Questions About Balding, Hair Transplants & Restoration in Arizona

May 4th, 2011

If I start laser therapy will I have to keep using it? I am a 39-year-old woman and my hair loss is embarrassing. Is there any way that laser therapy can have a permanent result or is it like using minoxidil, when you stop the treatments you lose your hair?

Question:
If I start laser therapy will I have to keep using it? I am a 39-year-old woman and my hair loss is embarrassing. Is there any way that laser therapy can have a permanent result or is it like using minoxidil, when you stop the treatments you lose your hair?

Answer:
Low-level laser therapy is very effective as long as you continue to expose the follicles of the scalp to the laser. We require every other day exposure or regimen to the scalp to keep the hair follicles from miniaturizing.

Unfortunately, the hair follicle has a memory and if one stops using low-level laser, within 2 to 3 weeks they will start to notice a reversal of what they were able to garner with laser therapy.

In that regard laser therapy is similar to minoxidil in that the procedure must be maintained on an every other day regimen to maintain the cosmetic advantages.

Dictated By: S. Friedman MD

Posted by Jase at 4:20 pm Comments Off Link to this post

May 3rd, 2011

What are the side effects of laser therapy for women over the age of 37? Will it take many treatments for me to see a change in my hair thickness and volume?

Question:
What are the side effects of laser therapy for women over the age of 37? Will it take many treatments for me to see a change in my hair thickness and volume?

Answer:
There is virtually no side effects to low-level laser therapy if performed properly. We feel that laser therapy requires a minimum of 30 to 60 days to see a decrease in hair loss and a minimum of 6 months to a year to notice any change in hair volume or thickness of the hair.

Most women expect to see a difference right away, within 30 days, and they are going to be disappointed. My feeling is that if you have counted your hairs in your brush every day and you notice that you are loosing greater than 100 to 150 hairs a day, the first thing you will notice in the first month of using laser at an every other day regimen is that your hair loss is not as voluminous. You will first start noticing you are not loosing as many hairs per day.

In regard to the change in texture and volume, that easily takes 6 months to a year to see a marked improvement. In our office we use an instrument called a hair check that actually can check the volume in density of the hair.

Dictated By: S. Friedman MD

Posted by Jase at 3:16 pm Comments Off Link to this post

May 2nd, 2011

I am a 45-year-old female and the hair on the top of my scalp is very thin. I don’t like the idea of getting hair transplants or taking a pill. I have heard about laser therapy but will it help me? How does it work?

Question:
I am a 45-year-old female and the hair on the top of my scalp is very thin. I don’t like the idea of getting hair transplants or taking a pill. I have heard about laser therapy but will it help me? How does it work?

Answer:
If the scalp hair on the top of the scalp is extremely thin and you do not have miniaturized hairs, hairs that are still present, the best method for hair restoration in the female is hair transplants.

If on the other hand, you still have existing hair but the hair is very short, which we are calling miniaturized hairs or hairs that are much finer and never tend to reach the same length as your normal hair, in that case low-level laser therapy can be very useful.

Low-level laser therapy works by increasing the circulation to the scalp and increasing protein synthesis. Low-level laser therapy also increases mitochondrial activity, which is the energy that drives the body, drives the follicle to produce more hair. There are some studies that have also shown that by increasing the circulation to the scalp we can also clear or block dihydrotesterone, the hormone that causes hair loss.

When looking at the female hair loss patient, we also have to look at whether or not the donor area is sufficient for hair transplant; whereas most men have nice, thick donor hair over the back of the head and also above the ears, a lot of women do not have good donor hair above the ears and only have good donor hair in the back of the scalp. For this reason, the donor supply is markedly reduced and therefore we cannot harvest as many grafts in a female as we can in a male. In those patients we do highly recommend low-level laser therapy.

What one needs to understand is that low-level laser therapy is a procedure that needs to be performed every other day for essentially the rest of the patient’s life since the follicle has a memory and once laser is stopped any gains made or any decrease in hair loss seen will be reversed when the laser is stopped whereas hair transplantation is permanent.

Laser therapy has been known to increase hair thickness and volume of the hair but it requires treatment for 6 months to a year before noticing any discernable changes.

Dictated By: S. Friedman MD

Posted by Jase at 9:11 am Comments Off Link to this post

May 1st, 2011

If I get a hair transplant how long will it take until my hair is full and natural looking?

Question:
If I get a hair transplant how long will it take until my hair is full and natural looking?

Answer:
Most of our patients notice that within 30 days their scalp is back to its pre-operative appearance, since most of the hairs within the grafts will fall out within the first six weeks. There is absolutely no scarring in the recipient region where the grafts were placed; and therefore; the scalp in 30 days looks just like it did prior to surgery.

In regard to full and natural, the hairs within the grafts start to grow at 4 to 6 months but take a minimum of 9 months to a year to fully grow. In most patients it can take as long as a year and a half for the hair to grow to a useable or a comb-able length.

When one is referring to the word “full” I tend to be a little nervous because we need to realize that we can never achieve the same density that you had prior to loosing your hair. Therefore, to use the word “full” is really not in the dictionary of a patient undergoing hair transplants. The best we can achieve is approximately 50% of the density that you had prior to loosing your hair.

Dictated By: S. Friedman MD

Posted by Jase at 11:08 am Comments Off Link to this post

April 30th, 2011

I just turned 43 and I have been noticing thinning hair along the crown and top of my head. Am I a hair transplant candidate?

Question:
I just turned 43 and I have been noticing thinning hair along the crown and top of my head. Am I a hair transplant candidate?

Answer:
Depending on how much hair loss you have at this time will dictate whether or not you are a hair transplant candidate.

If you have a significant amount of spaces and gaps between the existing hair, then we could transplant in between your existing hair. If there are very small spaces and gaps between the hairs, we could cause some damage as well as shock to your existing hair.

Hair transplants work very well but if we are going in between existing hair, you need to realize that post-operatively you most likely will see post-operative shock to your existing hair. Typically any follicles that were destined to continue growing for at least another 12 months will re-grow following the shock; whereas follicles that we destined to stop growing within the next 12 months may not re-grow. For this reason we suggest that we examine a patient first to make certain that there are significant areas we can cover with transplants so we can reduce the post-operative shock.

Dictated By: S. Friedman MD

Posted by Jase at 11:00 am Comments Off Link to this post

April 29th, 2011

I’m interested in getting a hair transplant to cover my male pattern baldness but I won’t have much time to take off. Is there any way the procedure can be done in two days?

Question:
I’m interested in getting a hair transplant to cover my male pattern baldness but I won’t have much time to take off. Is there any way the procedure can be done in two days?

Answer:
Hair transplantation is not a quick procedure. It is not a quick fix. Most patients require two surgeries, even if we try to obtain and harvest as many grafts as possible. With the average patient, we can harvest anywhere from 2,500 to 3,500 grafts at one surgery, but that is still insufficient for covering the entire top of the scalp.

Your severity of hair loss will dictate how far back we can cover. If somebody only has hair loss over the frontal region, we can cover the entire area in one surgery, but most patients will return for a second surgery to try to achieve more density.

The problems with transplant is that skin contracts and therefore even though we place the grafts very, very closely together, when two grafts are contracting to their center that leaves a space or gap between the grafts and that is what patients come back in the future to have us fill in.

If a patient undergoes a hair transplant today, the earliest they can come back for a second hair transplant surgery in the same area is nine months to a year because we need to be able to see the grafts to make certain we are not piggy-backing a graft that has not grown yet. It takes a full nine months to a year for all the grafts to totally grow.

With the plug method, there was a scar that was left, therefore, in four or five months you could go back and do a second surgery because you could see where the plugs were. Today, with follicular unit transplanting, within 30 days you cannot even find the grafts, they have healed so well. Therefore, you need to wait until the grafts have thoroughly grown, which again takes nine months to a year to occur.

There is no way to do surgery in two days. In some ways you could do follicular unit extraction in two days doing 1,500 grafts one day and 1,500 grafts another day, which would be a total of 3,000 grafts. However, utilizing follicular unit transplanting, taking one long strip, we can harvest the 3,000 grafts in one session.

Dictated By: S. Friedman MD

Posted by Jase at 1:53 pm Comments Off Link to this post

April 28th, 2011

My brother-in-law had his hair transplant done 20 years ago and I don’t really like the results. Can you please explain how traditional hair transplants differ from the FUE method hair transplants.

Question:
My brother-in-law had his hair transplant done 20 years ago and I don’t really like the results. Can you please explain how traditional hair transplants differ from the FUE method hair transplants.

Answer:
Twenty years ago many doctors were still doing plugs using a 4 mm punch graft, whereas FUE or follicular unit extraction today utilizes a 1 mm in diameter punch. The old 4 mm punch contained 15 to 25 hairs, whereas the 1 mm punch for FUE contain 1 follicular unit that typically could be a 1, 2, 3 and very rarely a 4-hair graft.

The difference between the plug method of utilizing big punches was the fact that the grafts were spaced widely apart, giving a doll’s hair appearance; whereas, with the current FUE method we place the grafts very, very close together so we don’t get the dolls hair or the unnaturalness.

Dictated By: S. Friedman MD

Posted by Jase at 9:49 am Comments Off Link to this post


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Every day, Dr. Friedman sees men and women just like you who are seeking answers for their hair loss questions.

If I start laser therapy will I have to keep using it? I am a 39-year-old woman and my hair loss is embarrassing. Is there any way that laser therapy can have a permanent result or is it like using minoxidil, when you stop the treatments you lose your hair?

What are the side effects of laser therapy for women over the age of 37? Will it take many treatments for me to see a change in my hair thickness and volume?

I am a 45-year-old female and the hair on the top of my scalp is very thin. I don’t like the idea of getting hair transplants or taking a pill. I have heard about laser therapy but will it help me? How does it work?

If I get a hair transplant how long will it take until my hair is full and natural looking?

I just turned 43 and I have been noticing thinning hair along the crown and top of my head. Am I a hair transplant candidate?

I’m interested in getting a hair transplant to cover my male pattern baldness but I won’t have much time to take off. Is there any way the procedure can be done in two days?

My brother-in-law had his hair transplant done 20 years ago and I don’t really like the results. Can you please explain how traditional hair transplants differ from the FUE method hair transplants.

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