I am away in Ireland this week and saw the rain come down hard for a short while. One person at the hotel commented that it ‘was raining cats and dogs’ out there.  At it turns out, this phrase reflects a unique situation in Ireland in the days when everyone had a thatch roof (made of straw packed tightly together to keep the rain out, the picture below shows a thatched roof made of straw).

The history of this phrase goes back to the days when most people had thatched roofs and in the winter, when the houses got cold, the dogs and cats would find their way into the thatched roof, digging themselves a hole to keep warm. As the roofs got older and started to leak because of heavy rains, the dogs and cats still crawled into their holes, and the roofs eventually gave way. The dogs and cats fell from their holes in the thatched roofs, falling into the house…. hence the term ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’.

In the 1400-1600s, the poor people of Ireland would sell their urine by peeing in a pot and bringing the pot of urine to the local tannery where they would get a few pennies for it. These people were know to be ‘piss poor‘. Urine was used to prepare the hides of cattle to make leather. Some people were so poor, they ‘did not have a pot to piss in‘ hence the phrase reflected the poorest of the poor. We have adopted the same phrase today to reflect a sense of poverty.

The third phrase we learned from the Irish ‘By Hook or By Crook‘, really reflects two towns between Waterford and Wexford (actual names of towns).  A particular road forked and one way took you to the town of Hook and the other road took you to the town of Crook.  If you were a determined traveler (or in the case of the English General Oliver Cromwell whose mission was to concur the Irish with an army of 3000 troops in 1649) you could get to whichever town you wanted and he was determined to concur these towns by whatever road it took to do it. The phrase has come to mean that people who are determined to achieve their goals, will do it ‘By Hook or By Crook’

Isn’t language wonderful.  I am writing this in Ireland. Have a wonderful 4th of July.

I am 29 years-old and would like to bring my corner hairline down. How many grafts will it take?

The number of grafts used in a hair transplant is dependent on the characteristic of the hair (fine, medium or coarse). Fine hair need more grafts and coarser hair need less grafts.  So I might quote you a range between 1200-1500 grafts but that would depend upon the final design of the hairline that we determine together. What I am seeing is a faint outline of small remaining hairs that is marking the hairline position.  I am using this as my guide for my recommendation.

 

I’m only 18 and just wondering if my hair looks like it’s starting to recede or not. I know I have my dads hairline but my dad is bald and that does creep in my head sometimes as he started balding in his 20s. Both my grandfathers have most of their hair. And my uncles on my moms side all mostly have their hair and my dad has no brothers. When I style or just do my hair, it’s never noticeable and I always get compliments on my hair and its thickness. So does it look like it’s receding or could this just be a normal hairline? It also bothers me that the right side of my hairline has a little more hair.

With your family history and some early frontal hair loss, you should be concerned about progressive hair loss. Your biggest enemy is progressive thinning leading to a balding pattern that is not evident at this point in time. The degree of thinning that you are experiencing suggests that you should see a doctor who most likely perform a Bulk Measurement of your hair to determine the degree of the thinning that you are presently having.

If the diagnosis is early genetic hair loss, the most common cause of hair loss in young men, then the best treatment is the drug Finasteride. This medication is highly effective in men of your age and may not only stop the hair loss but possibly reverse it. If you are developing a more advanced balding pattern, the best test to get is the Bulk Measurement. This will show, over a one-year time frame, how effective the treatment will be. Once you know this information, then you and your doctor need to develop a MASTER PLAN which will define what you need to do in the years to come.

Check out my video. In it I talk about donor hair supply and bulk measurements.

I don’t know that I can really answer that. The human body does very well to adjust to small changes like what Finasteride does. We know, for example, that testosterone levels often rise with Finasteride, which is a body response to the drug. My son got an increased sex drive from his higher level of testosterone when he went on Finasteride.

I would like you to write a how to-guide on the topic “MINIATURIZATION”. I have a tool to zoom in on my scalp and hair.  I was hoping to self-diagnose my miniaturization but I have no clue how to do it or what to look for.  Please help!

Clip your hair to a pea size spot in different areas of your head:

1. frontal area in midline
2. corners – one inch behind both
3. top of the head (area determined by a line from between the ears)
4. the crown area (where the swirl is) including one inch in front of the swirl and one inch behind the swirl
5. to the sides of the head about 1-2 inches from the midline

Using a video microscope, count the total hair population in the visual field no matter what the shaft thickness of the hair. That number will give you a density of the hair, particularly if you can measure the size of the visual field.

For a miniaturization map of the area, count the hair shafts that have a smaller diameter than the large hair shafts.

Use this formula:

Miniaturization Factor = small hair shafts÷total hair shafts

The mapping is done by recording the miniaturization factor for each area of hair you cut.

The projection for balding in the future will be determined by the area where miniaturization exceeds 20 percent (there are about 20 percent normal vellus hairs that look just like miniaturized hairs but are not). Miniaturized hairs have arrows pointing to them in the middle picture. Click to enlarge.

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This type of comment is unfortunately very common from immature girls and from some members of society who are ignorant. As 50 percent of men have balding at sometime in their lives, clearly the concept that a disease goes hand-in-hand with balding is ridiculous. History has shown us that these prejudices were common in the past.

Prior to the 20th century, tuberculous ran rampant in city dwellers and men and women with tuberculous lost their hair because of the disease and malnutrition. In those days, women would stay away from balding men because they thought they would not live long enough to support a family. Now that tuberculous is not a problem in Western cities, this prejudice is no longer the basis of a persistent prejudice. We also clearly know from polls taken in presidential elections since Eisenhower was president, no balding president has been elected since the 1950s (except for Donald Trump who almost certainly wears a wig). So this prejudice is unfortunately innate to our culture.

Read the following:

https://www.empr.com/fish-once-a-week-may-protect-against-alzheimers-study-suggests/article/365387/?DCMP=EMC-miscellaneous_rd&CPN=cial,flecmpr&spMailingID=9193223&spUserID=MzA3NTI4ODY1ODQS1&spJobID=360741962&spReportId=MzYwNzQxOTYyS0

If fish is good once a week to build the brain and protect it against Alzheimer’s disease, think fish for your overall diet a few times a week. Over and over again, the value of Omega-3 fatty acids has been seen as a strong plus for our diets. Don’t wait until old age to take the correct dietary steps to enjoy your retirement while you are young.