Category: Other

I’m a celebrity gossip fan (for better or worse). I know you recently wrote about Jon Cryer from Two and a Half Men, but I just saw this new photo of his balding pattern. It is way worse than I originally thought!! What Norwood Class would you estimate he’s at? I’m just curious.

TMZ: Jon Cryer — Out in the Open

The last post we made about Jon Cryer was just couple months ago, and at that time I wasn’t sure what was going on from the photos I was shown. From these pictures, his hair loss pattern appears to be at least a Norwood Class 3A, if not more advanced along the type A patterns or even the 4-6 pattern with high miniaturization; however, without a top down view and a rear view, I really can’t make the diagnosis.

Photo from TMZ via INFdaily.com

Snippet from the article:

Imagine a treatment that could build bones, strengthen the immune system and lower the risks of illnesses like diabetes, heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure and cancer.

Some research suggests that such a wonder treatment already exists. It’s vitamin D, a nutrient that the body makes from sunlight and that is also found in fish and fortified milk.

Yet despite the health potential of vitamin D, as many as half of all adults and children are said to have less than optimum levels and as many as 10 percent of children are highly deficient, according to a 2008 report in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Read the full article at the New York Times

This isn’t related to hair loss, but I like to mix things up from time to time with other health news. The article goes on to question whether vitamin D is the miracle supplement some people are convinced that it is. Recommended reading!

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(Male)
Why does finer/flatter hair tend to become greasier over a short period of time compared to more full hair? the third day after i wash my hair it becomes greasy. I have tried to limit the amount of times i wash it but it makes no difference

I will have to guess on the answer to this question. If a person with coarse hair and a person with fine hair put out the same amount of sebum from the glands of the hair follicle, then there would be more wax around the hair shaft simply because the fine hair shaft would be smaller. That might appear to be very greasy to you. More frequent washings and using a shampoo for greasy hair may be better for you in solving the problem.

Snippet from the article:

Timothy Syed Andersson billed himself as dermatologist to the stars. Andersson, known to his patients as Dr. Syed, had a wall of photos at his home office in San Francisco’s Lakeshore district, showing him with actress Julia Roberts and actress-model Elizabeth Hurley, Nobel laureate Linus Pauling and other notables.

His Web site boasted of his research that had led to cures for everything from stretch marks to hair loss. San Francisco prosecutors say it was all a lie.

Read the full article at SFGate –Fake doctor fleeced patients, prosecutors say

As the article points, this guy was a con man with fake credentials, Photoshopped images, and was indicted in Sweden before fleeing to the US 14 years ago. He set up shop here and he was able to bilk people out of thousands of dollars each for treatments that were total BS. Shameful.

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From the study abstract published in the Archives of General Psychiatry:

Results: Subjects with BDD showed relative hyperactivity in the left orbitofrontal cortex and bilateral head of the caudate for the unaltered own-face vs familiar-face condition. They showed relative hypoactivity in the left occipital cortex for the low spatial frequency faces. Differences in activity in frontostriatal systems but not visual cortex covaried with aversiveness ratings of the faces. Severity of BDD symptoms correlated with activity in frontostriatal systems and visual cortex.

Conclusions: These results suggest abnormalities in visual processing and frontostriatal systems in BDD. Hypoactivation in the occipital cortex for low spatial frequency faces may indicate either primary visual system abnormalities for configural face elements or top-down modulation of visual processing. Frontostriatal hyperactivity may be associated both with aversion and with symptoms of obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.

Read the full abstract — Abnormalities of Visual Processing and Frontostriatal Systems in Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Body dysmorphia is a problem for a few patients that I have seen with balding. At times I make this diagnosis so I found this particular study very interesting. CNN also just published an article based on the same study here, which might be a little easier to digest than the study abstract.

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I’ve been having weird pains in my scalp for the past 4 months or so and have noticed my hair is now thinning. I went to my physician and he mentioned something called trichodynia, though he told me it is just a theory and is not fully accepted by most doctors. I’ve never heard of it before and looked it up on Wikipedia. I wanted to know if you’ve heard of trichodynia and if you think there could be an association between hair loss and scalp pain, or if it could just be coincidental. I’m 34 years old and have just a mature hairline with no loss up until a few months ago when this pain started.

Also, I found this recent article about trichodynia on Google News

Thanks

I do not know the cause of your scalp pain. I have heard some patients complain about scalp pain when they have hair loss, but I had little to offer them. Trichodynia has some interesting ideas behind it, but there’s no proven link between hair loss and scalp pain. This could be a case of a peripheral neuropathy, something that neurologists work with all of the time… or as the reference article says, it could be psychological or caused by a fear of balding.

Peripheral neuropathy is common in diabetics and in some people with certain chronic diseases. It might be caused by medications you take, if you take any. I don’t believe that there is a common theory for this condition.