2019-12-12 04:27:582019-06-22 09:28:17One year on Finasteride (photos)
Climate, Water, and Finasteride
Hi Doc,
im 19,and I have been having good hair in my home country,since i have moved in dubai,i have been noticing my hair thinning and falling.Is the climate to blame or the water?
I’ve been thinking to take some nutritional tablets like Wellman’s Tricologic, But i guess propecia would me more effective. Would it be ok to take proscar 5mg and break it into 4 pieces as suggested by you. Will it cause any side effects.
Thank you so much for your concern
Proscar/Propecia is a prescription medication. I can’t say whether you’re a candidate for taking it. That is up to a doctor to decide after you are examined.
Climate and water shouldn’t be to blame, but I don’t know what is in the water. Mercury or lead from old pipes could contaminate water, for example. Chances are, your move is coincidental to the start of your genetic hair loss, as genetics are the number one cause of hair loss in men. But again, I can’t make that call without an examination. See a doctor!
2010-09-03 10:46:592010-09-01 17:29:31Climate, Water, and Finasteride
Oral Minoxidil has a rare cardiac risk on a very low dose of 0.25mg/day
A recent report out of South Africa showed a healthy woman placed on 0.25mgs of oral minoxidil developed cardiac and other systemic swelling. This situation could have been life threatening, but it was picked up early and the medication was stopped. The problems went away.
Up until this point in time, I, like most of my colleagues believed that dosing oral minoxidil of 2.5 mgs/day or lower did not expose the risk of cardiac complications. This is the first such reported case of what may be thousands of people, but this post is here to let you know if you are on oral minoxidil that this is a risk.
Of significance, this patient had signs of a problem with swelling of the legs, hands and face and her doctor was quick to discontinue the drug with reversal of all side effects , so if you get swelling of your hand, feet face, speak with your doctor and consider stopping the minoxidil.
Comb-over No More (From WSJ today)
Over-Harvested donor area from FUE surgery shows even with long hair to cover it (photos)
Both of these young men had too many FUE grafts taken from their donor area and now, even with long hair, have what appears to be balding in the back of the head. Longer hair will help, but Scalp Micropigmentation (https://scalpmicropigmentation.com/scar-covering/) usually solves the appearance but doesn’t replace the missing hair in the donor area.
2020-02-17 04:00:052019-07-17 15:22:56Over-Harvested donor area from FUE surgery shows even with long hair to cover it (photos)
Common Age for Female Hair Loss to Start?
Hi Dr. Rassman,
Searching the internet and various websites I always seem to hear/read about women who have severe diffuse hair loss and have developed female pattern baldness when they are around 20-years-old. Is this very common? Some information I’ve come across says it’s very very common while other says it rarely happens. Do you have any statistics on it?
I am not aware of statistics, but from my experience, women often follow the females in the family that have genetic balding in the time of onset and the pattern. There is a strong one-to-one link between mother and daughter in this condition and it is not infrequent to see it in your mother’s mother or aunts. Female genetic hair loss is not common in very young women, but in each decade, the frequency rises until menopause when almost 50% of women experience the problem. We see hair loss after pregnancy in many of these women as well.
Hair Loss InformationHair Cloning, Revisited – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog
It has been about six weeks since I’ve posted an entry about hair cloning, but I’ll revist the topic again because I get quite a few requests for information. People generally want to believe that cloning is just around the corner.
Why can’t we clone hair, since scientists can clone a sheep? When can we expect to get a cloning treatment and how will it be done?
When it comes to cloning, hair follicles are in a tough spot. They are too complex to be simply cultured because follicles are not whole organisms like Dolly the sheep. The focus of cloning for hair is to move cells that can stimulate growth from a normal hair follicle, to an abnormal (genetically impaired) hair follicle. Although this is not actually cloning, the growth stimulating cells from the normal hair follicle can potentially be multiplied in a Petri dish and then moved to the area of genetically impaired hair. Some of these cells are capable of turning themselves into hair, bone or muscles and this has been shown in what I will call ‘uncontrolled experiments’. Because people who are balding always have some non-genetically impaired normal hair, we do not need a person to person transfer.
There are problems that are yet to be solved. The primary problem is to identify which cells are to be moved. Other problems are once the cells have been identified. We must ask, “Can we successfully create enough of these cells to work with, and is there certainty that the cells that are created and moved will maintain their capability to stimulate growth in the genetically impaired hair follicles?” It is anticipated that whatever process we come up with, there will be a type of medical ‘soup’ which the doctors will inject into the genetically balding areas of the scalp. When they are injected into the balding scalp, they must consistently be able to stimulate hair growth. Unfortunately, the success of this entire process has been relatively low so far. There have been some successes, but these have not been replicable, suggesting that we do not have control of the process. We also have to be 100% sure that this process is safe. Do we know that these cells will not produce a cancer or other problem? Safety and effectiveness is critical for any FDA approval and it will take years for this to be worked out. Don’t hold your breath, no matter what you hear!
For more information, Dr. Bernstein wrote an article about hair cloning in our 2004 NHI Newsletter, available here. Adobe Reader is required to view the file.
To read more newsletters, medical publications, and the PDF version of The Patient’s Guide to Hair Restoration, please see the NHI Medical Publications page.
Concerns About NeoGraft
Just after I published a post about the NeoGraft tool, a phenomenon began occurring in the community. I’ve been seeing an increasing number of press releases that get brought to my attention from readers and from Google Alerts, announcing that some doctor with no experience in the art of hair restoration is now the first in his area to offer hair transplant surgery using this new NeoGraft tool. It could just be due to the marketing efforts of the makers of NeoGraft or it could be doctors following other doctors in issuing these press releases (and also the machine being shown on the Rachael Ray show)… but some of these physicians often have no real training, and this machine offers them another source of revenue with the ability to do what we have been doing manually.
Michael Oakes, president of NeoGraft Resource Group (makers of NeoGraft), even brags about the ability to sell the tool to doctors that have no prior experience performing hair transplants. In his Plaxo.com public profile, Oakes writes that the NeoGraft machine “opens up opportunity for non transplant physicains [sic] to add to there [sic] exsisting [sic] practice.” This is quite alarming to me!
I am writing this as a warning for those who are considering a NeoGraft transplant. Some additional comments that Dr. Robert Bernstein made on his site about the risks of the NeoGraft tool suggest real problems that will, almost certainly, produce failures of the transplant. I have seen one such failure recently from an experienced surgeon who used it. If you’re still considering having surgery with this tool, just be sure to check out the technology and the doctor who is performing it. Ask about the physician’s training and also ask to meet some patients who have had successful hair transplants with this tool. The proof is in the pudding.
2010-03-16 15:32:112010-03-16 15:23:48Concerns About NeoGraft
Taking Propecia While Trying to Have a Baby – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman
I have been taking Propecia for about 8 years. My wife and I are anxious to have another child. I completely stopped taking Propecia for about 5 months when my wife and I started trying to have our first child two years ago as I was afraid of side affects. He is perfectly healthy. Was that necessary or advisable? Should I stop taking it while we try to conceive again? Thank you.
There are many answers to this question depending upon the doctor and his interest in practicing and giving advice on what could be sensitive medical legal issues which are at time at odds with what is in your best interests. Very little, if any, Propecia comes from the sperm into the woman’s womb. Merck (the manufacturer of Propecia) does not warn men wishing to have children to stop taking the medications for your situation. That, in itself, tells much of the answer to your question. Some doctors, however, tell their patients if they are worried to do the following:
- stop taking the Propecia during the one week that fertility is present or stop it through the entire period from conception to the delivery of the baby
- use a condom when your wife is pregnant
- stop the drug completely during the entire pregnancy
I feel that the first part of #1 may be wise if you do not trust the drug company disclosures and to adopt #2 if you are really worried. These two steps are extreme, while #3 is almost crazy because you will abandon all of the benefits of the drug and get progressive hair loss during the 9 month pregnancy period, based upon no evidence that this is a problem. See my previous answer to this question here: Taking Propecia While Starting A Family.
Consultation That Push to Get Your Money and Do It Under Pressure (from Reddit)
A proper consultation include building a relationship between the doctor and the patient, not a salesperson. Unfortunately, too many doctors see $$$ when they see patients. I often see patients and tell them that they are not good candidates for a hair transplant or that the timing is too early. I always build a Master Plan with the patient, so the patient has both a short and long-term plan which may or many not include a hair transplant. My favorite part of what I do is meeting the patient. My practice may be unusual in that I have many celebrities and CEOs of big companies, but I also get truck drivers or students too young for hair transplants. I try to give them the materials that equips them to handle their “balding problems” and balance it with their lives.
2018-06-21 06:39:002018-06-22 12:12:33Consultation That Push to Get Your Money and Do It Under Pressure (from Reddit)