I’m Holding Out for Future Technology Instead of Getting a Hair Transplant Today!
Hi, thank you so much for all your help and knowledge. We greatly appreciate it!Can you please tell me your thoughts as to when if ever we will see a more progressive approach to fixing hair loss? Such as through stem cells or tissue engineering. i am holding out getting a Hair Transplant in hopes one day this will come. Do you think holding out will be worth any wait?
Thank you for your help!
Imagine that your father and grandfather had prostate cancer and that you run a very high risk of developing the same disease. Rather than get tested to get a diagnosis for you in advance of getting this terrible disease, you decide to just wait until a cure is available. Then you die because the cure never came in time to save you. I realize this logic may be a stretch to bring up the point I am trying to make, but stick with me…
Waiting just means paying the piper of the process as time, whether it is cancer or hair loss, just works against you. Hair cloning or a hair loss cure are still not even close to being available to the public. In fact, I believe it will take decades before some more solid solution to hair loss comes along. People still think that hair transplants can be socially detected on any person who had it done, will always cause terrible scarring, are extremely painful, etc. Well, it may be the perfect solution today. I would challenge you to pick out a hair transplant amongst my patient population (assuming I started the transplant process on the patient being examined myself).
Drugs like Propecia are great at stopping or slowing hair loss with minimal side effects for 99% of men. Why hold out? You could be enjoying your hair now instead of waiting on something that isn’t guaranteed to come in your lifetime. The decision ultimately is up to you.
While I don’t disagree necessarily with the premise that doing nothing now, in hopes of treatment in the future, is a course of action that is done at an individual’s own peril — the balance of this response is quite gloomy and alarming. Of course, you are the professional, and we defer to your knowledge — but you truly believe that NO beter treament will be available to the public for decades? That hits many of us prety hard. I am a realist. However, is there no room for optimism? There is a market for this, and certainly a willingness, as evidenced by the research of the past 6 years, in finding better alernatives. Those are my thoughts. Thanks for the site — more so, when it provdies hope, as opposed to narrow courses of expensive, sometimes (not always) unflatering, options.
the problem is that the people who are still optimistic about the future are usually young hair loss suffers who believe “MPB will be cured in 3 to 5 years” prediction that has been said over and over for over 10 years
the depressing fact about medicine is that if we did find a cure for cancer tomorrow it would take about 8 years before it would be available on the market
impartial medical science just takes a long time
I have to strongly disagree with Dr Rassman on this topic. I am also holding out for just a little while longer to see what the medical community has to offer before i accept the RISKS involving hair transplant surgery.
Almost every time I visit this site I wonder why I still do. It is staggering how uneducated and/or willfully blind Dr. Rassman is. Some of his advice is borderline negligent, and often very contradictory to his own prior opinions. This posting is an example of all of the above.
You are all welcome to wait as long as you’d like, believing hype while your hairs continue to fall out. I’m not going to devote all my time to changing your minds about that.
Eric – If visiting this site causes you that much question in your life, by all means stop visiting. I’ll tell you what — come back here in 5 years or whatever time frame you think hair loss will be cured, and we’ll see who was right.
The truth is always in the middle. As penicillin was discovered some years ago, I think humanity will find the cures for cancer, hair loss and all the other diseases. It can be tomorrow, it can be in the next 100-1000 years. We all have to wait, and see who’s right!
Eric, Although i may disagree with Dr Rassman\’s view on this topic i will say that you are completely wrong in your assessment. No need for insults either. I highly respect Dr Rassman and his work, in the operating room AND on this website. Actually i will be attending one of his \’open houses\’ in San Diego. Doctor,,just one thing to note,,i do NOT believe or buy into any hype. I do my own research on this topic. In fact you may be interested in the recent developments in stem cell breakthrough research in yesterdays news (3/24/10)..see you in San Diego
Artifex – I’m glad you do your own research. You might be surprised at the amount of people that just hang onto every press release as gospel. But I’m not having any open houses in San Diego — they’re in Los Angeles and San Jose.
Regarding stem cell treatments, they’re experimental and used to save lives… not treat cosmetic issues like losing hair. I don’t know which news item you’re referring to specifically though.
OOPS ,,i meant SAN JOSE. Thanks for the correction Doctor. Yes i know and I agree that the stem cell treatments referred to are experimental and used to save lives.
ACELL and the like are doing great and wondrous things to date. Keep in mind though that we employ, enjoy and take for granted the DERIVATIVE technologies in home and in business that came directly from space program research of yesteryear. This is no different except in the science. Now i know that im not being falsely optimistic here. i am also a realist and that is why i will be meeting with you in San JOSE this summer. (thanks for the earlier editing too)
What? Stem cells were the focus for the past 4/5 years in the balding community as well as this forum. Unfortunately the tons of research that was conducted, as this is a billion dollar industr, dr. rassman, proved that we had all of the hair we were born with as well as stem cells on our scalp. Thus the stem cell cure would not work. The new developments have been for a stress blocker that has worked rather well in regrowing hair in mice.