Category: Uncategorized

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Flying in a Small Plane After a Hair Transplant

Dear Dr!
First, excuse my “not so good” English as I am not native English speaking. I had a FUE (1500 grafts) hair transplant done 3 weeks ago. Today, I joined a short flight (half an hour) with a small (2 seats) air-screw-plane with my brother in law who is an enthusiastic hobby-pilot.

i know that there is no problem to fly with a regular (big) commercial airplane. but these planes have cabins with controlled air pressure and so on. what about these small planes where there is no hermetic cabin and no controlled air pressure? we were flying as high as 3000 meters and during the descent i experienced some headache behind my front (the space right above my eyebrows). now I am worried that the change of air pressure during the flight only 3 weeks after the

transplant could have damaged my grafts due to changes of the vasculature. are these worries without any reason or not? I am very concerned about this.

Thank you very much for your answer. kind regards.

Hair transplants should be considered fully healed by the third week after the procedure, which means that nothing that you would reasonably do can negatively impact the growth of the grafts… even flying, as you have described.

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Suggest Remedies for My Hair Loss

I have been losing my hair strands for the past two years. I have also tried hair lotions like ervamatin and indulekha, but the result is NIL. Please suggest me some remedies. As far as I know my family does not have any history of hair loss.

I can’t suggest remedies if I don’t know the cause of your loss. It could be genetics, it could be stress, it could be medication related, it could be allergy, etc. You need to see a doctor to determine the reason for your hair loss. Once you know why, you can look into treating it.

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Foltene

In the local pharmacies in the UAE a hair-loss treatment product by the name of Foltene is readily available. What are your thoughts on it’s components and do they hold any merit on it’s effectiveness? foltene.eu

I haven’t heard of Foltene before, but I checked out the site. The ingredients are a bunch of vitamins and something they are calling “Tricosaccaride”, which according to information I can only find on their company site, is something that they discovered in the 60s. Common sense time — If this really worked as claimed, don’t you think in the past 40+ years it would’ve been a little more well known? The vitamins in the ingredients will nourish the hair, but I have no idea how they can assume that means it’ll regrow hair. Looking a little further into what Tricosaccaride is, it seems like it is an acid that helps with blood circulation to the scalp. The idea of poor circulation leading to hair loss is false. See here for more on that.

The product claims to change the number of hairs in the anagen (growth) and telogen (sleep) phases. In other words, it claims to be able to tweak the cycling of your hair growth. Hair cycle is something that is controlled below the skin (genetics) and not above the skin… so a topical treatment that can do as they claim just doesn’t make sense.

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Surgical Complications in Hair Transplantation

Surgical Complications in Hair Transplantation: A series of 533 Procedures

Background

Surgical complications in hair transplantation can sometimes be a serious matter. Most of the published literature on this issue deals with individual case reports rather than larger series of patients.

Objective

The authors analyze complications in 425 consecutive patients undergoing 533 hair transplantations.

Methods

Patients with androgenetic alopecia (407 men and 17 women), cicatricial alopecia (9 men and 8 women), and malformations (1 man and 3 women) with a mean age of 36.9 years (standard deviation, 10.4 yrs) underwent hair transplantation between 1995 and 2006 and were followed up postoperatively for at least 1 year. Data on surgical complications were retrospectively analyzed.

Results

The overall complication rate in our series was 4.7%, including enlarged scar (1.2%), folliculitis (1.0%), necrosis in the donor area (0.8%), keloids (0.4%), bleeding (0.2%), hiccups (0.2%), infection (0.2%), and pyogenic granuloma (0.2%). The frequency of enlarged scar increased proportionally according to the number of surgical procedures.

Conclusions

The hair transplantation complication rate in this series was 4.7%. Good communication between patient and surgeon, a complete clinical and laboratory assessment of the patient, accurate surgical technique, specific equipment, a trained surgical team, and careful postoperative attention to the patient are crucial for successful hair transplantation and for decreasing complication rates.)

DISCLOSURES
The authors have no disclosures with respect to the contents of this article.
Reprint requests: Sandro Salanitri, MD, Santa Casa São Paulo, Rua Cesário Motta Júnior, 112– Vila Buarque, São Paulo, SP 01221-020, Brazil
1
Dr. Salanitri is from the Department of Surgery
2
Dr. Gonçalves is Chief, Head and Neck Surgery Division, Department of Surgery
3
Dr. Helene is Chief, Plastic Surgery Division, Department of Surgery.
4
Ms. Lopes is a medical student at Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
5
Drs. Salanitri and Helene are members of the Brazilian Society of Plastic Surgery.

Copyright © 2009 American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Inc. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

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Frightened to take Finasteride

hey dr. wrassman, i know there’s probably no chance you respond, but i wanted to just look for advice.

i’m 19 years old, about to turn 20 in january. my hair has been thinning and i’ve been a diffuse thinner for years, so the thinning is making it slightly worse as time goes on. i want to take finasteride so badly but the side effects scare me. i know they’re present in about 4% of men, but the recent reveal about merck lying about their side effects claim freaked me out as well. would you mind helping me calm down and explaining everything to me?

Most of the guys who take finasteride think that they are just taking their daily vitamins. That is my experience as I take it now and my son’s experience as well. This is completely your decision. If you don’t talk yourself into side effects, then if you get them you can just stop taking it. I don’t believe that PFS ever appeared in a normal person taking finasteride for a short time and then stopping it.


2020-07-16 07:18:29Frightened to take Finasteride

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Switching minoxidil from twice a day to once a day, is this a problem?

I recently switched to once a day from two because of some reasons. After that I saw heavy hairfall on my head and made me anxious. I used to head bath daily in the morning and I didn’t do shower from the day i switched to once a day of minoxidil.Is the sudden hairfall because of change of minoxidil application or any other possible reasons.

I tell my patients that once a day minoxidil is fine if you put it on at night after a hot shower and leave it on all night so switching twice a day to once a day with this routine should not be a problem


2019-02-12 06:48:50Switching minoxidil from twice a day to once a day, is this a problem?

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Are my FUE donor wounds infected (photo)?

Yes, it appears that there are many pimples and the area looks red. This could be buried grafts from the FUE, especially if has been done recently (past month or so). Go back and see your surgeon as many of these may need drainage and certainly antibiotics

infected FUE site

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Is taking 1/2 of a finasteride pill as good as taking one pill every other day?

Skipping a dose of finasteride (e.g. one pill every other day) is as effective as taking 1/2 of a pill every day because even though the blood half life is under 6 hours, the tissue fixation life is about 1 week. That means that it sticks to the hair follicle growth center for 1 week after taking the medication.


2017-01-05 11:13:30Is taking 1/2 of a finasteride pill as good as taking one pill every other day?

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I Had an FUE and Now Have Scars in the Back of My Head (photo)

The FUE procedure depletes the donor area and can produce such scars as shown in your photo. If you let your hair grow out, the scars will be covered by the long hair. If you want to treat it, you can get Scalp Micropigmentation, which is very effective to mask these scars.


2018-04-18 08:09:12I Had an FUE and Now Have Scars in the Back of My Head (photo)

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Taking Finasteride After a Hysterectomy?

Is it safe for a 50 year old woman that has no uterus to take Finasteride for hair loss

Yes. Finasteride is often tried in post-menopausal women, but the results are a mixed bag and the drug will not reliably return more hair to the thinning areas. There is an androgen sensitivity test for women by HairDX that could help determine if you’ll see possible benefits from the medication. Read more about that here.

Finasteride is a prescription drug, so you should discuss this further with your doctor.