Category: Hair Loss Causes

Hi. I am 21 years old. About 9 months ago I noticed that my hair was thinning at the top. I consulted my GP and he said it was male pattern baldness. He prescribed propecia but after 7 months of taking it I experienced side effects and did not see any improvement. I lift weights for 30 mins 3 times a week and have a protein shake daily could this have any effect? Any advise would be greatly appreciated. many thanks

I doubt that there is any connection unless your protein shake has steroids in it.

Hi, I´m 20 years old. I´m using finasteride since two years and I
have a NW 6 pattern (Hair miniaturized on hairline, top and crown).
I´m sure that finasteride help me in this two years because my hair
is more consistent but I know that I am going to lose my hair
progressively. My question is if you know any case of a NW 6 pattern
who had started his treatment early and finasteride give him results
for a long time (10 years). I need some hope but I want the truth.
Thanks. Regards. Sorry for my english.

I have not seen a complete reversal of hair loss on Propecia on a Class 6 or 7 male your age. Mainly male pattern balding or androgenic alopecia is a genetic condition. When it shows up in the late teens or early 20s, the process is usually more rapid. The drug Propecia (finasteride) with or without Minoxidil may slow down the loss but they will not stop the inevitable pattern from evolving. Surgery can address the balding by moving hairs around to the balding areas but if your pattern is a Norwood 6 or 7 pattern, complete coverage may not be a reasonable goal for hair transplantation.

“Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified 19 cases of nontuberculous mycobacteria wound infections among US residents who had undergone cosmetic surgery in the Dominican Republic.[1] Fourteen of these patients required hospitalization in the United States, with corrective surgery and long courses of antibiotic therapy.” This was quoted from Medscape June 24, 2012.

Surgery overseas (medical tourism) reflects a multi-billion dollar business today. Because of the high costs of medical care in the United States, many consumers are traveling to other countries to get their surgical care, which can often be less than 10% of the fully loaded costs seen in the United States. It is critical to determine if the facilities are accredited, as that adds some modicum of safety in the decision to travel. Failure to do your research, can produce problems as defined in the CDC statement above. You must plan for such an endeavor asking yourself about the language of the country you selected, finding out the credentials of the doctors, the track record of the facility (infection risks should be documented by the facility), the risks of traveling after the procedure, how you are going to follow-up after you leave the country. etc..

Return air travel should be delayed long enough to ‘cover’ anything that goes wrong. Traveling after a procedure can increase the risk of blood clots in the legs and clots that travel to the lungs from a long flight after surgery as cabin pressure changes during the flight home. This is particularly important if a general anesthetic is administered. To learn more about these risks, see: www.cdc.gov/travel

The field of hair transplants are applicable here as doctors outside the US offer transplants for less costs than here in the US; however, where is their track record to be found, one might ask? FUE in particular is a common offering outside the US and competitive pricing, but once you leave the US, you loose the ‘legal’ protections offered by the US Court system. As it takes a full 8 months to see the success of a hair transplant, what if the doctor had not mastered the technique (very common amongst all doctors in the US or outside the US). We see failures at 8 months that are not uncommon as patients come to us to determine what they should do after a failure has occurred. There is little legal recourse for these patients and many of the doctors in the US are not compassionate about answering to their FUE hair transplant failures.

I’m a 22 year old male and i have no medical problems that I know of so far, but i don’t have any hair on my legs. i am kind of ashamed to wear shorts and show my legs to others. is there anyway anyone can help me out?

It’s possible that when you get older some leg hair may appear, though if you haven’t developed it by 22 years old I would think the chances are pretty slim that it’ll start growing later. It is most likely genetics, though if you at one time had some hair on your legs it could be due to some underlying issue (diabetes or a thyroid condition) or even extremely tight fitting clothing.

If hair never grew on your legs at all, I’d look to your genes, in which case there is nothing that is 100% safe to do about this.

A close friend of mine had a hair transplant and I noted some serious swelling around the face immediately afterward. I did not expect a transplant to produce that degree of facial swelling. Is that normal or is this just a rare case? If it’s rare, why do you think this occurred? Was it the surgery or the medication he was on after? It doesn’t speak to any problem with the grafts, right?

I’m considering a hair transplant but I want to use styling to hide the transplants while they heal — I can’t hide a swollen face, though.

Facial swelling can occur after a hair transplant from either the surgical procedure or just from an anesthetic alone, and it could be quite obvious in some cases. It’s not terribly common to see a large amount of swelling, though I’m not sure to what degree you consider the swelling to be “serious”.

The swelling is more of an annoyance than anything, and it doesn’t signify a problem with the surgery, healing, or future graft growth.

To minimize this risk, I use a single large dose of steroids at the time of the surgery or scalp anesthetic, and it usually prevents its occurrence. We rarely see it, but it does occur from time to time. When it occurs, it usually lasts a couple of days.