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Statistics on FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) / FOX Negative Patients

What are the statistics of FOX test negative patients ? Is any ethnicity ,age , hair color or hair character more prone to be more FOX negative ?

Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) when it was popularized in 2002 at the ISHRS meeting (Follicular Unit Extraction: Minimally Invasive Surgery for Hair Transplantation) did not have a popularized name. We thought FUE (“foo-yee”) was not a very sexy name. Thus we called it FOX (FOllicular unit eXtraction). We identified many patients where FUE or FOX techniques did not work. We published the problem in 2004 with “FUE Megasessions – Evolution of a Technique“.

Over the last 10+ years many doctors have (and continue) to improve the FUE method but the FOX negative patients still remain a challenge. Some (patients) are not the best candidate for the FUE method of donor hair extraction with a high percentage of transection. This is true with even the new ARTAS (robot FUE). Techniques and instruments may improve but the patients are still FUE-negative where their transection rate is too high.

There is no firm data or statistics we keep. There is also no collective data of information by doctors in the hair transplant field. In fact, many would say they don’t really have FOX negative patients for the sake of their reputation and marketing.

In my private practice, our techniques have improved and we have our own proprietary instruments. We also have the ARTAS system. There are still FOX negative patients and we still do the FUE/ FOX test to screen patients before surgery.

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Steroids with Proscar

Hey guys, so I’m 24 and NW 2. I just started Proscar about 2 weeks ago. No sides as of yet! (I know this is a popular question) I want to ask about using steroids with Proscar. I’ve stayed away from steroids since I know I’m vulnerable to balding. Now that I’m taking Proscar, will I be able to without worrying about the balding?

Adding steroids with Proscar will cause hair loss. Not a good idea.


2018-06-22 10:34:51Steroids with Proscar

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Finasteride plus minoxidil added value (photos)

This man was on finasteride for 5 years, then added topical minoxidil 1 year ago when the before picture was taken. He switched to oral minoxidil 6 months ago. The addition of the oral minoxidil took a stable but receded hairline and corrected the recession in just one year.

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I Stopped Rogaine and Lost My Hair (Photo)

I used Rogaine for 1 year. I thought it wasn’t helping and my shed picked back up 8 months in. I quit Rogaine this last December and about the last month have had huge shed. Sometimes 300-400 hairs. I am a 45-year-old female with FPHL. Should I go back on Rogaine? Will that decrease shed, and can I take Fin as I have had a hysterectomy? My temples and sides are the worst – losing density.

Going back on Rogaine may return the hair, and it may not. A Hair transplant is a reasonable option that will absolutely put the hair back where it was lost.


2018-05-22 10:08:05I Stopped Rogaine and Lost My Hair (Photo)

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My finasteride story for the past 6 years

I read a lot in forums that if loses its effectiveness after 10 years. I’ve been on the drug since I was 19 at the first signs of miniaturizing. I may have confused the miniaturizing with a mature hairline. I’ve now been on the drug for 6 years and I’ve kept exactly everything I ever had, I had a Norwood 1 with small amount of thinning.

Maybe you were never balding and misjudged your situation. If I were to have seen you years ago, I would have done a HAIRCHECK test and if I didn’t detect hair loss with this accurate instrument, I would never have prescribed the drug to you.

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Finding a Doctor to Prescribe Proscar for Hair Loss

I have a two part question. First, If a person is experiencing hair loss who would you advise them to go see first, a dermatologist or a hair specialist? My other question is about Proscar. I know that some dermatologists as well as other doctors prescribe Proscar to treat men with male pattern baldness even though it is only FDA approved for BPH. I am thinking about taking Proscar instead of Propecia due to the difference in cost and am just wondering if finding a dermatologist that would prescribe Proscar to someone who is 21 years old be akin to trying to find a needle in a haystack

Your first stop for hair loss is best done at a dermatologist’s office provided that he/she shows an interest in this type of problem. Your caring family doctor also works and throughout the US there are many hair transplant doctors who are skilled in diagnosis. I routinely prescribe generic Proscar (5mg finasteride) and instruct the patient to cut the pill into quarters.

I am in Los Angeles, not too far from where you indicated that you live, so I am not a needle in the haystack. I’ll point you now to my website for information, including phone number and address. Take a nice drive and pay me a visit.


2009-07-07 13:46:21Finding a Doctor to Prescribe Proscar for Hair Loss

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Fixing Past Hair Transplant Mistakes (with Photos)

This is a patient who I just performed a corrective procedure on. There were many mistakes made here in the past with his other doctors and I wanted to share those problems with you. Knowledge is power, and I hope this will teach you what to look out for so you can prevent them from happening to you. So let’s jump right in…

The Problem

First, let’s take a look at the “Before” photos (click to enlarge):

 

  1. The patient had received around 3000 grafts total in three surgeries on the frontal hairline at another clinic.
  2. The hairline is harsh, without single hair grafts in front of the larger grafts. Plus, these were not follicular units, but the old type of minigrafts of 3-5 hairs each.
  3. The hairline was placed too low and too straight, creating an abnormal edge which made the transplants obvious to the patient.
  4. The surgeon made incisions in the scalp that were not kept in the same place, so the patient had two scars rather than one (see arrows in photo above). The second and third surgeries should have been performed at the same location as the first surgery. The location of the upper scar was too high as well, so transplanting into the upper scar made sense to me.

 

The Solution

Here are the “After” photos, taken just moments after the completion of his surgery (click to enlarge):

 

  1. I transplanted 1637 grafts total (1391 into the hairline and 246 into the upper scar in the donor area).
  2. I built a wide transition zone with only one-hair grafts to break up the leading edge of the hairline so that it would not look transplanted.
  3. I had to lower the hairline to get in front of the harsh hairline created by the other doctor. This brought the hairline almost back to its juvenile position, something that I rarely do, but was forced to in this situation.
  4. Those 246 grafts transplanted into the upper scar (see arrows in the photo above) should almost completely wipe out its visibility, so he’ll have one scar in the back of his head instead of two.

I find it amazing that this happened recently by a surgeon not far from my office who does a great number of such cases. If this patient had asked to meet some of that doctor’s patients, I am sure that this is the type of work he would’ve seen. People just don’t know or think to ask a doctor to meet with other patients ‘one-on-one’. There is no substitute for meeting patients directly and talking to them about their overall satisfaction. We offer an Open House every month to allow prospective patients the chance to meet up to a dozen of our patients who had surgery. A detectable hair transplant is not what you want and it is easy to see the quality of a doctor’s work by engaging with one-on-one patient interviews.