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Hey

I have a question and would be glad to get a response.

Can the kind of water I use cause baldness? I hear that Chlorine water and the , metals inside the water we shower in can cause baldness.

If so, can applying small amounts of water everyday increase baldness?

The answer is simply: NO. Water is good for you, but you can be poisoned with salt water or chlorine water, not the metals in the shower water in the United States.

I was diagnosed with folliculitis 2 years ago that caused hairloss at the crown. I noticed it got much worse everytime I took a haircut. After a rigorous course of antibiotics and avoiding the barber I am seeing improvement and regrowth of hair. This regrowth, however is exceedingly slow. The doctor recommended hair force to help but its still quite slow. Given such a lengthy time frame of 2 yrs. do you think my hair will fully recover?

Without examining you, I can not give you an answer to your question. What you need to know is whether you have genetic balding. This can be answered with a genetic test to see if you have the balding genes (HairDX) or a miniaturization mapping of your scalp which will show if the hair is in the process of balding. With the history of folliculitis, I would suspect that you precipitated a genetic balding process, but without examining you, I can not tell.

Dear Doctor,
First I would love to thank you for your informative website which is really helpful.

Two month ago I started Finastride 1 mg as my doctor told me to do. I felt a testicular pain within two days of using the medicine. It got worse everyday till the 6th day that I got annoyed so, I stopped taking the pill and the pain disappeared within a week. now I started again with 0.25 mg of the medicine as my doctor said to lower the dosage. Again the second day I felt the pain. I was wondering if it is harmful to wait for a while? and how long is the time that I can wait without being harmed by the drug, assuming that the pain is bearable?

There are reports of testicular pain with finasteride, although rare. Your history suggests a one to one relationship between the two. If half the dose (0.5mg Propecia) does not work and your doctor examined your testicles and they are normal, then you may not be able to tolerate the drug. Speak with your doctor before making that decision.

Dear Dr. William Rassman,

First I want to thank you for your updated and truthful blog. It has surely helped me and obviously many others understand the many things about balding. I am a 25 year old male with what I would perceive as a Norwood III. I have significant loss in the hairline but no baling spot in the back or top the head. I’m not going crazy about the loss of hair but surely want to do whatever it takes to try and stop it from becoming worse.

After reading your blog I know that I have pretty much three current options that I am comfortable with: finasteride, minoxidil, and of course surgery. I don’t feel as though its bad enough to go for surgery right now and find that topical solutions just don’t outweigh the effort (id rather shave my head instead of having to apply the stuff daily), so i started finasteride about three months ago. I have very little if any side effects from the finasteride and have no problem taking it daily. As you know, three months isnt a long time to be on finasteride and its hard to tell if it is actually working for me. however, I plan on taking it for at least a year before I come to a conclusion.

I know that finasteride’s focus is to prevent further hairloss and any regrowth should be looked at as only a positive benefit but my question is that if I were to see any regrowth, how long do you think it would take? Again, I am not taking finasteride with the assumption that it will result in regrowth, I am just wondering when it would be noticeable it regrowth were to occur.

To give you a little background of my family history, there are a few people on both sides of my family that have receding hairlines and thinning on the top of the head. However, there is no one (and i even asked some elders) in anyone’s recollection in my family to have a completely shiny “chrome dome” scalp.

I realize that thing email is particularly long for such a small question but I wanted to give you as much information without pictures as possible. Thanks for any reply you might give and thanks again for having such an informative blog!

Graciously,
Anonymous

I am sorry, but you will likely not see regrowth on your front hairline (or front corners) if you are Norwood Class 3. It’s very rare for those areas to improve from medication. If regrowth happens it is mostly on the top crown areas where there is miniaturization. The best outcome for you on Propecia is slowing or cessation of hair loss in the front. If this happens it would take about 6 to 12 months for you to appreciate.

Hey Doctor, I just had a miniaturization study done the other day by Dr. Bernstein in New York (who I found out about thanks to this site) and he said I had about 50% miniaturization on the front of my head while the crown/back was all normal and prescribed me 5mg Propecia to cut it into 1/4s. I didn’t take the chance to ask him any questions about it, which I regret. So I was hoping I could ask you:

1. Being 20 years old, would you consider 50% miniaturization a significant amount of hair thinning?
2. Being that right now I just have hair thinning and there’s really no signs of balding to the untrained eye, am I at a better advantage to responding to Propecia?
3. Also, could the propecia actually reverse the miniaturization, at least to a certain degree, or is it much more likely that it’ll just halt it/slow it down?

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Could go either way, or none at all. I can’t predict how you’ll react to a medication.

50% miniaturization is a predictor or hair loss or balding in the area where the miniaturization is found (in your case, in the frontal area). Sooner or later, the balding will be evident to the naked eye, but with finasteride, it may slow it down or reverse it. You should repeat the miniaturization study in a year and see what has happened ,and then you will have a better idea of the hair loss progression and the speed of the process.

Hi Dr Rassman.

I’m a 29 year old male. I had a full, thick, wavy head of hair until about a year ago. Then the top and sides of my head have thinned rapidly since. I didn’t have any recession of the hairline, although now my temples have receded a quite a bit and also quite rapidly, but I’d say nothing beyond a “mature hairline” (though for me, the difference is obvious compared to what I started with). But overall, the hair on the top of my head and also the sides is very thin. I’d say the only place which hasn’t changed much is the back. There’s no history of MPB in my family.

I’ve trying finasteride for the past month but having problems with nipple sensitivity and worried about gyno. I know you’re going to tell me to get myself mapped for miniaturization, but I don’t know where I can get that done around here. I think I may have some kind of diffuse pattern alopecia, I’m just horrified that I made it through almost my entire 20s thinking I’d keep a full head of thick hair, and in a year (8 months, really) it’s so thin and wispy. Seems like it has happened overnight… I thought MPB takes years and is a slow process. I just wish it could have waited until my 30s instead.

There might be no immediate history of MPB in your family, but it can skip generations. Thinning hair on the top of your head could be MPB, but the hair on the sides should not be thinning like you briefly described. MPB doesn’t need to take years, as the speed of hair loss progression is different for each person.

What if I didn’t tell you to go get yourself mapped for miniaturization, but provided you with a tutorial to do it yourself (if you have the right equipment)? See part 1 here. You can then take the results of the mapping and upload them to BaldingForum, where I can provide a consultation opinion. You should (with your mapping in hand) seek out a good hair doctor or come visit us here in sunny Los Angeles.

i have a question recently i have come in contact with this dr and i would like to know what you think about this new advance treatment.. http://doctorgreco.blogspot.com/

Aside from contributing to advertising the aforementioned site, my opinion are as follows…

The use of platelet rich plasma treatment, to my knowledge, is not FDA approved. Just making claims of hair growth would be a medical claim violation with the FDA. Publishing his results in the Hair Transplant Forum (which is not a peer reviewed journal) is not an endorsement of reputable editors in the academic community, so although it is a sharing forum format, it does not bring any credibility to his research. I would suspect that the claims in the website would be subject to actions by both the FDA (a few isolated cases are not an approved study) and the medical board in the state where the doctors who tried the treatment would be regulated. I am among the first to embrace new technologies, but I want to see science which shows safety and effectiveness… not hype. Human experimentation requires that special approvals be obtained through a hospital type facility under an institutional review board (IRB). What we are seeing on Dr. Greco’s site is not that!

If I start Testosterone shots and start to lose my hair will the hair loss stop if I stop the shots?

First of all I do not know why you are receiving testosterone shots. I would discuss all its negative side effects (including hair loss, liver damage, etc) with your doctor.

If you have the gene for androgenic balding, testosterone will increase the balding rate and possibly even continue on if you stop the testosterone therapy. If you do not have the balding gene, your hair should be safe with increasing amounts of testosterone, but your body may decay.

From the article:

But what about babies with bald spots? Do parents just try a comb-over?

Newnan mom Victoria Walton actually did, after her perfectly healthy baby girl, Amira, started losing a patch of delicate hair on the back of her head.

But it wasn’t enough to camouflage Amira’s “cul-de-sac of hairs” look, so Walton began stitching squares of satin to place under her head whenever she lay her down. The idea: Less friction means less rubbing and shedding.

That homespun invention has evolved into a commercial enterprise: Infant Hair Protector, now available in pink and blue both online

See the full article — Battling baldness in babies

The article is basically a big plug for a company that makes what appears to be satin pads to put under a baby’s head to prevent traction.

It is normal for babies to have patchy hair, as their hair changes from baby hair into a more mature child’s hair. There are diseases of the scalp that cause balding, but a good pediatrician should be able to make the diagnosis. In my 19 years in the hair business, I have never had a infant or baby brought in to see me, but I have been consulted for Ringworm, a childhood fungus of the scalp.

Dr. Rassman what is your personal opinion on the product on this website.

Also, I am 24 years old, just got 500 grafts to fix receding on my sides and thinking about starting minoxidil to maybe thicken the rest of my hair? If I start with generic minoxidil and then switch to rogaine foam or vice versa does that have any negative effect? Also, does the drug work on the newly transplanted hair? I know these hairs are permanent, but is it at all possible to thicken that area up? Or is it as if that area is still bald and has little to no effect on a transplanted area. Thanks so much.

I looked at the A & G Hair Complex product’s website and I am not impressed at all. For starters, there are photography problems (it appears to be one patient, small photos, and no information about what other treatments were being used at the time). Plus, there is no science here to support their claims based on the ingredients they list. I wonder if the FDA was aware of the claims made, would this product still be on the market? From what little information is available, it seems that this is a once a year treatment for $200 (or is it a once a lifetime treatment?). They include a bar graph that is apparently from a study — but who conducted the study, where was it published, and how long was the study? It reeks of snake oil, and as a skeptic, you can assume where I’d file this product under.

Switching minoxidil from generic to foam or vice versa will not hurt you. Minoxidil does not work on transplanted hair at any point in time. If you had a good hair transplant with enough grafts to make a difference and used a respectable doctor, then you should get value from it to make a difference.