hey doctor, im a 19 year old male with terrible acne, i have had acne since i was about 15 years old. and since then i have been taking all kinds of acne medications like creams etc…(only external not orally) and i can bearly grow facial hair im wondering if that could be the cause of it, is there any possible chance that it could? my dad, grandparents all have full thick beards. is there any ingredients in acne creams that would prevent hair from growing?

Facial hair growth is determined by genetics. Just because your father or grandfathers (you said “grandparents”, but I assume your grandmothers were excluded) had full thick beards does not necessarily mean their genes will be passed on to you. It can skip generations, much like genetic male pattern baldness. I’m not sure what acne medications you used, but I highly doubt that any over-the-counter creams would impede facial hair growth. I even doubt that prescription creams would cause a problem to facial hair.

Doc,
Odd question,
I’ve noticed that some men tend to actually look good when their hairline recede to a NW3. Hollywood has a few examples with Christian Slater, Thomas Jane, Josh Lucas, and Patrick Wilson. I’m just curious is there any way of telling who will be good looking with a balding pattern prior to the baldness? BTW, I’m a woman, so I do think those men are good looking!

Your opinion has been noted. If you have a fella and want to find out what he would look like with a NW3, then you can ask him to shave his hair to conform to that look. Or use Photoshop.

Snippet from the article:

The ‘baldness calculator’ – said to be the world’s first reliable tool for predicting hair loss – has been a huge hit with men in other countries.

The program calculates the exact age at which someone will go bald or have lost most of their hair or provides reassurance by predicting that they will still have a full head of hair in old age.

Read the rest at Telegraph UK

A PR firm sent me the press release and apparently the Telegraph in the UK got the same release and ran with it, presenting the article above. This “baldness calculator” is a clever way to market a caffeine-based shampoo called Alpecin, but I don’t know how this thing can claim to be accurate. It’s guessing the year you’ll lose your hair based on these factors you feed it — age, number of hairs lost daily, current hair loss pattern, scalp dryness, how often you wear a hat (???), stress, activity level, family history of hair loss, location (which apparently is limited to the UK), marital status, and career. Most of the questions are yes/no, and some have zero relevance. And surprise, surprise — when the answer is “calculated”, the solution is a special shampoo! I am completely and utterly SHOCKED (note sarcasm)!

For fun, I asked one of my employees to go through the steps of the “calculator” to see where he’d end up. It determined he’d go bald at 60 years old (though he’s not in the UK, so he had to choose a region that he doesn’t live in and probably has never visited). How’d it come up with that age? Your guess is as good as mine. He’s got miniaturization on the top of his scalp already (he’s been taking Propecia to maintain it), so clearly 60 years old may be completely wrong (who really knows).

My verdict: Fun way to try to sell you a shampoo, but to call this “accurate” is completely ridiculous. In fact, it’s laughable. Determining the age you’ll go bald is just not that simple, folks. If you want to try it yourself, go here, but keep in mind what I just wrote about the accuracy. Perhaps their claims for the shampoo are equally as accurate?

Hello,
I would like to know what you think about the sauna. Average 80°Celsius (170° Fahrenheit). Some say it can damage hair follicles. Some say this is good for blood circulation system, helping the flow of blood to the scalp. Who to trust?

Thank you in advance. All the best.

Hair is above the scalp and it is dead when it appears from the skin. “Damage” is a relative term, because while you could dry out your hair and lose the luster that the oils bring to it, a sauna will not impact the hair that has not grown out through the skin yet.