Thank you for your question. You are asking if there is blood test that would help determine
your other causes of hair loss besides male pattern hair loss at the age of 26 and you
gave some examples. Well certainly, I can assist you with the evaluation of hair loss
and what comes into mind when I examine a patient and I take a patient’s history that
come into our practice. A little bit of my background. I’m a board
certified cosmetic surgeon and fellowship trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive
surgeon practicing in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years and hair loss treatment
has been a big part of my practice particularly in the area of non-surgical hair loss. We’ve
also been performing hair transplant for many years.
So when a patient comes in and will give me a history of their pattern of loss for males,
we first look at family history. We look at mom’s side of the family, dad’s side of
the family. Invariably, we’ve been able to establish some degree of a pattern within
the family and is often stated that the certain pattern such as a maternal uncle is how it
works but really it doesn’t work that way. It can be spared, it can be variable and 11
chromosomes are associated with hair loss so you can certainly understand that mix can
be associated with genetic role of the dice. Now that being said, we also certainly look
at the general medical health and certain blood test which are routinely performed as
part of general physical examination for men, it is usually adequate and that includes taking
vitamin D levels. And it is common to have a decrease in vitamin D levels and we always
require taking vitamin D. And vitamin D has a role in maximizing hair quality.
For most men, once we do an examination were we examine the scalp with a microscope, we
are able to establish that there is pattern loss, hair thinning. When hair goes from thick
to thin to thinner and then disappears, that is very typical of androgenetic alopecia and
no genetic deficiency that I am aware of that really creates that type of pattern. Nutritional
status and a lot of times, people would want to check their hormones so certainly they
will go to an endocrinologist or a medical doctor to have this done which is fine but
I would say that 95% of hair loss is pattern hair loss.
In our practice, to help people with pattern hair loss we do something we call Hair Regeneration.
Hair Regeneration has been a development that has been very successful in our practice to
help people with thinning hair. Certainly, I am all for supplementation nutrition whether
it is in a form of multivitamins, and Omega 3 acids but when you realize that even people
with nutritional deficiencies and less than optimal living conditions and other stressors
can have amazing hair and you realize that is most likely a genetic pattern. With Hair
Regeneration, we combine platelet-rich plasma (PRP) with Acellular matrix and it’s an
injection, not a surgery to stop the progression of hair loss, reverse the thinning process
so that hair that is thinning becomes thicker and to reactivate hair that is not growing
to start growing. Now with 99% success for both men and women, you could imagine that
we have patients who come here from all over the world and we even started a company called
TrichoStem™ Hair Regeneration to help get access to this type of technology outside
of our office.
Going back again to the question of a blood test as a general rule, yes, you look at thyroid
hormones, you look at iron levels, you look at liver function tests, you look at hormonal
levels and again this is something you can certainly do to get a peace of mind. And certainly,
a lot of people come to us and usually we are not the first line. They come to us if
they have exhausted everything else but it is routine for someone to come and they have
not only those types of workup in the lab test but they will also get rheumatologic
workup, autoimmune workup and basically they want to make sure that everything they can
possibly lead to cause of hair loss systemically has been check to at least deal with. Now
when it comes to women, it is a different story. Women tend to have a more sensitive,
variation of hormone levels. Women have reported starting a birth control pill which has resulted
into hair loss. They also reported stopping a birth control pill, pregnancy, delivery.
Certainly, there are a lot of hormonal issues so we take a lot more of detail from that
and we want to establish certain degree of stability to treat women. With men, once we
diagnose male pattern hair loss, the options of finasteride, minoxidil and transplant are
also discussed and many choose to go with Hair Regeneration.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question!