Question:
I am a 43-year-old female. I have been using minoxidil for years but my thinning hair is just getting worse. Will laser hair therapy work for me or would hair transplants be my best option?
Answer:
To answer this question we would actually need to have good close-up photographs to see if somebody has miniaturized hairs present over the top of the scalp.
If a woman has miniaturized hairs present, we can use laser to try to stop any future hair loss and reverse the miniaturization. Whereas if there are no hairs present on the top of the scalp, such as a male pattern, then hair transplants are the only way to bring the hair back.
Laser therapy has been very successful in women since women typically do not bald, they thin and therefore those miniaturized thinning hairs can be reversed.
In a patient that has lost most of the hair in the area, then laser is not going to be successful in that area. In many cases we use both laser and hair transplants. We place hair transplants in areas where there is no hair and we use laser in the surrounding areas where the person still has hair but we want to try to prevent any future hair loss. Unlike males that we can prescribe Propecia, in females we don’t a pill that will stop hair loss. The only alternative is low-level laser therapy.
Dictated By: S. Friedman MD
