Category: Uncategorized

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Maturing Scalp?

Hi, im a 20 year old male and have noticed signs of either balding or a maturing hairline. my hair is fair and has always been fairly thin as it runs in my family on my mothers side, but it seems rather selective, she has 6 brothers and 2 of which are balding and started at my age.

my question is, can a maturing hairline include thinning all over the scalp, or only in the frontal areas? because the thinning i have noticed is also in the crown area.

If you are thinning in the crown, then you probably have more than just a maturing hairline. Frontal and crown thinning and recession is a sign of genetic patterned hair loss. Get your hair and scalp mapped out for miniaturization and you will know what is happening to you.


2007-01-31 10:35:50Maturing Scalp?

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Are Your Family Jewels Getting older?

As men get older, the risk of producing children with a variety of defects rises e.g. Autism, Schizophrenia. Although this risk doubles, it is still very small (in the order of 1 percent rather that 0.5 percent). To balance this negative, men over 40 are likely to produce children with larger brains. Having older parents may also be beneficial as the maturity of older men may provide children with a more stable home environment. Also, the sperm of older men may have mutations and may possibly play a role in the evolution of our big brains. We have also recognized that children with autism have bigger brains, suggesting greater processing power. But autism has significant defects in using this greater power with a significant decrease in social skills.

This article was taken from a feature article in New Scientist Magazine, written by its editor Michael LePage.

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Meet Jenny (Video)

This is the first video of a new showcase of interviews with everyday people (both men and women) about their experiences with thinning hair — whether just noticing random people, family members, or even losing hair themselves. Based on the response I get, more of these style videos will be added to the site. Please feel free to post a comment or email me privately with your thoughts about these.

So please meet Jenny. She’s in her mid-20s, born and raised in Southern California. These are her opinions.


2006-06-12 20:16:59Meet Jenny (Video)

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Artificial Hair Implanted with Lasers?

Dear Doctor.

I lost 50% of my hair and I found in Lebanon a place called Advanced Hair Studio Center. They make fiber hair and stick it by using Laser. As I know before this is banned in Europe, did you have any advice for me to do it? If yes please advise me if 3000 pcs is enough to cover 40 square centimeter?

If the fibers are being put into the skin, you will almost certainly run into rejection and infection issues. Artificial hair is dangerous and banned in most countries.


2006-07-31 08:51:51Artificial Hair Implanted with Lasers?

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Men’s Health Magazine Warns About Propecia?

Okay, so let’s face it, hair loss sucks, hair loss does make a man less attractive by a noticiable amount. There’s no avoiding it. Propecia is an effective medication at stopping hair loss and regrowing hair. Is it really safe though? I have my doubts. One could say that anti propecia blogs are full of men who had problems in the first place and that most normal men wouldn’t be on these blogs in the first place. But the other day, I stumbled upon this article written by none other then Men’s Health magazine. Here is the link.

The full article is not available online but the first page does a good job of describing what the article will talk about. Now Men’s Health is no subtle underground publication it is read by millions of men. I’m no doctor but when you block DHT by using Finasteride which also happens to alter how your endocrine system functions, things probably won’t go well, hormones are emotional regulators and DHT is a powerful male androgen. Obviously hair loss is slighty devestating at worse and dissapointing at best but is it worth sucking out the life of an increasing number of men just for hair? Men want hair to appear as if they are full of life and virility so isn’t it ironic that propecia kills that motivation for many men?

The basis for the article in Men’s Health seems to be the tale of a guy with side effects from Propecia. Then it references a study that says sexual side effects occurred in men 45 to 78 years old when taking 5mg of finasteride (to treat their prostate problems). That is 5 times the dose for treating hair loss, and the prostate problems themselves can lead to libido issues without any medication involved. The article fails to mention that.

The rest of the article is a story about a man named “Charles K”. There isn’t much science here, but rather, a story about an unknown man.

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At 111, he had hair (photo)

The oldest man in the world, 111-year-old Bob Weighton. A genetic freak for aging and hair. Just look at that density!

My maternal grandfather died at 102 and he had more hair than Bob Weighton because he never lost his juvenile hairline (like Bill Clinton). The other pictures is his birthday cake, but just three candles?

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Microdosing Finasteride, from Reddit

The following is from a Reddit post. The graph is very interesting. I asked for the references from the poster for scientific clarity:

BACKGROUND: Many of you will be familiar with this old graph showing DHT inhibition from various microdoses of finasteride. You may even be using that data to help you choose which microdose of finasteride to take in an attempt at minimizing the chance of side effects. Turns out it was derived from the study: “Clinical dose ranging studies with finasteride, a type 2 5cz-reductase inhibitor, in men with male pattern hair loss”. However, as far as I can see, the graph isn’t actually displayed in the original study. Someone created the graph from just the numbers that the study reported.

Anyway, the home-brew graph contains a number of limitations, so I’ve improved upon it in the following ways:

    • Instead of using just one study, mine uses three, one of which is topical. That’s all of the range dosing studies as far as I know! They are colour coded everywhere in the image for clarity. The old graph is represented in my new graph as the red solid (not dotted) curve.

    • The graph display range has been adjusted from 0-5mg to 0-1mg. This helps make it a lot easier to see the much smaller microdoses, even around 0.05mg.

    • I give the ORIGINAL data points (as shown by the diamond/circle/X points and x/y labels). Needless to say, everything else is derived and only an approximation, so should be treated with caution!

    • Accuracy is better in the new one. The old one has a figure of 25% DHT inhibition for 1/16th mg dosage. I think the true figure is more like 37% as shown in the new graph.

    • I also give (where applicable) the DHT percentage reduced not just in the serum, but also the scalp, and also show a curve reporting the number of hairs grown back (or lost) – see the dashed red curve.

    • Finally, the studies I used are listed, and I stated the number of days / months before a DHT measurement is taken.

As more microdosing studies come in (topical or oral), I look forward to updating the graph further. Here’s the new graph again: https://archive.is/OGDk3

 

 

Click to enlarge


2020-12-04 08:42:43Microdosing Finasteride, from Reddit

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Avodart and Mixing Shampoos

Hello Dr. Rassman.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I also wanted to ask you about going on Avodart (Dutasteride) or it’s Generic Dutagen. I have been on Propecia since 1999, and I think it is no longer working. I read Merck’s official report on Propecia’s 5 year efficacy, and it looks like after 5 years Propecia stops growing any hair at all, and it’s ability to keep hair is weakened. Dutasteride appears to block 93% of DHT production, where Propecia can only block 38-45% DHT. Can I get a prescription form you or Dr. McClellan? I am noticing that my “own” non-transplanted hair is thinning, and hopefully the Dutasteride or it’s generic version can stop any more loss.

Also, I am using Nizoral shampoo (Ketoconazole) 2 times a week, and Head and Shoulders shampoo (Pyrithione Zinc) on the other days. Is it safe to mix the Ketoconazole and P. Zinc? A friend told me that the P. Zinc can cause miniaturization of the hair follicle, and mixing the 2 shampoos can have disastrous results. Then on the the other hand, many people on online hair loss forums are saying it is fine to mix the two shampoos. Only using Nizoral 2x a week does not stop my newly acquired incessant itching. It would be great if I knew it was safe to use Ketoconazole and P.Zinc.

Thank you so much for you time, I’m sure you hear all these worries all of the time. Now that I see my new hair sprouting, I want to keep it growing, and keep or grow more of my own.

Here is a link to some of my other posts with my comments on Avodart. I will make a decision with regards to prescribing Avodart in early September, after I return from the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery meetings in Sydney, Australia.

With regard to the various questions you had concerning the shampoos you mentioned, I really do not know the answer, as many people respond differently to each. Experiment with each and when you find something working, then stick to it. Mixing shampoos should not be a problem.

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Bad Surgical Planning (Photos)

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, clearly that is the case here. The surgeon’s plan was faulty from the start, transplanting only the first 2 inches of the hairline from an FUE harvest and leaving the area behind it bald. After 8 months, the plan nevertheless failed, because the grafts failed to grow. If the surgery would have succeeded, this poor man would have a bald patch between the transplants and the hair behind it. What the surgeon should have done was either spread out the recipient grafts to cover the entire frontal area that was devoid of hair producing a thinner look, or he should have increased the number of FUE grafts transplanted into the front and top. No person should be left looking like a half finished hair transplant job as this man would have looked like had the surgery succeeded. His doctor was clearly more oblivious to the realities of the transplant technique than this patient believed. Now he has lost about 2000 of his donor follicular units forever (possibly 1/3rd of his supply), and has a failed transplant in the front that he has to live with.


2018-12-18 10:09:22Bad Surgical Planning (Photos)