Do You Survey Your Patients About Their Family Hair Loss History?

Dr. Rassman,

First off thank you for taking the time to answer all of our questions.

My question is, do you think that the severity of hair loss depends on the number of genes for hair loss that someone has? In other words, do you think that someone whose father has perfect hair with a mothers side with hair loss will not begin to lose their hair until mid age. Whereas someone with a bald father and balding mothers side of the family will lose at an early age? I ask this because I made the observation on people I know. It seems to me that men who lose their hair in their early 20s almost always have a balding father. Anyone I know with a father with flawless hair and a balding maternal grandfather and uncles seems to begin losing at mid age (if ever).

Do you survey your patients? In other words, do you ask them what their family history of hair loss has been?

Yes, I always ask patients about their balding family history. I have not noted what you have, so I can not comment on it directly. There is no detectable connection that I have observed between balding fathers and the age their sons start balding. When both sides of the family have balding, the frequency of balding in sons does increase.