Maturation of a Hairline — Moving From Juvenile to Mature (with Photos)

/by William Rassman, M.D./3 /, ,

Normal male hairline progression from a juvenile to a mature one typically occurs between 17 and 29 years of age. The lowest line in the photo below is the hairline this man had when he was about 12 years old. The second line is the hairline that will be his mature hairline if he is not balding. The area behind this second line has miniaturizing hairs and it should be his permanent hair, so this man is clearly developing frontal balding. This process of a maturing hairline might appear like balding to the person impacted by this change, but it is self limited and stops within a few years once the location of the maturing hairline is established. Many of my readers think that the development of a mature hairline is balding (they panic but should not because it is not balding). Performing a miniaturization study at the stage where the maturing hairline is starting to develop would show miniaturization (in only the blue area). In this patient the blue area is completely hair free. Behind the blue area, there should be no miniaturization (not the case in the photos here). I call the entire area we are looking at in the photos, the frontal hairline, not the temples (as so many of my young readers call it). Although the average age of a maturing hairline appears between ages 17 to 29, it could be seen before 17 or after 29.

If this man wanted a hair transplant, I would put him on Propecia (finasteride 1mg) to stabilize his progressive hair loss and then transplant him (about 1300 grafts). One might think that the proposed transplanted area would be easy to see, but he has enough hair to hide any transplant he would get with some creative forward combing style. The balding on the right side is as extensive as the balding on the left side, but the way the hair is styled, it hides the balding well. I would place his hairline just where the blue area starts and give him what he would have had if he was not balding. The entire red area would be filled with transplanted hair.

So just to summarize, these photographs are of a 31 year old patient with early hair loss beyond his mature hairline. The lowest line is the location of his juvenile hairline and the upper is the location of where his mature hairline would be (usually about 1/2 inch above the juvenile hairline in the midline and an inch in the corner of the frontal hairline). I’ve put up the original version and a color-highlighted version to show the areas I’m referring to. The blue section in the colored photos is the area between the juvenile and mature hairline, and the red section is the actual genetic hair loss which has miniaturized hair (behind the mature hairline). Please click the photos to enlarge.

Tags: hairloss, hair loss, hairline, miniaturization, juvenile, mature

Washing Scalp After Transplant

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

I am day 4 post op right now. I have been pouring shampoo-filled water on my head followed by a round of conditioner. I am not touching my scalp at all except for gently massaging around the donor area a couple of times. At what point should i change how i wash. Can you please detail how to wash my hair when it is time to change what i am doing now? Also I still have pain in the donor area. Is this normal? How long will this last? Lastly, are there any post-op products that promote scabs to fall off and protect against infection? Thank you for taking the time to read this and for your reply.

For starters, you should be asking your transplant surgeon these question. Of course, I will do the best I can to help and will expand upon your question to supply other bits of information that may help my general readership.

Washing your head after a hair transplant has been arbitrary among hair transplant surgeons for years. The dilemma is that there is a risk of grafts dislodging in the first few days after surgery if the grafts get manipulated. On the other hand, washing reduces the chance of scab formation which gives you acceleration of the healing and normalcy of your scalp. Fortunately, this issue was studied recently (see this PDF file — Graft anchoring in hair transplantation). This study showed that presence of scabbing after surgery extends the interval that grafts are at risk of being dislodged. The study emphasizes that preventing scab formation would shorten the high risk period during which new grafts may fall out. I recommend frequent, but gentle hair washing in the first few days following you operation without rubbing or scratching in the recipient area. Professional hair washing for the first days after surgery is advisable and I personally offer this service to all of my patients during this time. Some products have been claimed to reduce the scabbing and infection after surgery with no documented evidence to support them.

Fortunately, infection is not a common complication after a hair transplant in healthy individuals, thanks to good blood supply of the scalp skin. As a general rule the donor and recipient wounds are almost completely sealed in within a few hours and certainly by the next day after a hair transplant. External factors should not cause infection in these areas beyond this time. If you do not learn to wash with some vigor, then the evidence of a hair transplant in its healing phase may take weeks to disappear rather than a day or two (crusts that are not washed away in the first or second day tend to linger for weeks). The actual details of how to wash should be obtained from your doctor. After a week, if the scabs are still there, you can wash your hair and then leave the shampoo on for 10 minutes or so, gently massaging the scabs after the 10 minute waiting period.

Folliculitis (a cyst in the recipient area which may become infected) is the most common cause of post operative infection in people who do not pick on their transplanted site. For those that pick, the infection risk rises. There are a number of factors that contribute to these cystic ‘pimples’ that appear after 4-6 weeks. Some people believe that these are caused by remnants of hair left behind from the grafts or are foreign body reactions to the glands of the hairs which may survive below the skin after the hair is shed. These glands (which lie along the hair shaft about 3 mm down from the skin) almost certainly produce sebum (a waxy secretion) which can not exit the skin, because it needs a hair shaft to find its way out. These cysts are best treated with warm soaks and frequent shampoos to promote their external drainage. When a doctor employs staff without extensive experience or with poor eyesight, grafts are put in one on top of another (piggybacking), which buries the first graft. These buried grafts causes cysts that frequently get infected and at times require antibiotics or even surgical drainage.

Pain in the donor area could persist for the first 2 or 3 days after surgery. Soreness continues to subside within the first week, and rarely require pain medications after the first day. Mild numbness in the donor area may persist for a few weeks.

Tags: hairtransplant, hair transplant, aftercare, wash, washing, scalp, graft

Propecia Success Rate vs Placebo

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

Dear Doctor,
Most of us would agree that wikipedia is one of the most common sources of information on the web. Looking at common hair loss treatments on wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldness_treatments) I found that the positive effects of propecia are not described sufficiently (as they are in your blog). Moreover, it says that “Propecia has a reported 29-68% success rate (vs. 17-45% in patients receiving a placebo)” whereas your posts report that almost all men have some positive effect. If possible, please clarify.

Several studies were conducted on Propecia (finasteride 1mg) to compare its effect with placebo on hair loss or growth. To answer your question, I present the numbers of one study comparing the effect of finasteride with placebo in the growth of crown hair. In this study, hair growth was compared over a period of 5 years. In this experiment, initially investigators evaluated patients’ hair growth and came up with the below numbers:

  Finasteride Placebo
1 Year 65% 37%
2 Year 80% 47%
5 Year 77% 15%

The same study was repeated, but this time an independent team of investigators rated standardized photos in a blinded fashion (reviewers were not aware which patient took finasteride or placebo). The numbers were different, but still statistically significant as shown below:

  Finasteride Placebo
1 Year 48% 7%
2 Year 66% 7%
5 Year 48% 6%

There are some other studies looking at different aspects of hair growth and as a result you may see different numbers. In clinical studies, you may find different numbers presenting the same facts, but if you go to the detail of the study, you will notice that they are not necessarily concentrating on the same parameters. The difficult element not covered by these studies is the ability for finasteride to arrest the hair loss (stop or slow its rate of loss). I am personally certain (in my professional opinion) that finasteride reduces the rate of loss in all men with genetic hair loss.

The drug company (Merck) only report what was studied and can not guess or postulate on what they might logically conclude are probable outcomes in different situations. If it was not studied, Merck will be silent. Being under FDA regulations, they are tightly controlled as to any claims that are made. To get more information about a study, you need to look at the methodology of the study to understand what particular variables are being evaluated. Professionals like me, are allowed to voice their professional opinions and are not held to the same type of restrictions as Merck.

Tags: finasteride, propecia, hairloss, hair loss, placebo

Unlimited Donor Supply (or Follicular Unit Multiplication)

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

Hair multiplication has been a hot topic in hair restoration field in the last few years and many patients with severe hair loss hope that using this technique they can get back a full head of hair without worrying about donor supply limitation.

I think it would be helpful to review a recent article in the journal of dermatologic surgery on a similar subject: In Vivo Follicular Unit Multiplication: Is It Possible to Harvest an Unlimited Donor Supply? Ergin ER, MD, Melike Kulahaci, MD, and Emirali jamiloglu, MD 32:11:NOVEMBER 2006.

The article discusses a method for multiplication of hair follicles without a need to culture them. The authors have removed hair follicles using a FUE technique and cut them in different levels, trying to see if two hairs can be obtained out of one hair follicle. The researchers implanted the upper parts of these partial grafts in recipient area and the remnants back in donor site. The procedure was done on five male patients. Hair follicle counts and thickness analysis were performed after 1 year by a third party investigator.

Results of the hair count and thickness analysis showed that the growth could be seen in both the upper and lower parts of the cut follicle. From the grafts that were cut in upper one third, only 20 percent showed growth in the recipient site, while 84 percent of the remnant that were left behind, grew in the donor area. There was 29% growth rate in recipient area in the grafts, which were cut in halves vs. 68% growth of the remnants of these same grafts in donor area. Finally 41% of the grafts cut in upper two third grew hair in recipient area vs. 53% growth in the remnants of the same hair follicles in the donor area that they were taken from.

The authors concluded that hair follicle growth is complex and hair follicle contains stem cells in different levels, which could participate in the growth of new hairs. We know that stem cells are located in the bulb of hair follicles and in the outer sheath, in the middle of the hair shaft where the sebaceous gland is located. The authors assumed that each half of the follicle contains a stem cell reservoir that would potentially allow the growth of a new hair. The rate of the growth in a new hair follicle is reported to be 41 percent at best. All of the partial hair follicles grow thinner hair in comparison with intact hair follicles that were transplanted in the same patients.

The authors suggest that these sub-units of hair have value but they provide a lower yield than growth of hair from intact grafts both in numbers of viable hairs as well in the actual thickness of the hair that do grow. They also suggested that FUE is a promising technique is a mechanism to get the hairs for an eventual hair multiplication process once it is worked out, but it should be avoided if the transaction rate is higher than 10 percent.

Of course, this is not the only study on this subject and some other studies reported comparable results. As we have suggested in our previous publications over and over again, FUE is a great technique for the patients who have small donor area requirement, a limited balding area, a tight scalp and the ones with a contraindication for removing a strip. FUE should not replace strip technique in standard cases.

Tags: fue, hairtransplant, hair transpant, multiplication, donor

When Should I Be Concerned About My Female Hair Loss?

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

I am a healthy 25 year old female and recently I have noticed a great deal of hair loss. About 2 weeks ago, I started to notice an unusual large amount of hair in my hair brush and on my bathroom floor when I would get done styling my hair. I didn’t really think about it, until my boyfriend started pointing it out to me. He noticed that after I got out of the shower, there would be a clump or two of hair that had fallen out of my head. Is this something to be concerned about? I have no idea what would cause this.

Just seeing hair coming out more than usual is not an indication of hair loss in women. If you have a long hair, you might be just going through normal hair cycling. If you noticed widening in parting of your hair, or if you could see your scalp more than usual, you should be alarmed and those might be indications that you are really losing hair. Hair loss in women as described in multiple posts in this site could have several treatable causes, like hormonal changes, medications, and medical conditions. If you have any of the above problems, you need to see a hair specialist and get your hair mapped for miniaturization.

Hair loss in women can sometimes be caused by underlying medical conditions, so it is important for you to be evaluated by your own physician. If clinically appropriate, the following disease processes should be considered: anemia, thyroid disease, connective tissue disease, gynecological conditions and emotional stress. It is also important to review the use of medications that can cause hair loss, such as oral contraceptives, beta-blockers, Vitamin A, thyroid drugs, coumadin and prednisone. The following laboratory tests are often useful if underlying problems are suspected: Estradiol, FSH, LH, SHBG, Prolactin, T4, TSH, ANA, Iron, TIBC, Ferritin, Free and Total Testosterone. It might help to print this page out and show this to your family physician.

Tags: female, women, woman, hairloss, hair loss

Is an FUE Procedure a Less Successful Hair Transplant?

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

What do you mean by saying “FUE can be done in one surgery (our group did as many as 2600 in a single patient in a single session) or it can be done multiple day surgeries”? You said that this does not mean that FUE produces viable hair, so does that mean that you see less success in FUE procedures???

Anyone can claim that they are an expert at a procedure, but where is the credibility? The results of an FUE procedure in good hands will be as good as the standard strip procedure, but yet all FUE grafts are not equal. In our original article, we talked about the candidacy of patients, where some patients were better suited for FUE than others. Now the non-candidacy group is smaller, but the quality of the grafts may become an even more important issue.

For the future, we can look to the past, as Dr. Jae P. Pak’s engineering work led to a robotic application and a U.S. Patent granted for the FUE technique in 2003 (U.S. Patent 6,572,625). We can expect to see a robotic application coming out in a year or two.

In brief, Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) can produce damage that range from transection (cutting) of the hair follicles to avulsion of vital elements of the graft. The percentage of such damage should be under 10 percent. When compared to the traditional strip surgery, the follicular units taken under the microscope from the strip excision are mostly perfect. The FUE procedure is not as time efficient as the strip either. Local damage to each individual follicular unit depends upon:

  1. the skill of the doctor
  2. the instruments and techniques used
  3. the tissue characteristics of the patient

Most doctors do not classify the quality of each individual FUE graft nor do they calculate the transection rate, so the integrity of the doctor in making this assessment is just as important as his/her skills. Please note that nothing is 100% and always be wary of doctors or salesmen promising you 100% success rates, or a willingness to take on any patient for an FUE, or flippant comments like ‘our grafts’ do not get damaged. Always ask the doctor how he/she knows. Look at the picture of the three grafts below. The graft on the left is a normal FUE three hair graft with good fat and fibrous tissue surrounding the follicular unit, the one in the middle shows transection of one out of two hairs (only one hair may grow, but it is denuded of skin so it may not grow to its full bulk), and the one that is on the right is a three hair follicular unit which shows that the follicles have been stretched and the surrounding supportive tissue has been stripped away (these grafts will ‘probably‘ grow, but they may not have their normal width when they grow out). If this patient had coarse hair normally, the graft on the left would be coarse when it grows (like his normal hair), the one in the middle might be less than coarse (less than his normal) and the one on the right may be ‘finer’ hair. A coarse hair has better bulk and better coverage for this patient than a ‘fine’ hair and the results of the fine hair graft when and if it grows will almost certainly disappoint the patient when compared to what it should have been. Click the photo to enlarge.


For further reading about the FUE process, please see What Doctors Don’t Want You to Know About FUE.

Tags: fue, follicular unit extraction, hairtransplant, hair transplant, hair loss, hairloss, success
Errors: https://baldingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03//photos/061214_fuegrafts.jpg is not accessible or supported filetype.

What Doctors Don’t Want You to Know About FUE

/by William Rassman, M.D./15 /, ,

Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) has been in vogue with hair transplantation surgeons in recent years. It is an elegant approach where one follicular unit is taken from a patient’s donor area, one at a time. There are no scalpels or the traditional linear scar. An FUE procedure requires a special 0.7 to 1 mm diameter tool that is used to harvest each hair follicle. All incisions and cuts leave a scar, but an FUE scar is barely visible to the naked eye because each FUE scar shrinks to less than 0.5mm.

There are many variables that contribute to the success or failure of an FUE. As one can imagine, harvesting a single hair follicle one at a time can be extremely tedious and fatiguing to the surgeon if he/she had to do it several hundred times for each procedure. More importantly, negotiating a 0.7 to 1 mm diameter tool to perfectly encompass a hair follicle is technically challenging even under magnification and requires a very steady hand and much experience doing it. Of course, one might ask how a doctor gets that experience and what the cost is to the patients from which that experience comes from.

There are also uncontrollable patient dependent physiologic variables as well, including:

  1. Hair characteristics such as color and thickness
  2. Skin characteristics such as hydration level, elasticity, degree of fatty tissue content
  3. Idiopathic variables (the unknown)

All the above variables contribute to what is called a transection rate. A transection of a hair follicle means that a portion or even the entire hair follicle was cut along its body and could be damaged, which may jeopardize its viability. A complete transected hair follicle will not grow hair when it is implanted.

A “successful” extraction of one hair follicle with the current FUE technique is a very relative term. To better illustrate this point we must understand the anatomy of a follicular unit with respect to the transection rate. One follicular unit can be a group of one, two, three, or four hairs. One patient may have a predominance of two-hair-grouped follicles and the other four-hair-grouped follicles. For example, when a surgeon extracts a four-hair-grouped follicle with an FUE technique and transects half the follicle, only two hairs will grow and the remaining two may be killed off, lost in never-never land. The way some doctors count, this is widely considered a successful FUE effort (not by me, of course), because this means only 50% of hair was harvested and 50% is lost forever! To make matters worse, the patients may be fully charged ($$) for that follicle even with the transection as long a one hair is viable (a shady process to say the least). What is even worse than that is that in a complete transection, that follicle is likely dead forever and even if the doctor did not charge for the complete transaction (as he/she should not charge for it) it would be considered by me to be negative value, reducing the person’s donor hair forever. One may argue that acceptable transection rate for a “successful” FUE is 10% or less, but this is not advertised and most patients (the consumers) do not have a clear understanding of this fact. Nothing in real life is 100%. Even the traditional hair transplant surgery with the donor strip incision has a 2 to 5% transection rate. From a historical point of view, it is interesting to note that New Hair Institute (NHI) was well aware of the possibility of transection rates in excess of 10% as early as 1997 before FUE was in vogue and four years prior to the landmark article published by Rassman, et. al. In conjunction with Dr. Jae Pak (with his mechanical engineering background) the two designed and built a prototype computerized video Follicular Extraction (FLEX) device which was patented by Dr. William Rassman (U.S. Patent 6,572,625). Even that device did not achieve did not consistently achieve the ideal ‘less than 10% transection’ in all patients and FUE can not match the 2 to 5% transection rate of the traditional donor strip incision. The transection rate by our NHI surgeons are still well within the 10% range for FUE and we make no pretenses that it is better than that routinely. Because of inherent limitations of FUE and uncontrollable patient variations, any claims of transection rate of less than 10% should be viewed as highly suspect. The automated process covered by the patent technology (above) is not commercially available… yet!

With the current state of technology, a surgeon may perfect his FUE technique, but the inherent patient variability will keep the FUE transection rate higher than the traditional donor strip incision technique. An informed patient should know the risks and benefits of any surgical procedure. The FUE procedure with its virtually non detectable scarring is an attractive alternative to the traditional donor strip incision and may be good when the amount of hair needed is small because the balding area being treated is not great, but its inherent transection potential may be a deterrent for the very bald patients who want the most hair possible from their donor site.

More information on the FUE technique:

Tags: hairtransplant, hair transplant, fue, follicular unit extraction, patent

Doctors Only Record Their Successes, Not Failures

/by William Rassman, M.D./2 /,

Have you ever had any failures in your practice of transplanting hair? Not just you didn’t fill in a portion here or there. But someone who was devastated?. It seems everywhere I search, doctors only records their successes. I think it is great that HT is often successful and am fully considering one for myself, but am of course afraid that there are people who have gotten a HT from credible doctors, and it made their life miserable.

Any thoughts?

There are no guarantees in medicine. A doctor can not expect 100% of patients who had transplants to succeed 100% of the time. I’ve met with many patients who have had transplant failures at other clinics and have come to me for help. Many times the failures are produced by doctors who did not have the necessary experienced teams or underestimated the jobs that they took on. Some of the failures are caused by a failure to properly set expectations and when doctors use salesmen to ‘sell’ the transplant, then expectations may not be met because they were set unrealistically high to make the sale and close the deal. In many of these patients, I see graft growth roughly proportional to the number of transplants that they received, but a disappointed patient still sees the process as a failure. We solve this problem by holding open house events monthly where setting expectations and patient education are central to my agenda.

In my practice I have seen a rare failure of grafts to grow. There are many causes of graft growth failure that are not caused by the doctor, some of which include:

  • severely atrophic skin in a very bald person
  • autoimmune diseases that were undiagnosed (a common cause)
  • chronic telogen effluvium and the presence of a variety of scarring alopecias
  • infection
  • severe diffuse unpatterned alopecia (DUPA)

DUPA is a relatively common cause of failures, because the condition is often not properly diagnosed, even though it is easy to diagnose when the donor area is mapped for miniaturization).

So yes, you are correct that doctors do not want to publicize failure. I don’t know of a doctor in any field of medicine that proudly shows off unsuccessful procedures. It is just never good for business. Could you imagine a breast cancer specialist telling how many of his patients died, or a psychiatrist tell his depressed patients how many of his patients committed suicide?

You ended your question with a suggestion that a hair transplant from a credible doctor would make their lives miserable. Modern hair transplants should not make anyone worse off. Even a theoretical complete failure should leave a person to where they were prior to the transplant (less whatever scar was in the donor area, which should be minimally detectable).

Tags: hairtransplant, hair transplant, doctor, failure, sucess

Hair and the Effects of Flat Irons

/by William Rassman, M.D./5 /,

Hi I am 29 years old, male. Do flat irons cause permanent hair loss? My hair dresser started using a flat iron on my hair 3 years ago, since my hair was wavy, he showed me how I can make it straight. About 2 months after using it (usually once or twice a week) I noticed that my hair was drying out. I stopped, only to use it once in a while. Today I find that my hair is receding on the sides and my crown is thinning. Is this from the use of the flat iron? I’ve stopped using it for about 6 months now but I still find that my hair falls out everytime I wash and style it. I researching on the net about the side effects of flat irons but never found any concrete proof about the consequences of using them. I hope I didn’t ruin my hair for good! What can I do?

Let’s think logically about this. When hair has grown beyond the scalp, it is no longer a living tissue. Only the hair organ below the skin is living. Hair is made of compressed fibers and a shingle type of structure made up of shed skin cells called cutin. These shed skin cells are in effect the same ‘stuff’ that produces the scales we see in dandruff and may reflect higher turnover of the skin on our scalps. As these shed cells are compressed above the fibers in the hair shaft, they form a layered array just like the shingles on a roof would form to keep out the water. But below the skin, the hair organ puts lipoproetin layers into these scales of cutin that give the hair the character that you have. The presence of fat on the outside of the hair shaft is what brings out ‘luster’ in the hair. Once the hair exits the skin as it grows , it enters the hostile environment of air, wind, weather, heat, etc… and it no longer is subject to what your body can do for it. As the hair exits the surface of the skin, the sebaceous glands secret a waxy sebum that may find its way onto the hair shaft, giving some people an oily hair.

When you iron your hair with heat, you do change the character of the hair and change the configuration of the varying layers of compacted cutin and the fibers that make up the structure of your hair. Heat takes away the luster (shine) from hair, burns away the waxy covering, may denature the lipoproteins on the surface of the hair shaft and it is this that protects the hair from the environment. Heat may damage the core of the fibers inside the hair as well. High heat applications can damage the hair so that it cracks, breaks, and even become fragile, producing broken ends from hair that breaks too easily. Take a look at this illustration of an enlarged hair shaft here (illustrated by Norm Nason). Note the layering of the cutin shingles. Look at the center of the shaft and see the fibers that form the backbone and the strength of the hair shaft. When these fibers are broken, or the shingled cutin is removed, damaged or burned, a pealing process may begin which would reflect the damage to the foundation of the hair shaft, and it can become permanent. When the hair is damaged, then gentle handling is critical to maintain and hold it on your head. You can, of course, cut it off and new hair coming from below the skin which should not grow out damaged, will eventually replace the weak hair. The hair exiting the skin is normal and undamaged so you can and should expect that once you cut off the damaged hair, the new hair will grow to whatever your normal should be. Good cosmetology can hydrate the hair and it might bring back some of its luster and strength. For those of you interested in high powered microscopic views of the hair system below the skin, see here.

So, if you have hair loss or thinning of new hair, it is possibly a new problem, and you need to have your hair analyzed by a doctor like me.

Tags: hairloss, hair loss, iron, character, heat, cutin, fiber

Juvenile vs Mature Hairline — Am I Going Bald? (Photos)

/by William Rassman, M.D./13 /, ,

Many of my younger readers of this blog are seeing changes in their hairlines and are worrying about becoming bald. The problem is made worse when there is balding in their family line. I have placed three diagrams taken from the Norwood Classification for hair loss. By conventional wisdom, the Class 1 pattern is proposed not to be balding, the Class 2 pattern suggests that this is the beginning of the balding pattern (it may actually be the beginning of the mature hairline, just not named as such), and the Class 3 pattern is thought of as early balding, possibly worthy of transplants in some men. The line between the Class 2 and 3 patterns are fuzzy, at best. The reality, however, is not quite as simple as I believe that Dr. O’Tar Norwood had documented. In most men (more so in Caucasians), the hairline of youth rises to a hairline of maturity. The mature hairline is about 1/2 to 3/4th inch higher in the middle than where the youthful hairline is and as one moves away from the midline to the corners of the hairline, the gap between the mature hairline location and the youthful hairline location is slightly over 1 inch, changing the overall shape of the hairline to its characteristic ‘V’ shape.

 

Norwood 1 Norwood 2 Norwood 3

 

Bill ClintonYou can tell where your youthful hairline is/was by lifting your eyebrows up so that you can see your forehead wrinkle. I call this the furrowed brow, and the wrinkles you see reflect a muscle below the skin (the frontalis muscle which is present in everyone). The youthful (juvenile) hairline touches the top of the highest wrinkle of the furrowed brow and has a concave frontal shape to it.  This often persist until the early teens, possibly longer.  In the mature hairline (with its almost convex frontal shape (V-Shape) that extends from the temple prominences), shows a gap where there are no wrinkles and no hair present. None of what I just wrote is male pattern balding, yet many of our young readers panic when they see the rise in this hairline and they look to the Norwood Chart to identify where they are in the progression of their hair loss. It is particularly bothersome to the young men when the change occurs slowly and asymmetrically. Asymmetrical hair loss is common  It’s even worse when the change produces a ‘chewed’ look. This maturing process occurs between 17 and 29 years of age and it is not uncommon to find one side go up faster than the other side. Not all men get a mature hairline (for example, former US President Bill Clinton retained his juvenile hairline — see his photo below) and retention of the juvenile hairline is more common in non-Caucasians as seen in many people from Asia and the middle eastern region.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so look at the pictures and labels below for clarity of this. Women almost always retain their juvenile hairline through their entire lives, while 95% of Caucasian men develop a mature hairline.

Set 1 (below): Photo on the left is of a patient shown with the “mature” hairline drawn in. The photo in the middle on the right is of that same patient with the “juvenile” hairline drawn in (the lowest line paralleling the highest crease of the furrowed brow). Note the gap between the highest wrinkle and the proposed mature hairline. That ‘gap’ should not be transplanted. The photo on the below is of my hairline —  a classic mature hairline. Click photos to enlarge.

 

Set 2 (below): Photos on the left (Korean) and on the right (Hispanic) non-transplanted hairline. The photo below this is of an adult female (Cambodian) hairline (non-transplanted). Mr. Clinton’s hairline (above) takes on the shape of the female hairline shown here. Female Hairline = Juvenile Male Hairline. Click photos to enlarge.

If the surgeon follows the rules set forth in this post, then the hairlines will be placed in a position exactly like it would have been had they never lost hair as shown in these two patient examples below. The man on the right saw his hairline go up from its normal mature position and the line drawn shows his normal mature position where the transplanted hairs were placed in a single session with these results. With the lower photo, this man had a Class 6 pattern of balding and this change in his look occurred in a single surgery. If the hairline was not placed in the correct mature position, he would not have looked normal. I call these hairlines “no hairline hairlines”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend homework assignment: Check out the hairlines of your sibling, parents, spouse, neighbor, and meter maid. It’s worth looking at a variety of hairlines so that you can see what I’ve discussed above and determine the difference between a juvenile hairline and a mature hairline.

Tags: hairline, mature, juvenile, photos, hairloss, hair loss

A Good Hair Transplant Made Great (with Photos)

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

Once you have a follicular unit transplant (FUT), if the procedure was done with care, there is no question that the results can’t be detected in any casual encounter, or even on close inspection in most circumstances. Yet with that said, there is still a difference between patient results that go beyond the characteristics of (1) hair shaft thickness, (2) hair character, and (3) hair color.

Let’s take a look at a patient who had two hair transplant procedures. The patient is Dr. Jon Perlman, the well-known Beverly Hills plastic surgeon that has been featured on ABC’s television show, Extreme Makeover. After his first session, he had good results that nicely framed his face when his hair was groomed. But on close examination, his hair was somewhat see-through. Dr. Perlman has very fine hair, so the bulk of each hair shaft was lower than average. By undergoing a second procedure, the bulk was doubled and the results shown in the pictures below say a great deal about the change he experienced. He was more-than-satisfied after the first procedure and thrilled after the second one. A good transplant became a great transplant.

Sometimes patients will tell me something like, “I don’t want it too thick and I am afraid if I put too much hair there, it will look unnaturally thick.” In all of the years of doing this surgery, I have never, ever had a patient who told me that I had made the hair too thick in a single session. We have seen many of our patients (initially satisfied, but wanting more hair) receive another transplant and become transformed back in time to their youthful look. By performing NHI’s pioneering dense packing procedure, we can increase the density of hair in a single procedure, often reducing the number of procedures needed to obtain results like the one shown here, but when the hair is super fine (like the example below) then two sessions may be needed. For many people, hair is like money — the more you have, the better it is.

Click the photos to enlarge.

Before and After 2 procedures (2890 grafts total):

 

For more photos, click “read more” —

Read more

How to Tell if You’ve Found the Right Hair Transplant Doctor

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

What is the difference between doctors and the various medical groups performing hair transplants. There appears to be a great deal of competition and as I go between groups, I get confused and overwhelmed.

If you were looking for a good family doctor or plastic surgeon, you would most likely use certain criteria for selecting one over the other. Fundamentally, you would look for a well credentialed, caring, competent doctor who you like and feel comfortable with. Be sure that the doctor values you as a patient by spending time with you and discussing your agenda freely. Ask yourself if the doctor listened to what you were saying or lectured you about his/her ideas. That doctor must be trustworthy to take on your welfare or your family’s welfare, and not only must you believe in his/her skills, but you should also like him/her as a person. Although the various family doctors and plastic surgeons use physician’s assistants or nurse practitioners to help them manage patient’s needs, the doctor is always ultimately the person in charge, the one whose skills you will eventually depend upon. As most doctors practice in groups, you should feel comfortable with the doctors who work with your doctor in the group that you selected, as sometimes your doctor may be on vacation or off-call when you need him/her the most.

You should expect that physician extenders should be educated as physician extenders (nurses or certified physician assistants, not salesmen). Hair transplantation differs from standard family practice and cosmetic surgery procedures in that there is a team approach to performing surgery. Doing refined follicular unit transplantation takes a team of 3-6 people working together for hours, so the doctor’s team is as important as the doctor is. An old cliché says that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so the skills of the doctor as one link of that chain can easily be offset by inexperienced technicians in the surgical team or sloppy processes that are not put together carefully and not focused on the many detailed nuances that produce quality hair transplants. You should feel confidence in the doctor and the team and you should feel ‘integrity’ and trust in soul of that doctor.

In my hair restoration practice, I add many elements to build confidence and establish trust. I have an open practice, where new, potential patients can meet completed hair transplanted patients one-on-one. This offers the opportunity for new patients to probe the process and see up front what they will be getting if we perform the surgery. I focus heavily on patient education, not only by providing copies of some of the important medical articles I have written, but also in spending time with each potential patient (doctor and patient in a private room without a salesman). Then after the visit, I provide a detailed letter summarizing what I learned about the patient’s objectives, and a written Master Plan for what I think will happen to that patient. Fees are openly discussed by the doctor and quotes for surgical fees are put into writing. By far, most of our patients do not have surgery and can be spared surgery with appropriate medications.

NHI is unique in that we have a fully accredited surgical center where all of our surgeries are performed, ensuring safety for patients to the highest national standard. Our surgical center is audited regularly for following hospital quality processes and procedure. Very few (if any) hair transplant facilities adhere to such rigorous standards. Why is that important? Well, it is the patient’s assurance that our sense of quality is judged against the best healthcare facilities in the nation. When you select a medical group for your hair transplant procedure, you should not only know the facility, the staff competence, and longevity of that staff, but also the history of the doctor. Has the doctor been disciplined before the medical board for infractions in any form of conduct? What does the public and his colleagues think about the doctor (available through internet sources)? What is the doctor’s malpractice record? Have you met or spoken to his/her former patients, and if so, what do they tell you about their research prior to taking on this doctor as their doctor-of-choice?

I always tell my patients (and have written on this blog many times before) that there is good news and bad news for the hair transplant patient — simply put, hair transplants are absolutely permanent. Getting it done right the first time is far easier that trying to fix what might not be fixable if it is done wrong. By following this selection process, finding a good doctor should not be difficult. There are many good doctors out there, just be careful not to end up in the wrong place.

Tags: hair transplant, doctor, hair restoration, hairtransplant, hairloss, hair loss

Treatments Available for Female Hair Loss

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

Over the over again, women from all over the world are writing to me asking, “What can be done for me?” I will list alternative options below, but I want to warn those of you who are reading this material to recognize that none of this is proven to solve the hair loss problems of most women. If it works, it may work in selective women, those that have a more clear androgenic (male-like) component of their hair loss. In addition, some women with combined genetic hair loss and Polycystic Ovaries (PCO) develop male-like patterned hair loss and could be candidates for the hormone treatments discussed below. I am loathe to recommend these treatments, because I do not personally feel comfortable with recommending hormone altering therapies, as some of them may impact ovarian, breast, and uterine cancer risks — so with that warning, please read on.

Finasteride use in women:
There have been articles on the failure of 1mg of finasteride to impact women’s hair loss. Now, for the use of higher dose finasteride than normally prescribed in men, the Iorizzo article (see references below) concludes, Sixty-two percent of the patients demonstrated some improvement of their hair loss with the use of finasteride, 2.5 mg/d, while taking the oral contraceptive. It is unclear whether the success was due to a higher dosage of finasteride (2.5 mg instead of 1 mg) or to its association with the oral contraceptive containing drospirenone, which has an antiandrogenic effect. These two drugs may complement each other and to get the effect, they both may be needed. Further studies are necessary to understand which patterns of female pattern hair loss respond better to this treatment, for I am sure that all women will not respond the same way. The article leaves us confused. It is not clear which are those who can be treated and there are no statistics on safety and side effects (this was not the focus of the article, however). The entire article is based upon conjecture, something that the authors recognize is the problem that the limited study creates. What concerns me is that with the promise that 62% of women may be helped by Propecia, desperate women with the help of inexperienced doctors will start taking finasteride without understanding the long term impact of these drugs on women. Maybe downstream, we may see a Vioxx type side effect with regard to cancer. With that said, there is a suggestion in this article that finasteride may have value for women and if this can be seen with better, more controlled studies, then this may be a breakthrough. I suspect that women with a ‘male pattern’ to their hair loss may experience more benefit over those without it. This is conjecture (an educated guess) on my part.

Antiandrogen treatment for hair loss in women:
The second article (see references below) starts off, “It has not been conclusively established that female pattern hair loss (FPHL) is either due to androgens or responsive to oral antiandrogen therapy.” This opening correctly set the tone of the article. Two different medications were used: spironolactone and cyproterone acetate. Neither was clearly better than the other. Discussion of the authors said, “The treatment under a doctor’s care went for 16 months. 44% had improvement, 44% had no improvement and 10% had further hair loss“. Many dermatologist are presently using spironolactone and cyproterone acetate and there is selective enthusiasm for these drugs, but it is not universally accepted as the mainstay for treating women’s hair loss. Doctors come under a great deal of pressure to do something. The question here is will spironolactone and cyproterone acetate treatment provide enough benefit for the costs and the pain of the injections that are required with repetitive treatments over a prolonged period of time?

References:

  1. ARCH DERMATOL/VOL 142, MAR 2006: Matilde Iorizzo, MD; Colombina Vincenzi, MD; Stylianos Voudouris, MD; Bianca Maria Piraccini, MD, PhD; Antonella Tosti, MD, Titled Finasteride Treatment of Female Pattern Hair Loss
  2. British Journal of Dermatologist 2005, Article by R. Sinclair, M/ Weweromle amd D. Jolley from Australia titled: Treatment of female patterned hair loss with oral antiandrogens
Tags: hairloss, hair loss, female, women, woman, spironolactone, cyproterone, finasteride

What is Dandruff and Why Do I Have More of It Than My Friends?

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

What is dandruff and why do I have more of it than my friends? I can’t wear any dark shirt without snow on my shoulders. What can I do about it? Please help me understand what is happening to my scalp!

Skin is not static. It changes and we shed it like a snake sheds its skin, but we do this a little each and every hour of the day. In two weeks, the average person will shed their entire skin surface and replace it with new skin. Scalp skin takes about a month to turn over, so the process is a bit longer. To understand dandruff, let’s take a quick look at psoriasis. “Psoriasis is a skin disease that causes scaling and swelling. Skin cells grow deep in the skin and slowly rise to the surface. This process is called cell turnover, and it normally takes about a month. With psoriasis, it can happen in just a few days because the cells rise too fast and pile up on the surface.” (source: NIAMS). Dandruff is like psoriasis in that the skin turnover is faster than normal (not anything as fast as psoriasis) and before it can be shed, it cakes up to form the flakes that you are observing and complaining about (dandruff).

Skin on different parts of the body shed at different rates and as we age, it is the genes in our body that determine how quickly the normal aging process occurs in our skin and the turnover rate of that skin for our age. The rate of aging and the daily changes in our skin can be influenced by extrinsic factors that can act together with the normal aging process to prematurely age our skin. Sun exposure is one of the most important factors that cause our skin to age but the way we use our body also impacts us. Exposure to varying environments will change the rate of skin turnover as well as the moisture that our skin has in it. Other external factors include things we do, like smoking, which has a duel effect, not only aging the skin and changing the water content of our skin, but it also decreases blood flow to some part of our skin anatomy (scalp). Over time, exposure to the sun damages our skin and impacts our ability to repair itself. Much of the damage is probably related to our exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light which damages our skin’s ability to repair itself. The skin which envelops our body becomes loose as we age and this process is accelerated when we do not protect our skin from sun exposure. The rate of skin turnover varies between people and dandruff is probably a reflection of the rate of skin turnover of our scalp skin for the flakes of dandruff are actually pieces of our skin which are shed prematurely. The higher the turnover rate, the worse the dandruff and the more frequent will be our complaints (e.g. itching, dryness) which plagues many of us.

The best way to manage your skin is to develop a sensible skin care routine. The scalp is no different. The use of moisturizers will soften and wet our skin; conditioners made for dry skin and dry hair will help restore moisture that is lost from the shampoos we use, which remove many of the protecting oils made by our sebaceous glands (sebum) that are designed to hold in moisture. Most important of all is the way you protect your skin from sun exposure, which can produce structural changes in your skin that are permanent. Older skin does not hold on to water very well, so older skin dries easily. Our outer skin layer (stratum corneum) may shed less as we age and the normal texture of the skin changes to reflect the loss of the supporting structures below the top skin layer. An older person’s skin appears dry and crinkly and this reflects a slowing down of collagen production as well as the fibrous elements that we call elastin. Elastin brings the recoil that returns the skin back to its normal position if we pull on it. In the typical aging person, the skin does not recoil very well when pulled upon and as such, it stands up after being pulled upon and it is also more fragile to injuries and environmental factors. Aging is a continuous process that normally begins in our mid-20s when most of our skin is healthy and hopefully not yet damaged by environmental factors. Dead skin cells do not shed as quickly and turnover of new skin cells will decrease as we age. The signs of aging are typically not visible for decades and this reflect the fact that our skin can take considerable abuse before it shows its age.

The dandruff on your head reflects many of the elements discussed above and the scalp skin is constantly exposed to drying from air and UV exposure, building up more damage over time.

Our body’s ability to replace itself varies significantly by body part and organ. For example, the outer layer of our skin completely replaces itself in about 2 weeks (scalp 4 weeks), while the lining in our intestine does it every 5 days. Our red blood cells replace themselves every 4 months (about 1/120th per day) and our bones about 10 years. Our chest muscles last 15 years, and our brains, well the part of it reading this blog, is as old as you are. So next time you get frustrated over the dandruff, think about what you have learned here, as it is a lot easier to moisturize and protect your scalp skin from sun damage than to simply ignore it as most of you do now.

Tags: dandruff, scalp, psoriasis, elastin, skin

If You Trash Your Competitors, You Will Get Dirt on Your Shirt

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

I read with disgust your piece the other day (Doctors, Crooks, or Con Men — How Do You Tell the Difference?) which attacked doctors in such a way that your readers will get an unfair view of the doctors who do good hair transplants and are honest and caring. There are many doctors with high integrity who try to get the best for their patients. Why don’t you promote them and talk about the wonderful things that we can do today, rather than dwell on the few rotton apples out there?

From time to time, I just get overwhelmed by some issue and my frustration is shared with all of you. This is my blog, which is like a personal journal that I share with all of my readers. Sure, I answer hair loss questions that are written to me, but from time to time I also treat it as a place to express my thoughts and even vent my anger in hopefully some constructive way. The piece from the other day was clearly precipitated by one particular patient, but unfortunately, it was not such an unusual occurrence for me to see this problem come up. Of the four doctors who gave him opinions, two of them actually do good quality hair transplants that I have seen in my office, but the decisions they made when meeting this poor man were not necessarily driven by his agenda nor his welfare. I know, unfortunately, that many of the doctors in the hair transplant industry spend huge amounts of money promoting their hair transplant expertise. A 2 x 3.5 inch ad in the Los Angeles Times, for example, costs between $1300-2700 for each day it is run (depending on the day of the week and length of the contract), so when ads are run daily, the costs become staggering and the doctor is as much driven by his/her ability to support his ad budget and his staff salaries, as by his/her desire to be honorable and righteous. Does one agenda conflict with the other? I believe that they, unfortunately, do conflict.

To handle a high number of people responding to these ads, these doctors hire salesmen (often disguised as someone with medical expertise) who become physician extenders, often screening callers to find out who has enough money to afford a hair transplant. Salesmen earn commissions, and although commissions are illegal in California, the commissions in some form still are what drives the sales process. Every potential candidate is screened for his ability to pay the large fees, just as the prospective patient was quoted the other day. That patient had the money so I think that the blood hounds sensed it so the price incentives that were offered by one doctor had some sense of urgency to it. The process I just defined is sleazy and it is something that I have written about, much to my detriment in this heavily market-and-sales driven process. Unfortunately, this is not just a California problem, it is an industry-wide cosmetic surgery problem and some doctors from around the world fit well into the amoral mold I have defined here. But there are many good doctors out there as well, so shopping before you buy a hair transplant will probably lead you to a better choice than taking the first doctor you meet. Watch out for sales tactics that look like a used-car sales lot. Do not accept seeing anyone but the doctor who is going to do the work and never, ever accept anything that you are told unless the person is qualified to give you an opinion and can back up what the doctor tells you.

The doctor who wrote the above comment to me today does bring up some very important things. The surgery we can do today is almost miraculous and 6 of my family members who’ve had hair transplants think that I am God-like for how natural the work looks. I think that too many people have expectations of the deforming, pluggy, doll-look with corn rows, so it is a difficult road for today’s doctors to educate the public on today’s high quality reality. A hair transplant was not only good enough for my immediate family, but I also had it done. As I’ve shared before, I have performed surgery on the politicians, billionaires, CEOs of big businesses, celebrities, the Royalty of countries that my readers have read about, and a few probable mafia members from other countries who would not have allowed me to live had it not worked out and met their expectations. I am not the only doctor who can do this type of quality hair transplant, so please forgive me for yesterday’s and today’s diatribe. To complete my answer to the doctor who posed the comment to me, I must remind the doctors who are reading this blog that we have taken an oath to uphold our patients’ interests about our own. If our oath is not enough, most governments that license doctors require doctors to report any infraction in ethical behavior that we observe as a condition of licensure, something that even I do not adhere to, to the spirit and the letter of the law.

I remember in 1994, I spoke before hundreds of doctors attacking those whose ethics reflect the worst of the sleaze in the business. I openly called them ‘sleazy crooks’. I also remember that the audience stood up and applauded my comments because the large majority of doctors were also disgusted with those who dragged down this struggling new industry, making it particularly hard to break the monopoly that had been horded by a select few marketers. I felt good about my comments because I sensed that many of the doctors in the audience fully supported the victimized men we were focused upon helping. After many private congratulations in the hallway over my vocal position, one well known doctor waited on the sidelines. As the crowd that surrounded me thinned and dispersed, that well known doctor came over to me and said, “I did not like the way you talked about me.” He stomped off and I thought for a moment, remembering that I never named a name and the closest I came to identifying anyone was the label “ sleazy crook,” which seemed to have struck a sensitive cord with him. I think I remember saying, “If the shoe fits, its yours,” but I think that he walked away from me too fast to have heard my retort.

I hope that the doctor who posed his query to me here reflects those who supported my position in 1994 and would support this long winded commentary by me as well.

Tags: hair transplant, doctor, hairloss, hair loss, hair restoration