Category: Female Hair Loss

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Desperate for a Transplant But Low on Money – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

I have been loosing my hair for about 8 years now but did nothing due to lack of finance. I went to a hair transplant facility and they said that they could help me for about $8000. With that in mind i throw in the towel because i could not afford it. Recently i had a free cosultation at another clinic in Manhattan and i felt they were more honest with me for less. The team said that i could get about 1,000 grafts but i also had a limited supply of donors. He suggested that i tried monoxydil at this time before considering the grafts. My hair is still thinning in the top of my head and i’m still low on funds but desperately need to do something fast. He said the 5% monoxydil would be better than the 2%. Please reply with helpful advice. THANK YOU

Be wary of doctors who are willing to transplant hair, matching their recommendations to your budget. I do not like your desperation, because you are a set-up for being taken advantage of. Hair transplantation in women, such as yourself, rarely works as well as you’d hope and putting money into such a procedure for a female without good cause and a solid diagnosis is just plain foolish. Your first stop should be your primary care doctor or your dermatologist to possibly find a medical cause for your hair thinning.

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2 Year Old Daughter Has Bald Spot on Crown – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

My 2 year old daughter started with a bald spot on the crown of her head and now it is really thin on top. She pulls out her hair when she gets mad but not often enough to cause this. She wont eat well and vitamins dont seem to healp the situation. Can you please tell me what is wrong?

First of all, your pediatrician should be central to your daughter’s management of her ‘hair loss’. Young children go through varying quality of hairs at different ages. Have you noticed that many children are almost bald under the age of 1? This is not really balding, but rather a migration from a baby’s fine hair to a child’s thicker hair that occurs in the first few years of life. Could you daughter be in such a transitional phase, assuming that the bald spot is not really a spot but rather an area that appears bald? Although there are many causes of hair loss in children (infections, genetic and autoimmune diseases, etc.) you have to be sure not to overreact. See your pediatrician.

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Hair Loss After Using a Hair Relaxer – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Hi. I have read a lot of your articles but still confused. I am asian american female age 18, and about 2 years ago I used a relaxer kit I bought from Walgreens for my hair becuase I had thick Frizzy hair. I asked the lady at the store to see if I can use it beucase I thought it was only for African Americans. She said yes so I bought it. After I used it my hair, it has been falling out really bad after showers especially. I let it fall all it wants knowing that I had thick hair for about a year and a half. About 4 months ago I noticed that my hair are growing thin. I have hair that is at least 16 inches long but my hairs that are newly grown comes out very easily. And the my short hairs come out very easily. When i get out of the shower, about 1/4 of hair that falls out are thin and decreased in size. And they look very thin and you can barely see them. the diameter of my hair has decreased to half the size it used to be but I don’t have any bald spots. Some of my friends I talked to say that it cant be the relaxers becuase chemicals can’t have an effect that last 2 years. And 2 years ago was the first and last time i have ever done that to my hair. I havent dyed my hair since… and my hair should be fairly healthy beucase there arent any chemicals i have put in these for 2 years.. All the relaxed hair has been cut off already… but the hair is growing thin. they said it could have been becuase i switched off and on Birth control. But i dont believe that is the problem. I have gone on and off birth controls before and never encountered this problem. And i only realized it right after that relaxer i used. My father is going bald at the crown but none of my aunts or uncles or grandmothers or father has this issue… even if I am a girl, could I have inherited it from my father… and if so why would it hit me so young. But I did notice that after I used the relaxer, i started getting dandruff and i have never had dandruff in my life before that.. Not the dandruff is still around… But it seems to run in the family from my mother. But the thing I dont understand is that why would i start getting dandruff right after I used that too.. Ugh it is ruining my life and I feel like I have nothing to live for..

Your problem does seem a bit serious and if the hair that is falling out is really much thinner that the hair that remains, this complaint is very characteristic of a genetic female hair loss problem. This is best determined by visiting a good hair doctor and having your scalp mapped out for miniaturization. If what you are experiencing is female genetic balding, it will show up in the mapping.

Since it has been over two years since you used the hair relaxer, it is very unlikely that it may have an affect on your hair now. Birth control pills can affect hair loss and hair composition, however, this is generally on an individual basis, so it is not absolutely clear whether it is the birth control that is affecting your hair. The dandruff problem you mentioned does not affect hair loss unless you are scratching your scalp vigorously, but you might want to check into some products such as Selsun Blue or Head and Shoulders. Dandruff seems more detrimental to your self esteem moreso than thinning hair. Getting back to the thinning hair and hair loss, it is normal to lose about 100 hairs a day, but these hairs should not be much thinner than those that remain.

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Options for Regrowing Pubic Hair? – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

After I had liposuction several years ago I had pubic hair loss (one of the places the canula was inserted was through the pubic hair area). The hair never grew back. The hair on the sides was not affected, just everything in the middle. Even tho no one sees it except my husband and myself, it’s still so embarrassing to me, and I really HATE HOW IT LOOKS!!!

I tried Rogaine For Women but it didn’t seem to do a thing.

What can be done about this? Of course the less expensive the treatment the better for me. We live in a very modest area, and have a modest income. We only have Kaiser health insurance, which is useless for things like this of course.

Would transplantation be my only option? Please help because I don’t want to look like this for the rest of my life. I just lost 40 pounds & am planning to lose more, have come out of a long depression, love my job and my life, feel healthy, do yoga, etc etc, but feel bad about how I look “down there”.

I’m happy to read that your life is going so well and you’ve gotten back on track towards success. I have done quite a few hair transplants into the pubic area with good success. As you’ve discovered on your own, Rogaine does not address your situation. Hair transplantation is probably the only method that would work. My office in Los Angeles is not too far from you if you’d like to come in for a consultation.

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Female Hair Loss After Face Lift – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I had a facelift last Sept and in Feb I noticed my hair has thinned to the balding stage. Is this permanent, caused by the facelift, or just temporary? What can I do to stimulate hair growth?

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Hair loss around the scar after a face lift surgery is a common problem. Fortunately, it is one of the indications where a hair transplant procedure will help very nicely. You should first followup with your plastic surgeon for his opinion on the permanence of the hair loss, but as this has been a year already, I suspect that it may be permanent. If you are on the west coast, please consider paying me a visit in Los Angeles or San Jose, or if you can not easily drop by, send me good photographs and I will give you an opinion. Your privacy will be protected and I will not show them here on the web without your consent.

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Is Brittle, Dry Hair a Condition of Genetic Hair Loss in Women? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi I read the post about tamoxifen and hair loss. I’ve been on it almost 4 years and over time my hair has become dry, brittle, and thin. It seems to be noticeable only to me. My fingernails are also cracked and flaky. (I’ve read about many many other women having this problem on tamoxifen). Some women seem to have improvement when they go off tamoxifen and/or switch over to one of the newer hormonal therapies like Arimidex or Femara. But in your opinion, is this side effect just an exacerbation of a genetic condition (no females in my family have thinned hair) or potentially the result of some undiscovered effect of the drug, like impaired thyroid function? (I’ve heard that tamoxifen may heighten the body’s level of retinoic acid?) Thanks for any help.

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You seem to be well aware. Many drugs, such as Tamoxifen, can cause hair loss or even change hair/skin conditions. Judging from your limited history (and without the benefit of seeing you in person), it is difficult to judge the exact nature of your hair loss/ condition. You should be evaluated by a qualified dermatogist or internist/family doctor for a full medical work up.

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What Questions Should I Ask My Doctor? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I’m african american, cherokee, and chickasaw indian and i’ve been natural since 2001. The last perm I had before that wasn’t rinsed well and left on my scalp. I went home and washed it. I thought everything was fine until 2003 when I noticed hair loss and gradual thinning from ends to root but growing length hasn’t been a problem. I’ve taken blood tests and found everything to be normal though the hemoglobin was 11.3 and b-12 374pg. Now the hair near my scalp looks as though it will disappear any minute now. I’ll be seeing a different dermatologist soon. How will i know what questions to ask to be aware that the doctor is being thorough? Please help.

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It would be unlikely that anything left on your hair from two years earlier would be responsible for your present hair loss. A good doctor will lead the questions and get responses from you. The doctor will know what to ask of you, what tests to perform on you, and what to examine. That is your doctor’s job, not yours. Reading what is on this blog (see Female Hair Loss category) will give you insights into what you may experience with your doctor and what other women’s questions were. See what makes sense to you and then you can ask these questions of your doctor if you feel that he/she may need more guidance.

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Female Temple Hair Loss – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Approaching high school my hair started to thin in the temple area. I am female, African American and No one in my family has genetic hair disorders or anything but, I believe very strongly that ever since I started to relax/perm my hair, is when my temples started to fade.

With relaxers, you have to keep putting them in every couple of months otherwise your hair will fall out. I do put my hair in a pony tail a lot, but instead of brushing and pulling backwards, I brush down to cover my temples and then put it in a ponytail.

Without the option of Hair transplant surgery or wigs for right now, how can I get my temples to grow back? Will they always be this way or get worse?

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Sometimes people describe the corners of the forehead as their temples (which is incorrect). If you are losing hair from the corners of your forehead, you may have male pattern balding. If you are losing hair above your ears, up to the corner of your frontal hair line (your temples), you may have hair loss from the use of topical chemicals to ‘relax’ your hair. You may also have a condition known as diffuse alopecia areata or a known genetic condition where the temples themselves will fall out (Triangular Alopecia) without other areas of the scalp being impacted, but we need to review your pictures to help make this diagnosis as it has a characteristic appearance. You should be evaluated by a qualified doctor for a definitive diagnosis if this problem continues to be an issue for you. If you send us pictures, we may be able to help further.

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Chemical Trauma, Stress, and Hair Loss – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Hello Dr. Rassman,

I’m 18 years old, female, and over the past few months (I’d say about 4-6 months) I’ve been noticing my hair thinning above my ears and towards the back of my head. Over the past 4-6 months I had a terrible hair dye job occur when I was forced to get my hair bleached in order to remove the colour, in turn my hair turned a greenish/red from the bleach so I had to go BACK in to have it re-dyed. I’d say I’ve had it fixed about 3-4 times within the past couple months. Could that play a role as to why it is thinning? I’ve spoken to my Doctors and my blood tests for Anemia, Thyroid Dysfunction, Liver & Kidney disease all came back within normal limits.

I’ve been experiencing tremendous problems with my IBS as well. Seems as though these past couple months have been some of the most stressful I’ve ever had. So basically, could the chemical trauma my hair has been through more then likely be a result to my hair thinning? I’ve been taking vitamins with Biotin in them, about 6mg a day. And I’m going in to my stylist to have a foundation treatment done on my scalp.

Am I going in the right direction considering taking action for my thinning hair? Any suggestions or advice?

Thanx so much! this site is great!

I am sorry to hear there has been so much stress in your life. Emotional stress in itself can cause hair loss. Added to that, IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) has also been linked with hair loss. To make your situation worse, chemical hair dyes and bleach can also be a cause of hair loss. It seems that you are taking the right approach to promote a healthier hair/ scalp environment. However, it is not a guarantee for hair growth. The best thing going for you is a good bill of health from your doctors. Your body should hopefully take care of the rest. Keep away from the chemicals for your hair and you might have to wait a full year to see the benefits of time.