Category: Uncategorized

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I Want My Head to Always Have a 5 O’Clock Shadow of Hair

Heres one for you: I wouldnt mind a shaved head if the shadow of existing thick hair wasnt so obvious around the donor areas. It’s like the top is your normal face color, and the donor areas white with potential hair. The shadow where hair grows is just so noticeable. My question is: is there a procedure where you can have implanted just tiny hairs as in a shadow over your balding? So it looks like you only shave your head?

I suppose you can tattoo your bald area, but that’s not the recommended route. I have seen it done in a few patients with reasonable results, but they have done this because of some deforming surgery they had from older hair transplant techniques many years earlier. Alternatively, you can air spray the balding area to develop a subtle shadow. If you’re looking to transplant a “5 o’clock shadow” look to your head (like the facial hair style that became popular in the 1980s), it’s really not going to be possible without having visible scarring to some degree (even if minor from FUE) in the donor area.

In other words, to answer your question — no.


2008-02-20 11:19:29I Want My Head to Always Have a 5 O’Clock Shadow of Hair

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I Want to Start Finasteride (I’m 22) and Am Worried About My Beard Growth

My colleague Dr. Robert Bernstein states: “As you suggest, it would be reasonable to assume that since DHT stimulates beard growth, blocking DHT (with finasteride) would tend to inhibit its growth. In practice, this does not seem to be the case, i.e. we don’t find that Propecia has any effect on facial hair. The reason is not clear.”

I have not seen this complaint in young men either, just as stated by Dr. Bernstein.

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I Was Born with a Bald Spot and Want to Cure It

I’m 34 yrs. old and I was born with a scar on my head I had surgery and as I grew older it turn into a bald spot and hair never grew. Is there any cure for any type of bald spots?

Surgery would probably be your only solution. There’s no cure for bald spots or hair loss, and if you never had hair in this spot you likely won’t get it to regrow from medication use.

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I Was Told to Oil My Scalp Despite Already It Already Being Greasy

I am a 30 year old male with some hair loss problems. I have been suffering from seborrheic dermatitis for about 2 years. My scalp is naturally quite oily due to this problem. I recently went to a trichologist and he suggested that oiling scalp is a must, no matter how oily the scalp is. My questions are

1. Is it good for me to oil my hair despite greasy scalp? Would it not aggravate seborrheic dermatitis?
2. Trichologist recommends washing scalp daily with a shampoo containing saw palmetto extracts. Do you recommend daily washing?
3. Can I resort to options like Finasteride? Minoxidil again would probably aggravate seborrheic dermatitis?

Thank you ..

I think that the trichologist should be the one to speak with for questions #1 and #2. I don’t know why those recommendations were made. Finasteride and/or minoxidil will not help your seborrheic dermatitis.

If you have hair loss issues and want and medical treatment or assessment, you should see a physician. From a medical point of view, oily hair or scalp does not cause genetic balding and shampoos (even with saw palmetto) do not treat genetic balding.

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If Facial Hair Loss is Not MPB, What Is It?

You said in en earlier archive, “You can have very high levels of DHT, but as long as your hair is not sensitive to DHT, Propecia will have little effect on the normal hairs.” My question is what causes hairs to thin where its not male pattern like a mustache, sideburns or a beard. Both my doctor and dermatologist, prescribed for me to take propecia or Rogaine but I haven’t any signs of male pattern baldness. The hairs on my mustache have become very thin, brown and a little white. 4 years ago the hairs were denser and black. I am a 26 year old male with African/Caucasian decent.

You are correct that MPB and DHT do not impact the facial hair. We see changes with age in many people, although you are young for thinning of facial hair. At this point, I do not have the answer to your problem. I would love to examine your beard and measure the thickness of different hairs from different parts of the face. That would give me more insights into your problem.

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If I Lose Weight, Would My Hair Regrow?

Hi Doctor,

I was wondering if hair grows back if a person were to lose a significant amount of weight? Many sources on the Internet (I know not very reliable source of information) shows that losing weight may help regrow hair.

Currently, I am a male (29) at 300lbs and was wondering if I were to hit about 230lbs… would any hair come back?

Do levels of hormones balance out or is the body under less stress without all the weight?

Please Help

Good nutrition and medically supervised weight loss is the best way for you to control your risk of losing hair. Crash dieting can cause hair loss.

I do not believe that your hair will regrow when you lose weight and the stress that goes with it. Most male hair loss isn’t caused by stress, but by genetics, though stress could cause your genetics to kickstart the hair loss earlier than you would’ve otherwise had it begin.

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If I Switch from Propecia to Avodart…

Hi. I have been using propecia for 8 or 9 years with great success but in the last few months I’ve really noticed loss. This happened a few years ago and the hair seemed to come back after a while . I have read a little on cyclical shedding while on propecia and rogaine. Do you think it happens? I have also been under a ton of stress too. I am considering trying avodart now after reading some people are having success with it after propecia. How does one go about switching meds? I’m worried if I stop propecia and start avodart I might shed more. Also I had no adverse side effects with propecia, am I at greater risk with avodart?

Thanks

ps I love this site, it’s too funny… you have a great sense of humor.. well done

Robo-RassmanYou need to speak to your doctor before starting or stopping any medication. So first have this discussion with the doctor that has been prescribing you Propecia. I hate the idea that people are taking my words and using that as if is is a substitution for their physician, so please consider this a disclaimer (there’s one on every page anyway). That’s a general statement and not directed squarely at you. Remember — I’m not a substitute for your doctor, unless I am indeed your doctor, in which case cyber-Rassman is likely as good as in-person-Rassman.

Moving along — Avodart (dutasteride) is not yet FDA approved for treating hair loss, so doctors that prescribe it for that use are doing so off-label. We’re all waiting with baited breath for clinical trial results, but regardless of whether the benefits are better than those of Propecia (finasteride), I’m concerned over the safety of dutasteride since the serum half-life is measured in weeks, as opposed to hours with finasteride. In other words, dutasteride stays in your system for a long time. They are different drugs, of course, so if you had no side effects with Propecia it doesn’t automatically rule you out for side effects with Avodart. There is just no magic drug that will solve your problem. I suspect Propecia is still working for you and your doctor may increase the dosage of finasteride to handle the problem, as it may show more improvement. It is just that you can’t cheat nature and the gradual process of balding may not be stopped forever.

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If My Father Lost All His Hair, Am I Wasting Time Trying to Prevent My Hair Loss?

I have slight frontal balding and some thinning at the top of my head. I have no blad spot yet but its getting close to that. I am 28, my dad was completely bald on top, a stage 7 I guess. I have been using Propecia for 3 weeks.

I have 3 questions,

  1. Is Nisim or Nizoral any help to my hair loss?
  2. Seeing my father lost almost all of his hair on top am I wasting my time trying to prevent my hair loss.
  3. Do you know of any good hair loss doctors in the Tampa, Florida area.

Thanks in advance.

If you are 28 years old and are not completely bald as your father almost certainly was, then you will probably not be following his pattern. All Class 7 men have lost most of their hair before they were 28 and if you have no bald spot now, I would doubt that you would in the Class 7 hair loss pattern. If you get your hair mapped out for miniaturization you might be able to tell where you will be losing more hair, possibly even when (short term vs long term). See an expert and find out for yourself.

The answers to your questions are as follows:

  1. I’ve said it before, but, “Nizoral is a good shampoo. I do not believe it is necessarily good at regrowing hair. There is not enough scientific data to support hair growth claims.” As for Nisim, they make yet another herbal product that is not proven by the FDA to work. As regular readers of this site should know, I do not recommend products that aren’t FDA approved for treating hair loss. You can try it if you want. They say they offer a guarantee, but I’ll leave that up to you. Buyer beware.
  2. The choice for you is to be proactive or not. I think that you are not going to follow your father’s pattern, considering you said he was a class 7 by the time he was your age.
  3. I usually do not supply referrals for transplant docs, but you can check ISHRS.org‘s physician search to find one in your area. Be sure to use the internet to research the doctor you chose.


2007-05-01 17:39:35If My Father Lost All His Hair, Am I Wasting Time Trying to Prevent My Hair Loss?

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If There’s No Growth a Year After My Hair Transplant, Should I Just Get Another One?

sir,

i would like to know that if hair don’t grow as expected after 1 year of transplantation then what should we do? can we go for 2nd surgery? what could be reason for that?some white marks are still there. how can i get rid of them? is it possible that after transplantaion some hair root was not fixed properly? i removed some of them on 4th day. could it be reason? plz help me.

FailHair transplantation that failed is a subject you should discuss with the doctor who performed it. This doctor should give you a reasonable opinion as to why the failure occurred. When a hair transplant is unsuccessful, it is almost always caused by technical failures of the surgeon and his team. On rare occasions, the patient can have some disease like alopecia areata, but that should be evident to any educated doctor (which means the surgery is unnecessary and should not be done). As for removing grafts, perhaps you just got rid of scabs. I don’t know.

If your doctor does not give you a logical explanation, go get a second opinion and certainly do not go back to the doctor whose failed transplant was not a good experience. Why would you consider going back to the surgeon that has wronged you? You have a limited amount of donor hair, not to mention the value of your time, money, and confidence.

Here are some recent posts we’ve made about hair transplant failures that you might find interesting:

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I’m 16 With Early Hair Loss, I Wash My Hair Twice Daily, and I Train Mixed Martial Arts

I am 16 years old and I think I am starting to show signs of male pattern baldness. I noticed a few weeks ago that the hair on the crown area and top of my head was thinning, but I haven’t noticed any major signs of a receding hairline. I started researching and found that hair loss can be genetic. So I asked my grandfather on my mother’s side when he began to lose hair and he informed me that he started noticing hair loss when he was 18.

Another thing I found while researching was that amount of exercise can be linked to hair loss. Which, if true, can be linked to my hair thinning because I was training in MMA fighting for about two months but recently stopped and suddenly didn’t do any exercise at all. As soon as I stopped training is when I began to notice that my hair was thinning.

Also, I am experiencing slight itching and tingling in the crown area of my head. Another thing is that I do shower and wash my hair, on average, two times a day. I was surprised when I noticed my hair was thinning because I grow hair on almost every other part of my body except for my back. I have already set an appointment with my dermatologist, but it won’t be for another few weeks.

I was wondering in the meantime if it would be a good decision to start using a thickening shampoo and take vitamins. So if there are any suggestions that you can provide I would greatly appreciate it.

Genetic hair loss in men can generally start with the onset of puberty. The hair loss seen after your MMA training could’ve been coincidental, and body hair growth is unrelated to scalp hair loss. I’ve read online chatter that exercise / weight training and hair loss are linked, but I’ve not seen that to be the case.

There is no stopping or reversing a genetic predisposition forever. Hair thickening shampoos and vitamins are not cures, but may make your hair feel thicker. If you are worried about hair loss, you may want an objective examination and diagnosis before starting on an expensive journey of investing in shampoos and supplements. At 16 years old, you should also get a parent involved.