Hey guys, so I’m 24 and NW 2. I just started Proscar about 2 weeks ago. No sides as of yet! (I know this is a popular question) I want to ask about using steroids with Proscar. I’ve stayed away from steroids since I know I’m vulnerable to balding. Now that I’m taking Proscar, will I be able to without worrying about the balding?
Adding steroids with Proscar will cause hair loss. Not a good idea.
The picture that was forwarded is a public photo. It appears to be a comb-over to cover a receding corner of the hair line. Of course, without seeing it directly, I can’t supply an opinion.
If you are considering putting hair back where you lost it by having a hair transplant, the big decision is to take the step of finding a caring, competent doctor working with an experienced team, followed by scheduling a hair transplant. For most men, scheduling a hair transplant is the greatest step, in other words, to fix a problem with a surgical solution.
Fortunately, the hair transplant procedure has been made absolutely undetectable today, contrary to the 1990s, when everyone could see a hair transplanted patient and know it was not normal. Today, normalcy is the rule in the hands of an excellent hair transplant surgeon who has developed an excellent surgical team that has been fine-tuned over many years.
Most cosmetic surgeries only require the skills of a single surgeon, but all hair transplant surgeries require the skills of a great surgeon who built a great team to work with. A great surgeon with a poor team will produce poor results. A bad surgeon with a great team will also produce poor results. Why am I saying this when everyone thinks that the surgeon is the key to a good hair transplant? It is because a good hair transplant requires a skilled surgical team that understands quality control systems, similar to great manufacturing operations. When the team produces 2,000 grafts, it is a team effort that works under strict quality systems rules.
Once you take the plunge in deciding if you should go for a hair transplant, the next step is to find the best doctor with the best team that knows how to work together. Then, you need to decide if you should want a strip surgery (FUT) or FUE.
The FUT procedure (Follicular Unit Transplant) harvests a batch of hair by cutting a strip from the back of the head. The strip of hair is then dissected into their natural family groups with a large team of technicians working with high powered microscopes. Both I and my wife and daughter-in-law had strip surgeries, and we have undetectable scars.
On the other hand, the FUE procedure (Follicular Unit Excision) is a hair transplant procedure that harvests the hair follicles in singular hair groupings. FUE is a great procedure that I pioneered. But contrary to most young men’s belief that FUE is better than a strip procedure (FUT) because it does not scar, this is not the case. Many doctors would like you to believe that FUE is a scarless surgery, but take a look at the type of scars a large FUE session can create. Scars are a complication when FUE is performed on a person with low donor density and is unable to support a large number of FUE grafts. Many patients found out the hard way by getting 3,000-6,000 FUE grafts without having an assessment of their donor density performed prior to their surgery. As a result, over-harvesting has become far more common than you might expect. I love doing FUE and half of all of the surgeries we do today are FUE hair transplants, but for those of you who are reading this post, please note that anything done well in moderation may be good/ . Likewise, FUE done in moderations is a great surgical hair transplant procedure. However, when done in excess, the patient pays the price with ugly scarring that may never have been anticipated. Certainly, the unfortunate man in the photo below had no idea that his FUE was a massively scar-producing surgery because his doctor over-harvested grafts.
I have seen many people who had their hair pulled out. If it is a single pull, it will come back in about 6 months. In contrast, repeated pulls can cause traction alopecia.
Scalp Micropigmentation (SMP) is a cosmetic tattoo. It is not hair and should not be looked at as if it was hair. However, for people with thinning hair, SMP may be the single most effective approach for treating diffuse thinning, giving the patient more value for the amount spent doing it. Hair transplants are much more expensive than SMP. When thinning hair occurs in many people, hair transplants work poorly, particularly when the thinning is diffuse (covers much of the scalp). Many doctors who do not know how to do SMP seem to gravitate to what they do know. So, these doctors recommend hair transplants rather than SMP, even though an SMP procedure would be better for the patient. For diffuse thinning (a common finding in 50% of women with hair loss), hair transplants can’t obtain enough grafts to increase the overall density to a level that will satisfy the patients. SMP, on the other hand, reduces the contrast between hair and skin color so well that it increases the appearance of fullness to a normal level in most people. A comparable hair transplant, if a patient have enough hair, could cost tens of thousands of dollars. Even if one could afford the procedure, few people have enough hair to fill in a diffuse thinning hair pattern (in either women or men). So, we offer SMP for patients with thinning hair, regardless of the cause. These patients are the happiest patients we have. I would say that our overall satisfaction rate far exceeds 95% because, unlike hair transplant where the hair loss continues to progress, SMP addresses the entire thinning problem in the short time frame while it is being done, regardless of the hair loss progression that may be present. Patients who had SMP rarely return for more treatments once the process is complete.