Category: Other

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Hair Loss InformationShouldn’t Losing 100 Hairs a Day for Asians Be Considered Thinning? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

(female) I am aware that dropping a 100 hairs a day is normal. However, when I met a trichologist about 2 years ago, she told me that for Asians, a 100 hairs is considered a sign of hair thinning. This is because that most tests are done on Caucasians and they have apparently more hair on their scalp. The ideal would be 50 hairs per day for Asians. What are your views on this?

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Assuming that you have a typical density for an Asian (1.6 hairs per square mm on average) then I would expect your daily loss of hair would be about 80 hairs.

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Shedding Rate of Facial Hair – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Do you have any data on the shedding rate of facial hair in a normal adult male? With citation if available. Thanks in anticipation

I can not find any source explaining the rate of cycling in facial hair. Hair shedding usually happens after the growth phase (anagen) stops and hair goes to the resting phase (telogen). The longer the growth cycle, the shorter is the resting (telogen) phase, and the the longer is the final length of hair. Scalp hair can grow to become very long because its long growth phase (2 – 6 years) and its relative short resting phase (2 – 6 months) when compared to the growth phase. In contrast, eyebrow or body hair with shorter growth, as a disproportional longer resting phase can never grow to become long. Facial hair in men should follow a similar pattern to the scalp hair (short shedding phase and long growth phase). About 10% of the total number of beard hairs present on the face would be my guess for the resting phase, so count your beard hair numbers to make the estimate work for you.

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Pleasing Everyone 100% of the Time – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I just read a complaint about me on the internet from a former patient. I figured out who he was and reviewed his medical record. He originally came to me angry with hair transplants by another clinic that left him a bit pluggy (from older type of work) and scars in the donor area (also from many years earlier). Some 7 months after I performed his surgery, I found a post on a bulletin board, which said: “Dr. Rassman does truly exceptional work…. Dr. Rassman helped me with the money and is honest and was generous to me. … never lied or exaggerated. I am disappointed, however, because I evidently had unreasonable expectations.”

‘Unreasonable expectations’ are the Achilles’ heel of cosmetic surgical procedures. In hair restoration surgery, unhappy patients are often running out of both money and hair. Some patient will continuously look for new doctors to improve their situation, or sets up the expectations in hope that their situation will be better than reality will allow.

Patients come to cosmetic surgeons with a vision of what they want. Unlike a photographer, the cosmetic surgeon is more like a portrait painter who tries to create the image, the ‘look’, that the client wants. Patients undergoing cosmetic surgery of any type need to establish realistic expectations for what the process can accomplish, so the burden on the surgeon is to help the patient get a dose of reality. Reality, in hair restoration surgery, can be challenging when it is offset against:

  1. sub-standard work the patient might present with (deformities common in the old type of hair transplant surgery)
  2. the supply/demand issues of hair
  3. the many attributes of hair (a white skin color with black hair, straight hair, a fine hair shaft thickness)
  4. the costs of the process

When repairing some of the old sub-standard work, there is an added challenge when the patient starts off angry. Anger (often with passive aggressive behavior) can be transferred to each downstream doctor and distort expectations. To address this problem, I have created a format where we have Open House events (which I have held monthly for over 14 years) and this has been an exceptional opportunity for prospective patients to see what their results will be like by meeting other patients who had gone through the process. Even for those patients who have the deformities from the old plugs, these Open House events allow prospective patients to examine subjects who have had repair work as well and see the nuances associated with these repairs. This becomes a large dose of reality. I find that patients who go that extra-step to come to an open house event are more reality based, so if they do participate in this event, disappointment is rare.

After I see a patient, I always write a letter summarizing the visit and send that letter to the patient. I have come to learn that despite these efforts, I can not satisfy 100% of the people I work on 100% of the time. I do not always read people well enough and when I think that we communicated, I may be the one with unrealistic expectation.

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ElectroTrichoGenesis (ETG) Treatments for Hair Loss – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Hi doc, I want to give a try to ETG treatment. What do you think about it. I was told they had a success 96.7% percent in stopping hairloss after 4 months. Thank you.

ElectroTrichoGenesis treatments produce pulsed electrostatic energy through a hood that goes over the head (see Current-Technology.com). I do not have any experience with this modality of treatment. The statistics you quote are impressive if they can be validated.

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Chronic Sinusitis Causes Gray Hair Early? – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

I’m a 24 yr old male and my hair is going gray, the thing is I started getting them when I was really young, since elementary school.. I have read that chronic sinusitis can cause graying of the hair. How accurate is this? I do suffer from chronic sinusitis. I also recently went into get blood work done to see if I have any anemias or b-12 defiencies.

There is no connection between graying hair and your sinus problems that I know of.

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How Can You Ridicule the LaserComb But Support Rogaine? – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Hello Dr Rassman.

I have a slight bone to pick with you, regarding some interesting comments made about the Lasercomb. In one of your articles you mentioned the line “I still go by my gut feeling, an application three times a day by a comb going through the hair just does not sit right with me and my intellectual judgment (which dictates a great deal about why I think that way)”. I would like to point out the ridiculous parallels of this comment to a certain other product called Rogaine. Firstly no one actually knows how Rogaine works (the company readily admits this on there website) Secondly I dont think its any more absurd or outrageous to think a comb with lazers is any less effective than putting an alcohol like solution called “Roagine” which no one really knows ingredients of and how and why it really works on your head everyday. Or for that matter Propecia. They all take an element of FAITH! But at least the lasers have a basic theory of stimulation of the hair follicle. How the hell does alcohol going to do any better?

To answer to your question, I need to explain a bit about medical research, which could be found behind almost any new treatment modality in medicine. Any new drug needs to go through different phases of testing before becoming approved for use in humans. The LaserComb did not go through such testing, but rather got FDA approval because other such devices were approved in the past (predicate device).

New treatment modality first needs to go through preclinical testing, which involves using new treatments in the lab, including cell cultures followed by its use in animals for its efficacy and safety evaluation. If it proves safe and effective in animals, a clinical trial follows.

Clinical trial is the direct application of a new drug on humans and has four phases:

  1. Phase one is the first stage of testing drug in a small group of volunteers. This phase is done to prove safety and tolerability of drug.
  2. Phase two is performed on larger groups of patients to assess the efficacy of the new treatment and its possible side effects. This phase usually last a few years.
  3. Phase three is a randomized controlled trial on larger groups of patients (a few hundreds to thousands of subjects). It is done to define the value of a new treatment in comparison with other available treatment options. If medication passes this phase it could be offered for its general use.
  4. Phase four is performed on a longer period of time, and involves post-launch safety evaluations, long term adverse effects and technical support of a drug.

Minoxidil is a medication that was initially used for the treatment of high blood pressure. This medication was first studied for one of its side effects, “increase of hair growth” in the early 80s. After its effectiveness for treatment of androgenetic alopecia was confirmed by initial studies, it was studied on cell cultures, animals, and humans in different concentrations. Several research centers and universities studied the effectiveness of this medication and its comparison with other modalities. Since the experiments in the early 80s, minoxidil was first suggested for its use for treatment of androgenetic alopecia. It has been studied for different groups, sexes, ages, and races. Numerous research projects directly evaluated the effectiveness of minoxidil since early 80s. The result of these studies is over 100 articles that are published in major peer reviewed medical journals.

Although the application of laser for treatment of baldness sounds glorious, so far there is no reliable research papers in peer reviewed journals to prove its effectiveness for hair loss treatment. A physician, unlike a sales person, needs to see solid based research published in peer reviewed medical journals before being able to use or recommend a new treatment modality. For the LaserComb, none is available at this time.

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Can Baldness Be Prevented When You’re a Child? – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Can the possibility of genetic balding be prevented when you are still a child? I was trying to find a clue to how balding progresses in our family. i looked at my grandfather’s pictures when he was young and at my father’s pictures too. They are both bald now. I am 22 and i am somewhere between class 2-3 hair loss pattern.

I have a brother who is now only 6 years old. What could be the right way for him to keep his hair, knowing that every man in the family is balding after a certain age (19-20)? Or there is nothing he can do? thanx.

The answer to your question is yes, but not with current technology. Discovery of the human genome has opened a new horizon to treatment of different diseases in humans using gene therapy. Gene therapy one day will treat diseases by manipulating human genes (blocking genes that cause diseases and stimulating necessary genes that are suppressed). Baldness is known to be a disorder with a strong genetic influence. It means that there are genes involved in the balding process and once they are identified and can be ‘fixed’, balding may become a historical notation in human history. In theory, if the gene of balding was found and addressed with genetic tools, we could potentially treat baldness before it started.

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Found Some Very Curly Hairs Growing With My Normally Straight Hairs – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Hello there, I stumbled across your page this evening as I am trying to figure something out.. Don’t know if you can help or not, but im at a loss. I am a 33 year old white male, that is of average body build, and fair health… I was born with medium to light brown poker straight hair….I noticed a few years ago, that they are thinning out more and more, not a problem though, my question is, is it normal for me to have new found CURLY and I emphasize curly hair after all these years. I have had three back surgeries, and don’t know if aneshthesia could play a role or not, any help greatly appreciated. Thanks, and have a great day…

Changes in hair thickness and character do occur with age, stress and when/if you are exposed to hormones (anabolic steroids). The surgery you had could be stressful and a cause of the change in hair character.

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Port-Wine Stain Birthmark and Hair Loss – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

(female) The hair on one side of my head has thinned considerably over the last 8 years or so. (I am currently 40 years old.) This is probably related to a port wine stain that covers the right side of my neck and continues up onto my scalp on the entire right side of my head. When I was first born, the doctors warned my mother that I may not ever have hair where the birthmark is located but luckily, this wasn’t the case. I couldn’t distinguish a difference between the stained area and the rest of my head until the last 8 years. Is this a typical response for this type of situation?

I have had laser surgery performed on the birthmark a number of times over the years, first with the argon laser and more recently with the pulse dye laser. Most treatments have focused on the visible areas of my neck but a couple pulse dye treatments were carrried up into my scalp. This may or may not coincide with the hair loss. I’m really not sure. (Both happened within the last 8 to 10 years but I just can’t seem to sort out which came first.)

Is Rogaine effective in this type of situation? Is there some other treatment option I could pursue? Like most people, I am limited to treatments that aren’t extravegently expensive or are covered, at least somewhat, by insurance.

I am not aware of any association between hair loss and port-wine stains. On the other hand, high energy lasers have been used successfully for removal of unwanted hair. It is likely that the laser treatment has caused or accelerated you hair loss in the area of treatment if the area of hair loss conforms to the treatment area. You might want to slow down the laser treatments. If your hair loss is because of laser treatment, your hair may grow back within next few months. Find out from your laser doctor the depth of penetration of the laser. If it does not go deeper than 2mm, chances are that the hair will grow back.

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