Hello, Dr. Rassman. I’ve read your blog for a while and am always impressed with your frankness and professionalism. I don’t see a lot of people that have had good results using finasteride posting, probably because once the problem is corrected you stop endlessly searching for answers on the internet. I started noticing hair loss about four years ago, and decided to control it a couple of years back.
From my experience, when I started finasteride I was looking for any of the side effects that might come with it under a microscope, but there were none. The only noticeable difference I saw (besides the shedding almost disappearing) was that I started getting morning erections again (I’m 31 and hadn’t really noticed I had stopped getting them for a few years). I would probably have been scared away from it if I hadn’t read your blog and your professional opinions. Good work, Doctor.
There are some who are vocal about Propecia’s negative side effects and you will find their thoughts readily on various forums and even the comments section on BaldingBlog. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same few men that write comments on nearly every Propecia related posting leave a comment on this one.
As you state, the many who are pleased with the results will almost never write about their experience… as they will stop reading this blog or spend countless hours on the Internet on the topic. The happy ones just move on and find other topics of interest. Those that feel slighted will spend an awful lot of time trying to drown out the rest.
Good luck, good morning to you, and thanks for your kind words of support.
October 7 2011, 10:44 am PT | Posted in: Diseases + Drugs
Snippet from the article:
New findings that show T-cell activation plays a critical role in the development of alopecia areata has opened new doors to treatment.
A report last year from a genome-wide association study involving 1,054 patients with alopecia areata (AA) and more than 3,000 controls, identified eight genes strongly linked to the disease (Nature 2010;466:113-7). One of the gene’s codes for a ligand, ULBP3, appears in the dermal sheath of hair follicles in patients with AA. The ULBP3 ligand appears responsible for attracting the cluster of T cells that produce the characteristic histopathology of affected hair follicles, Angela M. Christiano, Ph.D., said at the meeting.
Abatacept is a rheumatoid arthritis medication marketed as Orencia. The study will include 56 patients receiving either an abatacept or placebo injection over the course of 6 months.
Dr. Christiano is a top physician that has made treating alopecia areata her mission, and I hope this study shows some promise for those suffering with this disease.
Recently I have lost all the hair on my arms, also a scar disappeared on my arm. I’ve never had hair on my legs, but being a female… Also, I lost weight,and I’ve gained a lot of veins on my hands,and arms. I don’t know what to do.
If you have any idea as to what is going on, I would sincerely appreciate your time and effort.
Thank you.
I don’t know anything about your history, age, etc, so there’s not much I can offer. You would need to be examined by a physician. Hormone changes and weight loss do strange things to a woman’s hair distribution.
I had a FUE operation of 3650 grafts exactly six weeks ago to my frontal hairline NW2. I recently, last 5 days, have about ten bumps like pimples in the DONOR area? what is going on?
If you were really only with a Norwood Class 2 pattern balding, why would you have 3650 grafts transplanted? This just does not make any sense to me.
Two things come to mind that could explain the bumps you’re seeing — 1) When transected hairs in a graft are placed, they can act as a foreign body. 2) There may also be folliculitis at the recipient sites.
If there is a folliculitis, the treatment should be incision and drainage of the bumps, a culture of what comes out of the wound and the use of antibiotics. Once the culture has grown out, the organisms will be identified and tested against the medication that the doctor will give you. That will tell him if his guess is the correct diagnosis.
For transected hairs, there may be a different course. As much as I would like to help you, I think that you will be best served to go back to your doctor.
Hi, i’m a 21 years old male, and i’m mixed caucasian/african.
Here’s my question. My dad’s (caucasian) been balding since age 30, and is now completely bald at age 60. He is the worst case of MPB in my entire family. On my mom’s side, there is no history of hairloss whatsoever. Myself, i’ve got a lot of hair, semi-african and semi-european, but very dense, with a kind of “coarse” afro look (very far from my dad’s hair). I have my mom’s hairline (mature, typical from her race, where there are no hairloss), and thick hair (i think).
I’m afraid i might end up as my father, but is there really a risk? If i ever go bald, at what age it might happen? Don’t the african genes dominates caucasians’ (i’m dark skinned)? What about mixed people in MPB?
Thanks a lot for your help!
There’s no way to tell if you will be bald simply based on your race… mixed or otherwise. Even with a family history, it is never truly clear. It’s possible that the balding gene exists somewhere in your mother’s family tree, too (and it can skip generations).
The best thing to do is to go see a doctor for an examination. Tests such as miniaturization studies and bulk measurements can establish a baseline so that you can track what is going on with age. You can also get a genetic test called HairDX, which is about 70% accurate, to find out if you have the gene. It won’t tell you if/when it’ll express itself, but it’s a start.
I’m a 22 year old suffering from hair loss. I was using 5% Minoxidil at the advice of my local physician for the past 2 years with limited sucess as it managed to slow my hair loss but not reverse it. After seeing a dermatologist recently, he advised me to use propecia once a day for a month and then take it every other day afterwards.
He said that after a month Propecia will lower DHT levels in my system and will be effective for 72 hrs which is why he said I only need it every other day as this will save me money. Do you believe that by taking propecia this way it will have the same effect as using it once a day?
The recommended dose of Propecia is one pill a day for treating hair loss. I do not understand you doctor’s logic, but I will defer the treatment to your doctor as you are under his care… not mine.
I do know that Propecia’s half life in your blood stream is 4 to 6 hours, which means most of the drug will be gone from your blood stream in one day.
I once had a patient come in for a hair transplant. I believe he was a phone consultation with photos sent in beforehand. So on the day of surgery, when I washed his hair before the transplant, his entire frontal hair came off in the sink!. He had glued it in place. This man was very upset and I felt like a fool by not knowing that is what he had done.
He was an African American with kinky hair, and let his natural hair around the glued hair grow long. He did a really good job with gluing the hair in place, and had me completely duped. He was very upset with me and as I believe that the “patient is always right”, I worked like hell to re-glue that salvaged hair pulled from the sink after I did the transplant. It was one of those unforgettable moments in my hair restoration career.
Of course, I wouldn’t recommend people doing this — but for a parody video, it really hit close to home.
Hi Doctor. I am slightly confused. I have visited several balding forums looking for information about rogaine. Some members seem to be under the impression that rogaine accelerates hairloss by increasing blood circulation and therefore the amount of DHT that can reach hair follicles to miniaturize them. This seems rather counterproductive for a FDA approved product that is suppose to regrow hair…
can you please provide some knowledge and insight on this conundrum? Would taking Propecia for a couple months beforehand prevent this problem?
You’re not alone in being confused about this. I have rarely heard of this complication and have learned that it exists by my extensive reading on the internet. I see more reports online about minoxidil/Rogaine shedding than I’ve seen in my own patients.
Some say that it accelerates the anagen stage in the hair loss cycle, which means that it first has to go through telogen (hair loss phase). I really don’t have confirmation of this, though.
Hello Doctor,
I have had three hair transplants totaling to about 5,400 grafts. I am about 16 months into my third transplant that i had in March 2010. I have observed that i still see baby like fine hair, as they seem when transplanted hair start to grow, still in some of my transplanted areas of the scalp. And i don’t think these are my miniaturized native hair as alot of them are grafts of two, three or single.
I am not sure if this is happening because i have had that many surgeries and there is lack of blood circulation for the hair to grow properly or the grafts were not transplanted properly by my doctor. I tried talk to my doctor about it, but he kept saying that they are probably my native hair. I am not sure what i can do to confirm this.
I generally want to see the patient 8 months after the procedure to get an idea what it looks like. By that time, I usually see 80+% of the growth that was transplanted. I wouldn’t expect to see blood supply problems.
Since you’re already 16 months in and not fully satisfied, then you should get another opinion from a doctor (in person exam). Hopefully you have detailed before photos to compare to your hair now.
If you were really only with a Norwood Class 2 pattern balding, why would you have 3650 grafts transplanted? This just does not make any sense to me. 