Category: Uncategorized

Hello Doctor,

I’m currently a 21 year old male with some signs of MPB. I would say that I currently am between a NW II and III and I do have a family history of MPB on my mother’s side.

My question is more for future reference as I know you advise against most people under the age of 25 to get hair transplants.

Now for the question, I’ve always had “fine” hair (much like my mother and her father). Would this affect my ability to get a hair transplant in the future since my donor area’s hair would be much finer and not cover as much as personal with “full” hair? Have you ever turned away a patient because of this?

Also, which technique of hair transplantation would you recommend for someone with “fine” hair? The FUE or the Strip procedures?

A transplant with fine hair will produce coverage that you have always had. The transplants bring you your hair, with all of its characteristics. Most people with fine hair have a see-through look when they at 12 years old, so a hair transplant will bring you back to the see-through appearance you had all of your life. Fine hair is not a contraindication for hair transplants. The harvesting mechanism should be up to you and your budget, the supply of the donor hair you have, and the size of the bald area you are transplanting. FUE is not a good surgery for extensive hair transplants in a very bald man, just because of the number of surgeries you have to go through to achieve the numbers of grafts.

Hello Dr – I read with interest your answer about MRI scans and how there is no link from them to hairloss as they use magnets. What then, would be your opinion on CT Scans? Could these cause hairloss and if so over what time period? i.e – a few days after the scan or a few years? Thank you for your time.

The amount of radiation that a CT scan (also known as a CAT scan) will administer is not sufficient to cause hair loss. It takes much, much more radiation to cause radiation sickness and have the side effects to cause hair loss.

For more information about CT scanning, please see: Wikipedia – Computed tomography

Hello Dr. Rassman,
My hair is extremely porous, yet certainly not over-processed. I colour the gray roots once every 4-6 weeks and do not blow dry or straighten. No matter how expensive the salon or the hair product, it’s always porous. In the Summer it loves the humidity and in the Fall and Winter it looks like string.

I am also at 6 months post-hair-transplant, and I am hoping for the best hair possible. Is there a relationship between female pattern baldness, which began in my teens, and porous hair? Can you recommend anything at all for my hair, which has been treated very carefully all my life. Thanks a million, and God Bless you! xoxo

I generally do not like to make recommendations for daily hair grooming and hair management. There is clearly dry and moist hair and the difference does reflect the porous nature of the individual hair shaft for that person. The transplants should behave as it did when the hair was located in their original ‘home’ in the back of your head. I would stick to the recommendations of a good stylist who works with individuals with different hair characteristics (porous and non-porous) every working hour of their lives.

I’ve been feeding my Sphynx (aka Canadian Hairless) cat propecia and rubbing it with minoxidil on a daily basis to see whether hair can be grown. So far there’s been no response, however, I’m hopeful.

I honestly hope this is a joke, but you’d be surprised at some of the emails I receive that are completely serious. Most people would think that the funnier notes I receive were sent to just mess with me, but either way, I’ll answer it seriously…

Cats lick their fur and will ingest these medications. I suspect that the minoxidil may drop your cat’s blood pressure, if nothing else. Silly things like what you are doing to your cat, may make discoveries where no man has gone before. I don’t recommend experimenting on your pets though.

At least you made me smile, something that your cat may not be experiencing.

Hi,

Im 22 and I have noticed some wierdness around my scalp. What happens is I develop pimples on my head and removing the hairs that grow out of the pimple have a very wierd end. They have a short white film on the bottom with the bottom of the hair showing a black dot. The difference is tat normal hairs come up fine with no black dot and no white film. Is this a type of disease?

From your brief description, I do not think you have a “disease”. If you have pimples on your scalp or skin, the white material is just dead white blood cells, cellular debre and bacteria that have accumlated that caused your pimple. The tiny black dot may just the end of your hair root. Unless you see the black dot crawling with tiny legs, I wouldn’t worry.

Hi Doc, I recently had a hair transplant, and just had my sutures removed (10 days post-op). My Dr. said that I can pretty much go back to normal on activities such as the way I sleep, shampoo my hair, etc.. All my scabs are off my head…

Can I blow-dry my hair now? Or should I wait unto my transplanted hairs shed within the coming weeks? Same for rogaine, can I start to reapply this to the transplanted area? I am starting to experience a good amount of shockloss, even being on propecia, so I want to restart my rogaine regiment…

Thanks! Great Site by the way

Your doctor should have covered this. Yes, you can blow dry your hair and use grooming adjuncts as you did prior to the transplant. Sleep any way you are comfortable. And if you were on Rogaine prior to the surgery and the hair is Rogaine dependent, do start it up or you will experience withdrawal hair loss.

Apparently, this is pretty old, but I don’t think I saw it before so it’s new to me and worth sharing. Actor Bruce Willis was quoted earlier this year as saying…

“I’m a man and I will kick anybody’s ass who tries to tell me that I’m not one because my hair’s thinning.”

Strong words. There’s not much more to the article, but here’s the link for those interested:

• WILLIS: ‘I’M A BETTER ACTOR BALD’

Can hairloss be caused by inflammation(in addition to DHT sensitivity)?

The word inflammation is too general a term. You must narrow down your question and let me know specifically what type of inflammation you are talking about. To understand how to target the question you asked, see Wikipedia – Inflammation.

have been taking Lamisil for 2 months now and that past week I have been losing hair in clumps. I read on the net that this is an all too common side effect. I wanted to see if you knew if my hair would grow back after I stop taking it. If so then I may suffer through one more month to never have to take it again. I am a 31 year old male

Lamisil is often used in the treatment of fungal diseases of the skin, such as ringworm (when impacting the scalp it is called Tinea Capitis). These infections often cause hair loss and if you use Lamisil for treatment of the primary cause of the hair loss (Tinea Capitis) then it is easy to assume that it is the drug causing the thinning, but this is not usually true. From my research on the subject, Lamisil only rarely can be correlated with hair loss (one to one relationship).

Hi. Dr. Rassman,
I had an eyebrow transplant a month ago and still have redness and bumps like goose pimples. Most of the donor hairs have fallen out but I haved had a few pimples in the donor area. I still have not been out in public since (work out of my house) it looks obvious something was done to my face. Am I one of the few that this procedure might not work? I’m starting to worry, and I do see my doctor next week for a follow up. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. By the way I’m a 47 yr. old male with fair skin. (Swedish mostly). Thank you

The best thing is to follow-up with the doctor who did your eyebrow transplants. It seems you may have local irritation and may have developed local folliculitis, which can all be a normal part of healing or it can be an infection of the new follicles. There’s really no way for me to tell if there is something wrong from just a brief description without knowing what was done and how it was done (only your doctor knows this information) and what it looks like to my eye.