is just dirty and matted. But who knows — maybe he used minoxidil along with his meth.

If you are suggesting that meth is a cure for balding, I just smiled with the inference. Sorry, but I am afraid advocating meth for treating hair loss is just not what I want to do!

Are rockers in rock bands immune to balding. would loud music keep the DHT away from attacking your hair follicles? most rockers i see have long thick hair!

I have had many famous rockers (and not-so-famous rockers) come to my office after experiencing hair loss and then got it back with transplants. So no, loud music is not protective… it will just make you deaf.

From time to time we treat patients that will then refer other family members. Both the man below and his brother had hair transplants, and they’ve both been just delightful. Jokes and humor abound during the surgeries and the follow-up visits. Such a good natured, fun person to be around. It took 4 surgeries spaced over a few years, but he met his hair restoration goals and is excited about the results. I am too!

Click photos to enlarge.

After a total of 4539 grafts:

 

Before:

 

Update:
I should’ve explained the case better in the initial post, so I’ll attempt to do that here.

The before photos that are posted above actually reflect far less hair than the pictures indicated. The patient’s hair is fine, so each hair shaft has less bulk than an average person with medium weight hair. The hair thinning went back some 5 inches beyond the leading forelock shown in the picture, but I originally decided that just advancing the hairline would suffice without going back to the thinning area. The entire forelock disappeared after the first procedure and he had more hair loss behind the area that was originally transplanted, so the second procedure was done to thicken up much of the forelock area which was lost.

The original plan that was created brought the hairline down considerably. It took two procedures (3288 grafts total) to get him what he wanted and to fill the area behind the site of the original transplant. For the patient that is taking the drug finasteride, rarely some additional hair loss may occur after the first transplant, as was the case here.

He is a bit of a perfectionist and the two other smaller procedures (553 grafts and 698 grafts over a year apart) were done to deal with some more hair loss behind the transplanted hair. He also wanted to put some more grafts in areas where he thought additional hair would help.

Snippet from the article:

A robotic arm, used to harvest hair from a person’s head, sounds strange but it’s the newest way to combat hair loss.

“I started losing my hair in my early 20’s,” said 38-year-old Vincent Delany. “It started receding back where I just had a little strip. Then my crown started thinning a lot where you can actually see scalp.”

It was a big enough concern that Delany looked into hair restoration surgery. He tried the traditional graft harvest, also known as the strip method. This is when a strip of skin is removed and doctors remove the follicular unit grafts one by one under a microscope. The method can be tedious and long.

Read the rest — Doctor Uses Robotic Arm To Perform Hair Transplant

This new technology will make follicular unit extraction (FUE) more popular and easier for most doctors, but it will not likely drive the cost of a hair transplant down as the robotic Artas® system is quite expensive for the clinic ($200,000 for the machine) plus the company charges an additional $1/graft.

This system extracts the grafts for the doctor and does so with minimal damage, but it still does not address the placement of graft, which is a technical limiting activity for many doctors wanting to enter the hair transplant business. The process of moving the grafts requires that they are taken from the “wet” environment they are placed in after harvesting (a dish or container of saline) and moved into the recipient area. This is a manual activity and requires skills that are acquired over years working in the field. There is a wide variation amongst doctors in delivering the placement of graft skill, so the robotic system must eventually deliver graft placement to close the loop for a complete robotic hair restoration.

Grafts can die if they are exposed to the air for as short a time as just 10 seconds, so keeping grafts moist is critical to graft survival (with or without the robot). For many doctors who have not mastered the FUE technique, this instrument can change the harvesting technique that is routinely offered; however, there is no experience with large sessions with the Artas® system (sessions above 1500 grafts) so more frequent surgeries may be necessary for those individuals who have Class 4-7 balding patterns. I have no doubt that the placement of grafts will eventually be included in a robotic hair restoration process and look forward to the day that it is available.

There’s a photo of the system here and in full disclosure, Restoration Robotics (the maker of this system) licensed the core optical technology from us.