Category: Uncategorized

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21 and thinking about a hair transplant

i’m only 21 so i can’t really get a hair transplant until down the line. i got put on 2.5 mg minoxidil earlier this year and i passed on using fin. i’m fine with using this pill for the future because it hasn’t really affected my day to day life in any way and my health is fine, but i was just wondering if it’d even be worth getting a hair transplant down the line if my balding is genetic and it will keep slowly spreading, wouldn’t i have to get like several transplants over time?

I make my living doing hair transplants, but I almost never have done it on someone of your age. I wait until 25-6 before even considering it. Maybe the oral minoxidil will work and you will not bald. Give the drug a chance and stay on it.

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In the News – Is Latisse a Cure for Baldness?

Snippet from the article:

Allergan believes it may have a cure for baldness in the form of Latisse/Lumigan, its glaucoma drug-cum-eyelash enhancer. EVP R&D Scott Whitcup told investors on Allergan’s Q2 2009 conference call:

“We’re in the midst of looking at a number of [selections] by Bimatoprost [the chemical name for Latisse and Lumigan] for hair growth on the scalp.

Unlike Lumigan for glaucoma, we don’t have the eight years plus of clinical trials data so we’re sort of starting from scratch.

It’s a little too early to give you the final timeline but we are working as quickly as we can to get a formulation, get the pre-clinical work done and into the clinic and we’ll update you as soon as we have more from timeline.”

Read the full article at Aesthetic Medicine News – Is Allergan’s Latisse Also a Cure for Baldness?

The enthusiasm is high for this approach to hair loss, but we really don’t know if it will work on the bald skin. We are all waiting to see what the research tells us, but the conclusions may be years away.

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22 Year Old Female Wants Hair Transplantation

I am a 22 year old female who has been losing hair since the age of 16. My hair loss has stopped or is constant but there has been no re growth. i have had all blood tests and everything is fine. i have been applying minoxidil for the past 3 years but yet there has not been any re growth. There are some areas on the crown of my scalp which show that i have had severe hair loss. I use nanogen fibres to cover this but this still doesnt cover it entirely. please could you offer me a solution. Can i undergo hair tranplantation , if not, why exactly ?

If you have been evaluated by a medical doctor and cannot find a medical reason for hair loss, your next step may be to make an appointment with a dermatologist or a doctor like me to establish a good working diagnosis. If you are a transplant candidate (a complex analysis for women), one has to make sure that your donor supply and your needs match up. If the donor supply is impacted with diffuse alopecia in significant amounts, then a hair transplant (moving sick hair around) does little to solve the problem you are trying to rectify. Women are generally poor candidates for hair transplantation, because the cause of women’s hair loss is very different than it is for men and the donor supply is often weak. You will not know until you can establish a diagnosis by mapping your scalp for miniaturization and hair loss pattern. Be careful of any doctor who is enthusiastic about transplanting you without answering the mapping diagnosis posed here.

Remember, a hair transplant with a poor donor supply may make you worse off for having it done in the first place.

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In the News – New Drug to Reduce Hair Loss from Lupus

Snippet from the article:

The first in a new class of experimental drugs that targets the disease process involved in lupus beat out standard treatment in a large clinical trial, researchers say.

If the findings hold up, the drug, Benlysta, could become the first new drug for lupus in five decades.

About 1.5 million Americans have lupus, a complex disease in which the immune system attacks a person’s own tissues, wreaking havoc on the joints, skin and other organs. Benlysta dampens the abnormal immune signals, calming down the immune system.

Read the rest at WebMD.

This is significant, as lupus affects millions around the world. Hair loss is common with those that have this autoimmune illness, and according to the article this drug is “more effective at reducing pain, hair loss, and skin rash than placebo.” More studies need to be done, and if successful, the pharmaceutical company plans to submit to the FDA for approval.


2009-10-22 10:38:07In the News – New Drug to Reduce Hair Loss from Lupus

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23 Year Old Male Will Do a Hair Transplant Even Against My Advice!

This is his answer to me: “Thanks for your reply. You bring up a very good point that if I continue to bald behind the transplant it will look strange, however, if that does occur, I do plan on chasing it with further HT’s in the future. I positioned myself in a career where I can financially do this and am very aware that this is not a “quick fix”. I see this initial transplant as the first step in a long process. Please continue to voice your thoughts and concerns.”

If you go forward with this plan, be sure to put together a good Master Plan for your future, and include an assessment of your depleting donor supply, which will occur as you do more and more hair transplants. You must make sure that you never get into a situation where you will run out of hair.


2018-04-18 08:07:5623 Year Old Male Will Do a Hair Transplant Even Against My Advice!

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In the News – Scalp Cooler for Chemo Treatments

Snippet from the article:

The machines work by lowering the temperature of the head and scalp by a few degrees before, during and after chemotherapy.

This reduction in scalp temperature restricts the amount of blood reaching the hair follicles protecting them from the effects of chemotherapy drugs in the bloodstream, meaning that hair loss is not inevitable.

Although the scalp coolers have been around for some years some hospitals still do not have them, or if they do, they do not have enough of them to save everyone’s hair.

Read the full story at BBC News

The article also mentions that this isn’t an appropriate treatment for all cancers or chemotherapy drugs, but I still would worry a bit about lowering body temperature due to the scalp’s very high blood supply. Just a thought though, as this is an interesting piece.


2010-01-21 09:26:03In the News – Scalp Cooler for Chemo Treatments

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In the News – Taking Tylenol for 5 Years Reduces Prostate Cancer Risk?

Snippet from a non-hair-loss article:

TylenolPop a Tylenol and take a brisk walk for protection against prostate cancer? That’s what the findings of two new studies published this week suggest.

In the first study, published Monday in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, scientists found that men who took a daily dose of acetaminophen (Tylenol) for five years had a 38% lower risk of developing prostate cancer, compared with other men. Additionally, daily acetaminophen was associated with a 51% reduced risk of developing an aggressive form of the disease. Men who took acetaminophen for less than five years saw no protective benefit.

Read the full story at CNN – Prostate Cancer Studies Find Benefit in Daily Acetaminophen and Brisk Walks

This as an observational study of over 78,000 men, and while nothing is definitively proven here, the findings are interesting.

So why post this kind of health stuff on a hair loss blog? The majority of the readers here are men, and as the article points out: “Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men“.

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3 Months After My FUE Procedure, I Still Have Hairs That Didn’t Shed but Refuse to Grow

Dr. Rassman,

I am almost 3 months post surgery (FUE) having had about 2300 grafts with a skilled and well respected surgeon.

I have a number of transplanted hairs in the front of my scalp that have not shed nor have they grown. I scrub them, and nothing. They remain. I have a few rogue hairs that did start to grow (very few, maybe 5-10) without having fallen out post op, but moreso, a couple hundred perhaps, that are just like beard stubble, and wont fall out nor are they growing.

Can you shed (no pun intended) some light as to what may be going on, what the effect of this may be, either negative or positive, and contribute any other thoughts to this as I am not panicking, but as the weeks roll by, I am growing more and more concerned.

As an aside, at nearly 11 weeks, there is no other new growth yet beginning, which I understand is not abnormal.

Thanks again

This can be all normal for the course. Hairs that remain are leftover from the old grafts and they can be identified by a slight pull with tweezers. They will come out or you can just leave them alone. I see this on occasion after a hair transplant.

With regard to the growth, wait it out. Don’t panic — if a good surgeon did it, then the results will be apparent starting at 5-6 months.

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Inconsistent minoxidil use

Been on minoxidil 5% only . Haven’t been consistent with the treatment

You clearly understand that consistency is critical. Low dose oral minoxidil is better than topical minoxidil as only 40% of men respond to the topical. Oral is also easier.