Hair Loss on Top of Head, Hairline is Fine

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

PorcupineI am 29, male. Recently I got my hair cut rather short, and it has kind of spiked up, somewhat resembling a porcupine, i guess you could say. I notice when looking at my head from above that my hair seems thinner, like there are some areas not as full as others. Is this a sign of hair loss? My hair line is not receding, and my hair is fine at the crown/point at back of head, where you usually see bald spots in people going bald. Do you have any idea what I am seeing in the mirror? Is there a pattern of baldness where you start to lose hair on the top or in the middle of your head? Thanks in advance for your comments.

Some people will develop thinning behind the hairline, leaving a normal hairline. We also see thinning in the crown with no problem in the frontal area as well. The first 3/4 inch from the highest crease or the wrinkled brow is the juvenile component of the frontal look. Behind this first 3/4 inch starts what I call the mature hairline.

The shorter you cut your hair, the more you will see of any thinning that is present. To find out what this means, map out your hair and scalp for miniaturization so that you can know if this is a genetic pattern for you. If it is genetic, Propecia works well in the crown.

Tags: hairloss, hair loss, hairline, thinning, crown

Matthew McConaughey’s Hairline… Revealed?

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

I knew his hair looked too perfect for it to be real. I mean even a hair transplant wouldn’t bring back ALL your hair you had back when you were your teens. And Matt seemed to get ALL his hair back in such a short amount of time. So, it is safe to say matt is wearing a gold old hair peice. Matts hair looked to perfect for it to be his. If everybody could get hair like his through a transplants (assuming he had some work done), everybody would be getting a hair transplant and you would be on of the richest men in America. LOL. Am I correct? I am not saying transplants don’t work but I have seen people with hair transplants and they just don’t seem to cover up a whole lot. That is why so many people are probably just shaving their heads because they know you have to keep on spending a lot of money on transplants to get your so called “desired look” and even then there are still balding spots that are visible. And don’t get me started about propecia. I think it is honestly BS. E-mail me and let me know what you think. Please, post this on your web-site. The pictures at least.

Article at – PerezHilton.com

Matthew McConaugheySince this site’s first blog post on Matthew McConaughey, we seem to be taken up with all of the focus on his hairline. I am not into sensationalism, even though I have elected to share what has been sent to me. I do respect a person’s need for privacy, yet there seems to be no let-up on the probing about Mr. McConaughey’s hairline. Many women think that McConaughey is the best looking man in Hollywood and one would ask if that opinion would persist if his hairline was kept ‘au natural’. Some members of our culture do judge the book by its cover.

One of the local doctors here in the Los Angeles area let the word out that he had done McConaughey’s hair transplant. Was it because McConaughey has done such a good job at presenting the perfect hairline image? I even commented privately to my staff that the claim that this doctor did McConaughey’s ‘transplanted’ hairline could be believed because work of great quality is often done by the best hair transplant surgeons in the business.

Based upon the photographs at the link the blog reader sent, then compared to our first posting about this, there appears to be no change in McConaughey’s hairline from the mugshot taken in 1999. It would be in poor taste and a violation of the patient’s rights to even admit to performing the surgery without the express permission of the patient — not to mention that it would be outright fraudulent for any doctor to take credit for a stylist’s apparent hairpiece.

Update, Sept 29 2006: Another reader just sent this article that has apparently more recent photos of Matthew McConaughey, where his hairline can be seen (for those that are interested) — Splash News Online.

Tags: hairloss, hair loss, hair transplant, hairtransplant, hairline, mcconaughey, celebrity

My Hairline Is Diagonal

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

Hi, I am 19 years old and have a thick head of hair. There is no thinning present whatsoever. However, when i pull my hair back to look at my hairline, i notice that it goes in diagonally, not quite at 45 degrees but still noticeable diagonally (perhaps the mirror exaggerates how diagonal it is), the right side more so than the left as well. I have shown my mum, grandma and sister, and they have said that my hairline is normal and not receding. I know its hard to tell without seeing it, but are they right and is this type of hairline normal or is it a receding hairline. Like I said, when my hair is not pulled back, I have a thick head of hair and you would not notice that I had this type of hairline.

This clearly bothers you. I suspect that there is some maturing of your hairline at 19, which is common in men. You could send me pictures with your eyebrows lifted high (a good digital photograph) and I will give you an opinion. Please reference this blog posting when/if you send photos. Thanks.

Tags: hairloss, hair loss, hairline, diagonal

Did Jamie Fox Have a Hair Transplant?

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

I would like to know the difference between FUE and FUT and scarring between them. Also, looking at the actor Jamie Foxx, it seems like he has had a hair transplant. I see him having really short hair or shaved head, so his scar would be visible. What would you recommend to reduce the scar? Also, looking at this website, there is a difference in his hairline. It is low and perfectly lined so would you do a procedure on someone to give them that exact perfect symmetrical hairline or would you say no because it does not look natural? Is it the doctors decision or patients choice??

ConcreteLoop.com

Jamie FoxxFollicular unit transplantation means that the grafts occur in their natural unit anatomy and are transplanted that way into the recipient area. FUE is a harvesting mechanism and should be taking out the grafts as follicular units so that they are completely natural (that may not happen, however). Strip harvesting is the second harvesting mechanism and may or may not yield FUT, depending upon decisions by the surgeon and his team.

With regard to Jamie Foxx and hair transplants, the site you sent me does present some very interesting photos. There is a difference in his hairlines over time so it is possible that he did have a hair transplant. If these photos are to be believed (I am not disputing them, but I do not know the source), then it does appear that his hairline is quite a bit lower now than it previously was. Maybe there’s another explanation — his hairline could naturally be very low and he shaves it higher to achieve a different look at different times. I really don’t know, though. The perfection of his hairline may be the result of styling control that he exerts, but as a good hair transplant is undetectable, I can not tell from these photographs.

An interesting thread about this was on HairLossHelp about a year ago (found via Google) — here.

Tags: hairtransplant, hair transplant, hairloss, hair loss, hairline, jamie foxx, jamiefoxx, actor, celebrity

White Hair is ‘Gold’ (with Photos)

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

Here is a white haired patient who received 3831 grafts. White hair reflects light and the reflected light makes the hair wonderfully thick in appearance. White hair reflects like gold and this characteristic makes white hair work no matter what the skin color is… but when the skin color is also white, it is just an added bonus.

Click the photos below to enlarge.

Before:



After:



Tags: hair transplant, hairtransplant, white hair, white, photos, hairloss, hair loss

Hair Growing Through Scar Tissue

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

(female) can hair grow under the skin due to a scar? i have a scar on my forehead in my hairline. about 4 years ago i went bald around the scar and since then my hair has only grown 2 inches, if that. i also had surgery around the same time as well. due to the lack of minerals and electrolytes in my body after surgery i then had an irregular heart beat which almost took my life. could this just be a chemical imbalance?

Yes, hair can grow through a scar. You asked about ‘under’ a scar, but I do not understand what you are asking here. If you had a nutritional cause of hair loss, then if it is corrected and it still has not grown, then you might want to look into a hair transplant to put healthy hair back. Before you would undergo any surgery, you want to be sure that you are healthy.

Tags: hairtransplant, hair transplant, scar, hairloss, hair loss

Remarkable Before and After Hair Transplant Comparison (with Photos)

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

This patient of mine just sent me his recent after photos with permission to publish these for my readers. I was very happy to see his results and the joy it brought to me made my day. As with many of my patients, he elected to show off his hairline in his hair style. He had two procedures totalling 4774 grafts. The change is quite remarkable, and this patient is understandably very excited about his new ‘image’. He says…

“So this has been the first summer since the mid 90’s in which I didn’t spend MOST of my time in a hat! It really says a lot about how the procedures have changed my perception of self.”

Click the photos below to enlarge.

Before photos – taken September, 2004:




After photos – taken September, 2006:




Tags: hair transplant, hairtransplant, photos, patient, hairloss, hair loss, hair restoration, rassman

Right Hairline Improved with Propecia, Left Hairline Has Gotten Worse

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

Hey doc, I’m a 19 yrs old male and I’ve been on Propecia for about 8 months. I’m happy to say that my right hairline has improved beyond my expectations. Unfortunately, I haven’t any improvement on the left side of my hairline, in fact it has gotten worse. I have shoulder length hair and I’m considering shaving my head (which would throw 8 months of Propecia use down the drain), for my hairline from the front appears akwardly unbalanced (one side its thick while the other is see-through). Before I make such a hasty decision, I was wondering if I should try 5% minoxodil or anything else you’d recommend? And the comb over at my age is not an option. Thanks.

What you are telling me is that the left hairline probably showed more balding than the right, so that the right side’s loss was easier to reverse (being more recent). In men of your age, Propecia works well to reverse ‘early’ hair loss. By all means, shave your head if that is what you want to do, but for your own sake, do not stop taking Propecia. If you are balding at 19, chances are that it will progress more rapidly than on those not starting as early as you, so staying on the Propecia will slow or stop it from progressing. Stopping it will just get you where you would have balded had you never started taking it and as your genetic code has planned for you.

Many young men tell me that they are losing frontal hair when they are just developing a mature hairline. The normal child’s hairline moves up about 1/2 inch in the middle and 1 inch on the corners. One side is often faster than the other side, making the hair loss appear out of balance (symmetry). Could this be what is happening to you?

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

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

Did Mel Gibson Have a Hair Transplant?

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

The value of posts such as this on the BaldingBlog are to show the difficulty in detecting modern hair transplants. In my day, when advertisements focused on blondes, the saying was, “Does she or doesn’t she? Only her hair dresser knows for sure.” This would be the case for people who have had hair transplants today. I might take that old ad and change it to ask, “Does he or doesn’t he have a hair transplant? Only his hair transplant surgeon would know for sure!”

This article about Mel Gibson’s possible hair transplant is about 6 or 7 weeks old now, but it is nonetheless interesting (at least to me).

The photo caption states that the below photo on the left is Mel from 2 years ago, and the photo on the right is from today (or July, when the article was published).

(photo: DailyMail.co.uk)

Tags: hairloss, hair loss, hair transplant, hair restoration, mel gibson, gibson, mel, celebrity

Leftover Normal Hairs in Balding Male (with Photos)

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

This patient has lost his frontal hairline extending back about 1 1/2 inches from the normal frontal location. Take a careful look at the closeup of his right corner area (2nd photo). The area is bald except for some scattered normal hair. Usually, the hairs become miniaturized and eventually fall out. In this patient, however, some of the hairs in the corners may have a different genetic code and could perhaps last his lifetime. I have seen this in some people and suspect that it is a form of hybrid genetic distribution (normal non-balding hairs in a region of balding scalp). Just for clarity, it is worth noting that this patient has not had any hair transplant procedure.

Click the photos below to enlarge.



Tags: hair loss, hairloss, hairline, photos

I Haven’t Experienced Any Difference in My Hairline from Avodart

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

I am a 26 yr old male with slightly receding hairline. I have been on avodart now for 15 months but noticed not a real difference good nor bad. I am wondering if Proscar might be more effective given it is proven to regrow as with avodart there are not as much clinical date. I chose avodart since it was the stronger dht fighter

I am guessing here, as I have no real experience with Avodart. I would doubt that Proscar will work any better as Avodart is theoretically a much better DHT blocker. However, if you are taking Avodart (or considering Proscar) to regrow your hairline, chances are high that it won’t work for that anyway.

Tags: avodart, proscar, finasteride, dutasteride, hairloss, hair loss

Does a Maturing Hairline Show Miniaturization Too?

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

Hello,

I have some recession in the front and sides of my scalp. I have always had a bit of a recessed hairline. But now it seems, now that I look close, hair around the area of recession is thin and short (some hairs are very small, lacking color and are almost transparent). It appears, form a distance that the hairline is not defined well.

Is this part of a normal receding hairline or rather the onset of male pattern baldness.

I am 30 years old and the remainder of my hair is very thick and full.

Thank you in advance for you reply.

A maturing hairline generally appears in the late teenage years to the late twenties. A small degree of recession in the corners can certainly be normal, but that always seems to be determined by the individual’s perception. To answer your question, miniaturization of hair may occur as the frontal hair slowly falls out or more often just starts falling out front to back with a slow rise in the frontal hairline that is very subtle in those without frontal balding. It is normal for hair to go through cycling phases of rest/shedding (catagen/telogen). In conclusion, a maturing hairline may show miniaturization, but not always.

Tags: hairloss, hair loss, mature, maturing, hairline, hair line, miniaturization

If I Get Transplants, I Want a Perfectly Straight Hairline

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

So, I’m one of those losers losing his hair at 24 :(

I hear that after you get hair transplants you will always have a hairline that looks like it is receding. I do not want that- I want the hollywood straight nice hairline.

Is this possible with hair implants if I find the right surgeon?

Please advise

Thanks kindly

DraculaGenerally, transplanted hairlines should not be perfectly straight. To be completely normal you need a transition zone between the forehead and the thicker hair with a gradual appearance of hair, not an abrupt Count Dracula hairline (see right). With that being said, I will transplant a straight “Hollywood” hairline (as you call it), but it will take some convincing that what you want is reasonable and natural. Had I transplanted Dracula’s hairline, I suspect one night when he woke up, he would realize that he was a Vampire. That’s ok for Dracula, but not for one of my patients.

I decided to show you photos of patients that look perfectly natural with a transplanted mature hairline, as opposed to the straight across hairline you’re asking about. They say that pictures are worth a thousand words, so here’s 17 thousand for you…

For what it’s worth, I noted that your location was in Northern California. NHI will also start working out of Oakland next month and I expect to have a Sacramento office shortly thereafter.

Tags: hairline, hair transplants, hair transplant, hair restoration

Reconstructing Temples in Patients

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


Some posters on an Internet board (hairsite.com) say reconstructing temple points is a must for a Norwood 6 guy’s transplant to look natural. Is this true? Do you often reconstruct temple points in your patients who have advanced balding?

Temple transplants are unusual. I offer them, but suggest to most patients to defer on them until the first session has grown out. Most pass on temple hair transplants, because the existence of good frontal hair usually solves most of their problems.

Temple transplantation shows the quality of a doctor. If the angles are not perfect, if the recipient sites are not small, and if distribution is not well placed, temple hair transplants look terrible.

I wanted to show a transplanted temple prominence, close up. The temple before photo is on the left — the after is on the right. The after photo was taken 9 months post-procedure. if you look very closely, you will see a few hairs in the transplanted area that were present prior to the transplant. Also note that the transplanted hairs have less gray than the hairs on the pre-operative photo. Color differences in transplanted hair reflect the color of the hair taken from the back of the head. This patient liked less gray, which is now his ‘new temple’ look.



Tags: hairloss, hair loss, hair transplant, temples, photos