Category: Other

It seems like balding men are being abused in the media this week. From articles about balding U.S. Presidential candidates to newspaper cartoons to TV shows (comedy and drama), this has been quite a week for the 50% of the male population that is losing hair.

The other day, I opened the newspaper and flipped to the Comics section for some relief from the craziness of the world and found a clever Beetle Bailey strip –

Then I watched Larry David’s hilarious show on HBO, Curb Your Enthusiasm, which had a bunch of hair loss related jokes (thanks to Youtube, I found them online). WARNING — this clip includes profanity –

 

Plus, the Orange County Register reports on a perfect example of BUYER BEWARE — a southern California man flew across the country for a “revolutionary” hair treatment that wasn’t revolutionary at all, and it ended up costing him $82,000 — Tangled tale of Costa Mesa man’s $82,000 toupee.

And then there was the season premiere of the plastic surgery drama Nip/Tuck on FX Networks and their feature on hair transplantation… which I was a part of and which I will be talking about tomorrow. Stay tuned!

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16th U.S. President Abraham Lincoln (image manipulated)

In the November 5th issue of TIME Magazine there is an interesting article titled ‘The Bald Truth‘, which talks despairingly about the absence of a full head of hair for a presidential candidate. Not since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s and Martin Van Buren in 1836 has any bald man been elected to be president of the United States.

From the article — “The country’s most prolifically failed presidential candidate, Harold Stassen, ran nine times, and in many of those elections he wore a toupee so alarming that the Washington Post thought it resembled a ‘sullen possum that had been dipped in bronze.’”

The essay by Steve Rushin is well written and shows society’s strong prejudice against bald men for political office. Many other such articles back up this position on the need for hair and it is pointed out that “the last time Giuliani was elected to anything (re-elected as mayor of New York City in 1997), he had a scalp full of hair“.

Some years ago when I was doing my radio show, The Inner Man, we had a caller who was vice president of sales for a rather large company. He said that although he was bald, he would never hire a bald man for a senior position. What does that say?

Full article — TIME Magazine – The Bald Truth

Thanks for your informative blog.

I recently decided to shave my head bald and I noticed an unsightly age/sun spot on my scalp. Do you recommend using a product with hydroquinone to lighten the area? Alternatively, are they any other products you’d recommend?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Skin abnormalities should be evaluated by a dermatologist because there are many skin cancers that cause ‘spots’. If you are thinking that this is the aging discoloration of the skin that shows up usually on the exposed parts of the body (hands and arms), I can not tell what to do about it. I know enough to tell you to get a professional opinion before using products like this, and then get advice from that doctor on what to do.

Hi Dr. Rassman,
I’ve scoured the sight and have not been able to find any relevant information to my question, thus i’m presnting it here. I’m a 24 year old male with early stages of MPB ( i wouldn’t even begin to try to give it a norwood classification) Though i plan on visiting you shortly, i was wondering if you’ve ever heard of anything like this: My scalp is constantly itching as if i have severe dandruff, but i have little to no dandruff at all. What makes this phenomenon all the more pecuiliar is that the itching is basically localized in the apex or crown of my head, primarily in the region that i’m experieincing the loss. Does this sound like anything unusual? Should i contact a dermatologist to receive more detailed information?

Thanx

When you visit your dermatologist, he/she can look at your scalp and determine if there is anything there. Some people say they get an itching sensation when they are losing hair, but there is no connection that I can make that link the two. Sorry!

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Tyler, Texas- Wes Pemberton thinks he may have a world record. He’s submitted a hair on his leg as the world’s longest leg hair. A hair on his calf measures about five inches. The world record is 4.88 inches.

Full article here — Man goes for world record leg hair

One can infer this is why body hair transplantation to the scalp is so difficult. Body hair does not grow like scalp hair and the length is limited. Some doctors claim that when body hair is transplanted to the scalp, there are scalp influences that give it more length, but not more thickness of the shaft.

Good luck to this guy though. The world has been searching for a new world’s longest leg hair. I hope the search is finally over. I’m being sarcastic, by the way.

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Hi!

I just read a question by someone who shaved his pubic hair, and claimed the hair regrew with multiple hairs from the same follicle. I have experienced a similar thing myself, and wondered about it for a while.

I shaved my stomach and chest a while ago, and in a lot of places there are two, sometimes even three, hairs growing from almost the exact same spot. It looks like extra thick hair, but if I examine closely, I see that it is more than one hair.

Have you never heard about this? I don’t feel any need to go to a doctor to have it examined like you suggested, it doesn’t seem to do any harm at all, but I’m still a little curious about it.

Is it possible that you are looking at your shaved body hair before it becomes long enough to appear normal? I doubt that the hair count of each follicular unit will change with shaving, and aside from the two posts I’ve now made about this phenomenon, I don’t recall ever hearing about this before. I don’t know if it is the type of thing really worth focusing attention on, but I can understand your curiosity. Unfortunately, I just don’t have an answer for you.