Does alcohol help with MPB? I’ve heard alcohol has estrogenic effects. THe reason I’m asking is b/c I have two older brother, one 41 and one 39, and the older one drinks fairly often and has no MPB whatsoever, but the younger one is Mormon and so doesn’t drink and has a receding hairline.
Nope. There is no connection between alcohol and balding. If there were, growing hair could become a real party time.
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I’m a 34 year old male with a norwood class 2 hairline. Most of the recession I’ve had was between the ages of 17-25 years old. The hairline has remained pretty much the same from 25 till now. I’ve always noticed some very minor thinning around the hairline probably not going back for more than 1-2cm (approx 1/4 inch)and it really hasn’t got too much thinner in recent years. A handful of intermediate/smaller hairs around the frontal edges and where the juvenile hairline used to be have gotten shorter over several years. I’ll probably get the scalp mapped for miniaturization to get a diagnosis of MPB or paranoia.
Assuming a diagnosis of male patterned baldness, I’m just wondering how effective Propecia is for men in their 30’s and 40’s for maintaining hair (not necessarily regrowing/thickening)? From your clinical experience what is the average time (years) before Propecia starts to lose its effectiveness (hair count starts to decline below baseline) for a man in this age group? Also since my thinning is extremely slow…would that also allow it to be effective for a longer period of time?
Thanks
For some men, I have seen regrowth that has lasted 10+ years with no loss of hair. On others, the drug has not worked as well. I have seen men with bald crowns regrow hair and men with slow loss and thinning crown areas with no benefit from Propecia. The best indicator usually is crown loss in young men, where the loss is mild and the scalp has many miniaturized hairs present.
Merck’s data shows that 90% of men studied in your age bracket still had benefits after year 5. You can find that here.
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Hello Dr. Rassman,
I’ve read from old topics that many of your patients would travel to Mexico to purchase Finasteride before it was approved in the states. Do you still have patients that do this? There is obvious financial benefits from purchasing the medication outside of the U.S., but what about the products validity? When it comes to hair loss, you surely would like the product to be authentic. What is your thoughts on this? Thanks for your time.
I would think that when it comes to any medication you would want it to be authentic. There are many credible drug manufacturers outside the US, and you need to be sure that the drugs you are buying is from one of them. Here’s the top 50, ranked by revenue — List of pharmaceutical companies. If you buy Propecia in Mexico and it says Propecia on the bottle and looks like Merck’s product, it is probably the real drug. Granted, the packaging can be faked so we must all still be aware of drug counterfeiting. That is a real worldwide problem, so you should use your best judgment.
There is one way to get finasteride in the US from your local pharmacy much cheaper than Propecia, and that is by cutting the generic 5mg finasteride into 4 or 5 pieces. You need to have a physician willing to prescribe you a prostate drug (Proscar) to get that prescription, though. The 1mg generic (like the Finpecia pictured above) is still unavailable in the US due to patent laws.
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In your experience, how long does the maturation of the hairline process take? I just recently noticed a slight recession on the corners and I was just wondering.
The maturing hairline is an insidious process and can take years to appear. The process is very slow and creeps up on most men. I watched two of my sons and my nephew gain mature hairlines, and each took a number of years to fully appear.
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Dear Dr. Rassman,
I am taking finasteride for my hair and it’s working well on me. I am 23 years old. But my problem is i am having higher sex drive than before and also having increased number of masterbation. What can i do? My question is does increase in sex drive and thus increasing the number of masterbation affect the effectiveness of finasteride? If testosterone is increased by finasteride, does it affect the effectiveness of testosterone? My last question is people say masterbation is related with hair loss. If it were true then now in the world every healthy mature married men would be bald, isn’t it Dr.?
It is true that Propecia (finasteride 1mg) can cause an increase in your sex drive, but just as I always caution men who have a decrease in sex drive, do not be so quick to blame the drug. Young men in their early 20’s naturally have a high sex drive. It is normal to masturbate.
Does masturbation cause hair loss? No!!! Once again… masturbation does not cause hair loss! Your hair loss is likely caused by your genetics.
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(female)
I have a problem with my hair where all of the hair all over my head will grow…except for the hair in the back of my head. I have let my hair grow down past my eyes and ears in the front of my hair, but the back of my hair barely has grown enough to pinch with your fingers. Why won’t my hair grow in the back? What can I do to get the hair to start growing??
I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand your question and I don’t know enough about your medical history. There is never a substitute for a direct examination and even a photo of you will not show clearly what is going on. Please see a doctor where you can have a one-on-one dialogue, including an examination of your head and scalp.
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I wanted to call your attention to yesterday’s announcement relating to follicular unit extraction (FUE). As the ‘inventors’ of the procedure, publishing the first authoritative article in the Journal of Dermatologic Surgery in 2002, I have taken a keen interest in the way this procedure is delivered throughout the world. Much of what I have been observing has been disturbing. Too many doctors with little experience, and skills that have not been refined, have entered the field with heavy marketing programs offering FUE. My experience, however, has shown that some patients are not good candidates for this procedure and damage to the harvested grafts can be substantial in most surgeon’s hands. The key here is graft yield and unfortunately, this is an assessment made either after the procedure is performed with careful surgical monitoring and record keeping (by recording hair damage within each graft), or 8 months after the procedure when the patient can judge the success or failure of the results on his or her head.
I realize there is a delicate balance between what we want and what we buy. Our progress in reinventing the FUE process is discussed here — new FUE breakthrough. I really hope everyone considering having an FUE surgery (or anyone just curious about how it works) will read our new guide to evaluating Follicular Unit Extraction Techniques.
So what prompted me to write a new FUE guide? A while ago, I had the opportunity to view a well known doctor extract approximately 20 FUE grafts under my direct observation. While he boasted that he had mastered the procedure, what I saw reflected far less than such mastery and the doctor obtained a significant transection/amputation rate of the hairs in the graft. That doctor is prominently offering FUE today.
The surgeon’s technical skills take years to acquire and perfect, and although there are now some very fine doctors who I believe have truly mastered the technique and can deliver a quality service, I believe that they are in the minority of those offering it. There is a substantial worldwide demand for this minimally invasive hair transplant (virtually painless during the post-operative period, the patient can return to full activities in a week including all types of exercises, and there is no linear scarring). The problem for the patient, however, is in selecting a doctor where the FUE technique does not produce a “follicular holocaust” causing a substantial loss of donor hair and a failure of the procedure. This insight seems to be hidden from most buyers, because prospective patients want to believe in the marketing hype that is prevalent on the Internet and they are sold the technique by professional marketing pitches. There is no way to determine in advance, the skills of the doctors offering to perform the surgery.
In our new FUE guide, we have defined a way for patients to examine the various doctors offering this procedure, giving them an idea of what questions to ask and what things to look for. There is no site to offer guidance in the doctor selection process so the consumer must arm himself with the knowledge and skills to make the proper judgments themselves. Hopefully, our writings will appropriately arm the readers interested in this technique.
Hi there
I am curious to know if yo have heard from others complaining of tinnitus after using minoxidil. I had used finasteride for some 10 years, it seems without any side effects. I stopped the finasteride and had a break for about 18 months from any treatments and then started using minoxidil 5%.Within 3 months i began to be woken with tinnitus. It is now constant in both ears.
Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated.
Tinnitus (ringing in the ears) can be a warning sign for many serious medical conditions not related to medications, but it is also a known rare side effect of minoxidil. You need to see your doctor if you have such a problem. While it may be a potential side effect of the medication, you cannot afford to attribute the symptom to a side effect without a medical examination.
Can hairspray damage hair follicles and lead to hair loss?
If you brush or comb through your hair after the hair spray dries, you may pull out hair. In men and women with varying forms of alopecia, the use of hair sprays can be dangerous with rough combing of the hair. Best to wash it out rather than brush it out. Rough brushing can be a cause of hair loss made worse with hair sprays. Otherwise, hair spray by itself doesn’t equal hair loss.
Hello, I am a black female with a terminal illness and looking for answers/solutions to hair loss problems when i stumbled upon your site. Interesting. I read from you that it was unhealthy, unsafe and unethical to some to do transplants (unfamiliar with transplants) from animals, but what about transplants from healthy human cadavers (donors of course), or even healthy living humans.
Cadaver hair (or from living humans) would require drugs to prevent rejection, just like heart and kidney transplants. So although it would work, it is too dangerous due to the drugs required. Some anti-rejection drugs can increase the risk of infections, heart disease, and cancer.
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