I have hair loss even after using minoxidil-5% and deutomix tablets for 7 months.
Could I get a transplant?
Hi, I am seeing hair fall even though I'm using medicines to stop and re-grow hair.
I decided to have hair transplant.
Can I go for it?
My age is 25.
I feel depressed every day so I want to go for hair transplant.
Please suggest
Thank you for your question!
You're 25 years old and you described in your question that you have been using minoxidil
and a medication called deutomix and you're still losing hair.
You submitted a photo that is clearly demonstrating significant hair loss.
And you're asking about a transplant.
Before we answer this question and I think I am actually going to have something that
you can benefit from that is different than what is traditionally offered for hairloss
and I think you'll appreciate what I will discuss.
But first, let's first discuss the issues that you have and what the current standard
treatments are.
First of all, most likely, what you have is male patter hair loss or male pattern baldness
and it's a genetic trait, runs in families, variable expressions.
So it's not a direct dominant or recessive trait.
It's something that tends to show up even between siblings.
One can have lots of hairs, one can have tremendous amounts of hair loss.
So, in the United States, the drugs that are approved for hair loss are finasteride and
minoxidil.
Finasteride is a tablet that is used, taken daily, one milligram and used to inhibit an
enzyme called 5-alpha reductase. 5-alpha reductase converts testosterone to dihydrotestosterone,
a type of testosterone.
Dihydrotestosterone will affect susceptive hair follicles which will then thin and then
eventually disappear.
Minoxidil is a topical that is available over the counter.
Minoxidil does not stop the progression of hair loss.
Finasteride can slow down the progression because it's working systemically from the
inside in a specific way.
Unfortunately, a significant percentage of men do not respond to finasteride and at this
time, many people at their 20s and 30s are concerned about reports of long term sexual
side effects and in our practice, they just come in refusing to take it at all.
Then the alternative traditionally is to do a hair transplant.
Now a hair transplant is a surgical relocation of hairs that are resistant to loss which
are located at the back of the scalp which we call the donor area.
These are genetically resistant hair.
This means that hair from this area will never fall out.
No matter how long you live, the hair will remain in place.
So you can take those hairs and place them in front.
Unfortunately, the donor area is limited.
And because it's limited, there's just so many hairs that you can move.
Now with hair transplantation, it appears that culturally or in general, the limitations
of hair transplant where you can mostly fill the frontal hair line and define it, it is
more acceptable in their 30s, 40s or 50s because at this point, a lot of men have significant
hair loss.
In our experience in 20 years of practice, men in their 20s expect to have a lot more
volume because in the rule of decades which is rule of thumb that we use in hair restoration,
men in their 20s, 20% will have hair loss while 80% will have tremendous hair.
So even with transplant, you won't get the volume that you desire and you will have only
a limited amount of hair.
In addition, nothing is stopping the progression of hair loss therefore you will continue to
lose hair and eventually, you transplant area or donor area will be tapped out.
We have had tremendous success with a method of restoring thinning hair which we call Hair
Regeneration.
This concept is something that we developed over several years and has been very successful
in treating male and female pattern hair loss using a material called extracellular matrix.
In our practice, we developed a process of protocol and a method that is combined platelet-rich
plasma, extracellular matrix.
Platelet-rich plasma by the way is your own blood spun down to concentrate the platelets
and the growth factors and taking out the red blood cells.
This combination has been very successful in helping people what we believe is wound
healing mechanism.
This material extracellular matrix is derived from pig bladder and is used traditionally
for would healing and happened to be a remarkable serendipitous observation that when used for
the benefit for a hair transplant incision, the area of hair was not transplanted which
was thinning actually became thicker.
So this hair regeneration treatment at this point has 3-5 years of significant data particularly
the past 3 years.
We have had limited need for reinjection.
We have close to a 100% success rate for male pattern hair loss.
So I think that the option for you is to learn about this Hair Regeneration and this extracellular
matrix and research and find a provider that you've be comfortable with in terms of treatment.
As far as the concept about a transplant, I am not off from the potential of transplant
but in our practice, we have shifted our philosophy and I'm a cosmetic surgeon, board certified
and able to do everything from head to toe, in fact, what we have been helping a lot of
our patients to is not having a hair transplant but rather do that injections, see how much
volume of hair is restored through this method and if they still want to transplant, we can
be more strategic.
Remember, we are dealing with a limited donor area so by strategically restoring hair which
is limited in terms of the coverage, we can actually get which I feel is a significant
coverage by doing a non-surgical treatment by doing this injection.
So I know this is different from the information that probably have but I think that when learn
more about this, we have patients from all over the world, and unfortunately, hair loss
is an area where a lot of predatory behaviors occur where people are offering supplements
and miracle treatments and all kind of gimmicks and gadgets that don't work but Hair Regeneration
is something that we have tremendous data about and I think you will benefit from learning
more about it.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question!