Balding Football Star Matt Hasselbeck and Super Bowl XL

/by William Rassman, M.D./4 /,

Matt HasselbeckNow I’m not a huge sports nut, but I read enough news to know what’s going on. The nation seems to be obsessed with the hair, or lack thereof, of the Seattle Seahawk’s quarterback Matt Hasselbeck. I caught a few sportscasters on ESPN talking about his “shiny dome” a few nights ago, and since, I have noticed numerous respected sports journalists harping on, or even supporting, Matt Hasselbeck because he is bald. Even Hasselbeck himself is discussing it in the media, “Anybody losing your hair, you can root for us, too,” he said. “Anything to get the home-field advantage here in Detroit.”

Now it’s interesting that this is such an issue. I mean, from what I have read, he is a good Quarterback; it is not like he cannot do his job. Why is the media judging him because of his hair? Is he not marketable enough? Can’t he sell enough Wheaties boxes? Take a read through some of these articles, and let me know if you think it’s and issue.

 

Washington Post – from Tony Kornheiser, also an ESPN analyst
“On the other team, there’s Matt Hasselbeck, like me, an innocent victim of male pattern baldness, a Rogaine casualty; maybe not the MVP, but the MPB of his team. How can I not root for him? He isn’t shaved like one windbag I know (hint, hint) who claims to be able to grow hair, but in reality is as bald as an egg. He isn’t waxed and plucked like some freaky bowling ball. He’s just lost everything on top, and still — like a real man — he lets the sides continue to flourish. (Plus, his brother has such a hot wife, which has to frost Matt, because he’s a much better quarterback.) Yeah, it’s nature over nurture for me. It’s the brotherhood of the bald.”

USA Today
“Quarterbacks aren’t bald. They aren’t supposed to sport receding hairlines. Maybe that’s why Hasselbeck won’t be the most highly touted quarterback in the Feb. 5 Super Bowl at Ford Field. Maybe that’s why Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, possessor of a manly brown beard, was bronzed Sunday when his team beat the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship Game, even though Hasselbeck’s play was equally dominant.”

USA Today
“I mean, follicle-challenged Matt Hasselbeck is a fine passer and field general, but poor dude looks more like a meat-cutter than he does cool Joe Willie. ‘You gotta pull for the beard, Hasselbeck has no hair!’ said Dan Fouts, who had the best set of whiskers ever among NFL signal-callers, on Tuesday.”

Outsports
“In contrast, Seattle’s two biggest stars sport no hair on their heads, whether by nature or choice. Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck is only 30, but is severely folically challenged, so much so that a Seattle newspaper asked readers to send in doctored photos showing Hasselbeck with hair. If the Seahawks win, can a Rogaine endorsement be far behind? Running back Shaun Alexander is totally bald, but it appears more like he’s opted for the shaved-head look by choice.”

ESPN’s Page 2, The Sports Guy
“Why NOT Hasselbeck? Bald is only tough-looking if you’re Michael Jordan or Charles Barkley.”

Head Tingles, Hair Loss, Infections, and Bleach

/by William Rassman, M.D./1 /

hi there – i’m only 19 yrs olds and in the last year i have started balding all over the top of the head, espeically at the back in quite a serious way. i have thought that it was because i used to bleach my hair alot as a child but recently my scalp has started to itch alot. i am using pills, expensive “thickening” shampoo and other products on a daily basis to try and stop this balding but none of it is working. i was wondering if you think if its from the bleaching or is it possible that i have a scalpal infection causing the balding and itching. if so what can i do.

thank you for you time

First, you may want to stop much of what you are doing, as you may be causing your own problems. Then, if it continues, seek out a good dermatologist. If you are experiencing genetic hair loss, none of what you are doing will address the cause of the balding or thinning. People who treat themselves are gambling without the education or skills needed to address the problem.

Hair Loss After Scalp Pimple

/by William Rassman, M.D./1 /

Hello Dr. Rassman, I hope you can answer my question. I got a small pimple on my scalp a month ago which I left alone. After the pimple disappeared my hair fell out in that area leaving a small circle of a bald spot. Will my hair ever grow back on that spot? If it does how long will it take?

Your hair will likely grow back in a few months. Patience is a virtue. If it does not grow, then you will need to see a dermatologist to look for other causes of hair loss.

Major Hair Loss After 5th Hair Transplant

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /,

OK, I will start at the age of 18. I took accutane and started losing hair 6 months later. I was scared so I got a hairpiece. At 30 I was talked into a HT. I then recieved 5 more over 5 years but I do not see a large portion of what was transplanted. I had great results after the fourth surgery but it seems that I am at a great loss at the moment. I am 9 weeks into the last surgery and see a “lot” of hair loss. I mean worse than I ever was. I am on everything.. propecia, minox, avacor, nizoral. I spoke with my doc and he said wait, its just a shock. I have a full head of hair except for the first 1 1/2 inch frontal. I am thinking about going back into a hairpiece after $30,000 and lots of heartache but I cannot take this roller coaster anymore. I can’t sleep, work, or think. I’m 36 and feel lost on what to do….help

Going to a hair piece to deal with a temporary problem of shock hair loss may end up making it permanent. You may have made mistakes in the past, just do not make them now. Shock hair loss is very, very, very rare after the first procedure with a person on Propecia. The few times I have seen it, the process reversed at the time the new hair came in. I would expect you to be where you want at about 8 months.

Will Propecia Thicken the Hairline?

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /,

I’m 25 years of age with miniaturization all around the hairline (about 2-3 cm deep) especially in the area above the temples. I would estimate in this area I’ve lost about 50 – 60% of density in the last 3 years. I also have some vertex thinning but it’s in an early stage so it isn’t obvious but it is definitely thinner. I’ve been on propecia for 7 months now. My question is if propecia is effective for me is it likely that the already thinned area in the front will continue to thin while the areas behind remain strong as they haven’t yet been impacted my MPB? Is there a possibility I could have a solid, healthy hairline just receded more after the thin areas are gone? Or do you think my hairline will continue to be thinner the mid scalp?

Please send photos so I can see you; make sure the photos show with your eyebrows lifted high as you frown. Get good frontal and side pictures and send them to the address on the Contact page.

Propecia can slow hair loss, but usually will not reverse frontal hairline loss. It probably will fill in the crown, but by now you should have seen a gain as you have been on the drug for 7 months. What I am particularly concerned about is the difference between a mature male hairline and balding, so the photos will help me make that distinction. This is critical, because you do not want to undo a mature male hairline with hair transplants if that is all that is happening in the front.

Inflamil and Hair Loss

/by William Rassman, M.D./1 /,

Ive read articles indicating that inflammation of the scalp is a contributor to hair loss. What are the effects of scalp inflammation? If inflammation affects hair loss can anti-flammatories such as Inflamil help?

Yes, certain types of an scalp inflammatory conditions can cause hair loss but it is not a diagnosis, but a symptom as I believe that you are using it. They may include auto immune diseases, dermatitis, eczema, psoriasis (with a great deal of scratching) and infection in combination or alone. Inflamil, according to info I found on the web, has the following ingredients: 10% Feverfew, 10% Thuja Occidentalils, 10% Epibolium, 5% Green Tea Extract (see green tea catechins) and 1% Mentholum verum. It may work but you would be treating something blindly with a series of ingredients that does not have documented safety and effectiveness clearly defined. In other words, you will not know what it is that you are treating nor what effect these ingredients are having. I would doubt that auto-immune disease will not be impacted by these ingredients nor will some of the other problems that cause scalp inflammation. Again, the diagnosis of an inflamed scalp is only a symptom of something that may be going on. You need a diagnosis.

What is the Choi Implanter?

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /,

I am reading your site with great interest. I have also looked into the Choi procedure, and one well-known Choi advocate in the UK (where I also live) offers what seems to be a reasonable package, in Athens Greece. I was wondering if you could tell me more about the Choi procedure and does it yield the BEST results, with regards to density with least scarring as it is claimed? Why do some people say that FUE is not so effective? Is an “needle implanter” better than the conventional method? What about the use of Choi around the world? For instance USA, Japan, Australia? Any advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

The Choi implanter is just a surgical tool. It makes some aspects of the transplant easier to perform, especially for those people who did not develop the difficult placing skills with the more traditional transplant tools used throughout the world. An instrument is only as good as the person using it, so I can not package the tool with the technique. The Choi generally requires ‘skinny’ grafts, which tend to dry out more easily, therefore, this instrument requires special skills, different than those that do not have to make the grafts skinny. Some people believe that skinny grafts do not grow as well. I believe that in the right hands, with the years of experience, skinny grafts should grow as well a chubby grafts. The grafts we make are half way between skinny and chubby, just my preference.

The Choi implanter did not develop a following in the United States. In Asia and other parts of the world, it is very popular. I do not believe that it is any better than anything else that the surgeons have perfected in their native countries.

To answer your questions about FUE, I would suggest that you look at the FUE category of this blog.

Lichen Planopilaris and Hair Transplantation

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /,

I am a 55 1/2 yr old female. I have been diagnosed with “lichen planopilaris”. I am tired of scalp injection. My doctor said the next step is probably 3 hair transplant. There seems to be no information on this disease. Is there anything else that can be done? In addition, I am on a generic rogaine formula. April will make 1 yr. on this product.

Any advice? Also, I know the cost for a transplant vary with different results.

See DermatologyChannel.net for more information on this disease. The problem with transplantation is that if the disease is active and is autoimmune in etiology, then a hair transplant may be doomed from the start. Inactivity of Lichen Planopilaris in the autoimmune arena must be determined before starting the costly hair transplantation process. If you and your doctor believe that it is under control and inactive now or sometime in the future, a test hair transplant with a limited number of grafts (about 10) taken with an FUE approach will tell you if a larger hair transplant procedure will work. Either these grafts will fail to grow (indicating that the disease is still active from an autoimmune perspective) or they will grow (indicating that the disease has become inactive). It should take 5-8 months to determine success or failure of the transplant. For those people who have an autoimmune cause, reactivation of the process is always an added risk.

Woods Technique and FUE

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /, ,

Do you use the Woods style of hair transplant? Also are you in California?

Dr. Woods (in Australia) probably is doing something like what I published in 2002 and called Follicular Unit Extraction. He kept what he was doing very secret, whereas I always publish my advances as I prove and document them for the world to see. As such, Dr. Woods promoted what he was doing on the Internet and launched a marketing campaign to sell a technique that sounds just like what we developed in California and New York. But as Woods never told anyone what ‘magic’ formula he was using, I can not claim to be using his technique. The FUE technique was defined by me (see Follicular Unit Extraction: Minimally Invasive Surgery for Hair Transplantation). On my site, you can see what it is (see FOX Procedure Videos) and also the type of scarring that is produced (see FUE Photos). There is no secret with what we are doing and the world of competent and honorable doctors reference my publication as the inventive breakthrough in this field. Now, almost 4 years later, there are no other published articles on the FUE ‘technique’ that I have seen.

With that said, Woods did publish one article that shed no new light on the great ‘secret’ of his technique. The article contains a case study and there is no scientific methodology defined, nor anything that meets generally accepted standards for publishing, so I was very surprised that this reputable journal took an article of this type without a good clinical scientific base. The article appears to be another type of marketing promotion. According to Woods’ site, TheWoodsTechnique.com, his technique was “Published in the British Journal of Plastic Surgery December 2004” and “First in the world to develop and perfect single follicular unit extraction (since 1989)”. There is no reference to my published article on it a few years earlier and his claim that he perfected it in 1989 is completely unsubstantiated. It is interesting to note the gap of 16 years from the date of the unsubstantiated discovery to the date of his first publication. Woods, in my opinion, approached this process like P.T. Barnum (best known as the 19th century American Huckster). My work in the development of FUE was started in the mid-1990s and I was unwilling to publish it for grandstanding purposes (this is not a sour grapes issue), because I would not publish something for the purpose of just getting the word out to create a reputation. I know that I am very critical of Woods, but that is because all I have ever seen, even in a lecture series that he set up, was a hyped up marketing presentation with statements made that neither his commercial video nor the photos from his web-site can realistically support. The most blatant example of this is his statement about no scars, yet I have video from his office in my possession that shows more scars then I got from the technique I published and with the smaller instruments I use today, our scars are even smaller than what I have published. If you are believer in everything you read, should I have mentioned that I am the inventor of today’s modern computer chip (I don’t believe anyone would really believe me on this last unsubstantiated statement).

To answer your last question — yes, I have offices in Southern and Northern California and would love to see you. I hope that this entry on FUE entertained you. I did try to spice it up a bit.

Doctor Recommendation for FUE?

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /

Who would you recommend for the FUE method in the Toronto area. (I’m sure your great but L.A is a little too far for me).

FUE procedures are difficult. There are doctors who claim expertise when they are not actually experts. See The Truth About Cheap Hair Transplants on this blog for more on that.

The best way to understand what you are going to get is to meet several patients of that doctor. Also ask the doctor about hair yield with FUE, not graft yield and ask the doctor how he accounts for the loss of hair in an FUE procedure. If he does not understand the question, I would not select that doctor. To answer your question for a doctor in your area, I can not get you a recommendation because I have not seen the results of FUEs from any doctor in Toronto. Buyer beware!

Scalp Scars Tingle When Smoking Pot

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /,

I have sustained about 4 scars to the back of the head. One scar is about 2 inches long and 1/2 inch thick. I have been very emotionaly and physically impacted by this. But my question is about a tingling sensation I have right above my most profound scar. It is very irritating, and becomes quite bothersome when I smoke pot. And at times I fell like I’m losing hair. Could i be losing hair and is it a result of my injuries or smoking? Why does it feel like that when I smoke, I’ve never had a problem with this until the accident.

Some people have increased sensitivity after being injured, which can irritate certain nerves. As I’m sure you’re aware, Marijuana will alter a person’s state of mind and may enhance certain sensations while decreasing others. People experience different sensations in the scarred areas when a nerve is severed or injured. As to whether pot is causing you to lose your hair, please see: Marijuana and Hair Loss

Emu Oil and Hair Loss

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /

First off thanks for answering my last question regarding thickening shampoos. I have been looking for some help due to a recent increase in the thinning I see. I have read great things about Emu Oil, can any of this be true? I know I am fishing for a magic potion, but anything will help.

It would be nice to have a magic potion. The website says that the hair follicle is just “sleeping”, and that many consumers report an “awakening” of the hair follicle with the use of Emu Oil! The site goes on to say that it is an all-natural tissue nutrient; by applying it to the skin, it helps make the skin become healthy and alive again.

It sounds like sleeping beauty, awakening the hair follicles when they are kissed by what this company hopes is ‘the prince of oils’. I would hope that it would work on your hair, but I strongly doubt it based on what I read on that site. Maybe it would bring back my cat who was put to sleep last month but on second thought, I don’t really want her back, sick as she was.

Are Antibiotics Causing My Hair Loss?

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /, ,

I am 16 years old / female and I am having problems with my hair. My hair used to be thick and had volume but now I find my hair falls out easily in the shower and while it is wet, all u have to do is run your fingers through it and hair comes out. My hair is thinning and does not grow as thick. I am on anitbiotics for pneumonia and have been for a year or so now… could that be the reason why? And if not… than what is?

If you have a chronic illness and the antibiotic is for treating it, the illnesses itself could cause hair loss. Any form of medication may have hair loss as a side effect and without knowing what drugs you are taking, I can not tell you its side effect concerning hair loss. Research your antibiotic on Google for potential hair loss side effects.