Category: Uncategorized

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Could Iron Deficiency Be Accelerating My MPB?

I’m a male who has been diagnosed with Iron-Deficiency at age 20. I also have been noticing hair miniaturization and hair fallout from the top of my head (nothing from sides and back).

My doctor said the reason for this is the Iron Deficiency and I should correct it by multivitamins and minerals and then see if the hair fallout continues, since hair loss is a symptom of Iron Deficiency.

My question(s) is this:
– Would my deficiency be accelerating my inevitable MPB?
– Wouldn’t my deficiency result in hairloss all over my head instead of classic MPB fashion?
– Would correcting my Iron levels result is less shed, maintenance, or regrowth at all?

Thanks!

I don’t know what tests your doctor conducted to completely eliminate genetic male pattern baldness as a possible cause for your hair loss. If you’re losing hair in a classic pattern, you could have a combination of genes and low iron.

So to answer your questions — Yes, iron deficiency could accelerate your genetic hair loss. It may also cause thinning elsewhere on your head. Correcting your iron levels is important, but it may not impact the genetic patterned hair loss.

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Could SMP Damage Previously Transplanted Hair?

Dear Dr. Rassman,

I am interested in your new SMP process. I have had approximately 3000 grafts in the past and am running low on donor area.

My question is, will the SMP damage the hair that I have already had transplanted? The purpose of SMP in my case is to make the hair look thicker when it grows out.

The SMP (scalp micropigmentation) process works really well for this problem (low on donor hair), provided that you have enough hair to take advantage of the reduced contrast between scalp and skin color. SMP will not damage the previous hair transplants or any naturally growing hair that is present.

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Counterpoint to Dr Rassman’s War on Drugs Opinion

This was received in response to my post — The Economic Impact of Illicit Drug Use on American Society:

I am surprised to see your post on the issue of The War On Drugs. I believe there are a lot of opinions on this matter some in favor of yours (Ron Paul for example) and many who would disagree with you mainly people of a substance abuse history who are now recovering. You use the words lives lost and lives ruined. These words can fit perfectly with a opposing argument in which lives have been lost and families ruined from a love one overdosing or simply using certain drugs.

I for one do not believe legalizing and taxing and distributing meth or any other lethal drug would solve the ultimate problem at hand. And that is that our nation at its present state could possibly have the biggest drug abuse problem in the world, and this is not counting the millions on prescription medication. Its a shame that government has to step in and help us or hurt us, depending on how you look at it, but do you really think that having a legal distributor supplying an addict with a harmful substance and making money so we all can benefit from it is such a good idea? I was taught that the bad guy was the drug dealer and that drugs ruin lives.

There is no easy answer. Our prisons are filled with drug victims and I would not want to promote that we let them out of prison and then encourage them to overdose on legalized drugs. I know that we can not stop people from doing what they will do, one way or the other, legally or illegally. I just see what is not working… and what we are doing is not working.

I agree with you that our drug dependent society goes all the way into the doctor’s office. People demand the prescription medications that they see advertised on TV and some of the problems like “restless leg syndrome” were not even taught to me in my medical school curriculum, yet the industry that surrounds all of the restless legs out there is growing and growing and growing.

When I see patients in my hair transplant practice, I encourage the use of Tylenol, aspirin, and other non-narcotic medications to use after surgery and with the power of my suggestions, my patients seem to manage without heavy use of narcotics. Some of my patients call to ask for antibiotics when they sneeze, sniffle, or cough and I tell them that their body can handle the sneeze, sniffle, or cough without prescription antibiotics, as most of the sneezes, sniffles, or coughs are caused by allergies or viruses that will not respond to antibiotics. I try to be proactive.


2011-06-20 07:33:46Counterpoint to Dr Rassman’s War on Drugs Opinion

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Peyronies disease is a rare complication of Propecia (finasteride)

Merck’s controversial hair loss drug Propecia (generic: finasteride) has been linked to penile fibrosis, a serious sexual disorder which is also known as Peyronie’s disease. This condition can cause severe genital malformation, as well as persistent urological problems. Signs and symptoms of Propecia-induced penile fibrosis may include excessive curvature of the penis, pain during intercourse, erectile dysfunction, indentations in the penis, and genital shrinkage.

In the tens of thousands of prescriptions I have written, no one has ever presented with this condition to me, which to me means that this is a very rare side effect. The incidence of this problem in the general population is reported to be as common as 13%. I do not examine men with an erection so unless they reported this problem to me, I would not know if they had developed it on the drug. I mention this because it is my responsibility to post any such possibility that links the drugs I prescribe to conditions that it may produce.

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Crescina Hair Regrowth Formula

hello Dr Rassman,

i had a hair transplant surgery from a well recognized doctor before 7 months, without noticing very significant results.Maybe a very small change.i have been using that Crescina products for a few months for better penetration of the scalp.(the old skin fell over my scalp 2-3 months ago, after the surgery), and nowadays the skin of my scalp is clean. How long will it take for me to see good results, or shall i worry?please let me know, because i am a bit stressed.

Best Regards

It generally takes 7-8 months after a hair transplant to see enough hair length to show about 80% of the value. At about 12 months, 95% of the value of the hair transplants should be evident.

Regarding Crescina, while I am impressed by the slick product packaging and fancy animations on their site, none of the ingredients listed (including lysine, cysteine, silicon, zinc) blow me away. If its making your scalp feel cleaner and you’re not experiencing any irritation, you should continue doing as you please, but I wouldn’t look to this for hair regrowth.


2007-11-21 13:35:33Crescina Hair Regrowth Formula

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Cutting Generic Finasteride

Dr. Rassman,

Good info is provided in this blog, I want to ask you a question regarding a previous posters comment on Generic Finasteride. Your response to the blogger was to purchase Generic Finasteride at Cosco or Wallgreens instead of ordering generic Finasteride online. How is this possible when Merck was granted an extended patent until 2013 (See Wikipedia on Finasteride)?

Also do you think its safe cutting the 5mg into 4ths which will be 1.25mg approx? Thanks!

Generic Propecia (1mg finasteride) isn’t legally available in the US due to the U.S. and International patents held by Merck, but generic Proscar (5mg finasteride) is available in the US and that’s what I was referring to. When cutting the 5mg pill, you’ll likely have some crumbs, so it might be a little less than 1.25mg. Regardless, I don’t think it’ll be a problem. If you can cut it into 5 equal pieces, that would be ideal… but not practical and the dose clearly does not have to be exact (as discussed elsewhere on today’s posts).

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Platelet Infusion Stem Cell PRP In Hair Growth

Dr Joe Greco of Greco Med Group Florida claiming 80% success rate with infusing growth factors from ones own platelets into the scalp to regenerate hair. Really 80%? How can doctors make claims like this? Any safe treatment that had an 80% success rate would be duplicated all over the world wouldn’t it?

Anyone can claim anything. It may be true. I do not know. I cannot verify the claim personally. If these treatments do work, you are likely correct in stating that these treatments would be duplicated and offered all over the world – especially because it is such an easy and inexpensive thing to do. By that I mean, in essence, someone takes a vial of your blood and spins it down in a centrifuge to separate out the PRP (platelet rich plasma) from the red blood cells and injects it back to your body part (scalp).

I do know many doctors advertise Platelet Rich Plasma PRP therapy and discuss it in terms of regenerative therapy or stem cell therapy which definitely catches the attention of many consumers.

I also know that there are many articles and journals that publish positive results of these types of therapy but I have not found one that is truly a well designed research that has been replicated. What I mean by a well designed research, is called a Double Blind Randomized Control Study.

When reports come out that you get an 80% improvement, what does that mean? An improvement of what? If we get 90% of the hair to grow without it, does that mean that we can get 98% of the hair from a hair transplant to grow instead of 90% with it? There has never been a study done that shows value. We would have no objection to using PRP and may even do so one day, but as I believe that if a doctor needs to get an 80% improvement of their results by using PRP, then they have a problem in their technique and I would doubt that PRP would help them solve such a deficiency. I have seen doctors inject PRP into the scalp of balding men and women, but they do not do this as a charity, they charge for it, and charge they do. If we start injecting PRP which would be a push, we would not charge for it unless we demonstrated real value.