26 years old, male, diffuse hair loss. No hope to restore hair? HT is not possible ? (Photo)

When a patient with hair loss comes to my practice, I first ask the age
of onset or how old they were when they started losing hair. I also ask how
quickly this is progressing and if there are other male family members who have
similar patterns or hair loss. Assuming that you have male pattern hair loss,
you are experiencing is progressive miniaturizing of hair. Hair normally grows
in a cycle and at the end of every cycle, it sheds. When the new hairs come in,
they come back thinner. I would typically assess the top of your scalp with a
microscope to identify the amount of hairs that are thinning relative to the
amount of hairs that are still thick.



There are two medical options to treat hair loss. One is finasteride which
is a drug that inhibits an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase that is responsible
for the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Hairs that are
sensitive to dihydrotestosterone will progressively thin until they disappear.
When someone has that type of hair loss takes finasteride, it slows that
progression and can allow them to have thicker hair for a long period of time.
Unfortunately, medical studies t has shown long-term sexual side effects of finasteride.
In addition, literature does not provide enough information about all the
factors that cause hair thinning because dihydrotestosterone is not the whole
story. Many men will take finasteride and still progressively lose hair. The
other drug is minoxidil which is applied topically and appears to keep hair
around longer so that it appears that the scalp has more coverage, but it does
not reverse hair thinning.



For a patient like you, we don’t go for the hair transplant first. This
is a significant change in the paradigm of how to treat hair loss. The standard
approach in the past is to do a hair transplant. However, the patient
continuously loses hair after a transplant. Many patients will opt to do
another hair transplant and another one every few years until they reach the
end of the donor area. Unfortunately, there’s a mismatch between the amount of
hair that you have in donor and the amount of scalp you need covered.
Eventually, people will have plugs on their scalp which is an obvious hair
transplant.



In our practice, we have developed a non-surgical treatment called Hair
Regeneration. A material for wound healing called extracellular matrix that is
used to help regenerate tissue and skin by recruiting the adult stem cells to
make this wound-healing mechanism. When this material is injected in a
formulation combined with platelet-rich plasma (PRP), it is remarkable in how
effectively it can reverse hair thinning. We have hundreds of patients who come
from all over the world and every week, we see more and more patients for this
treatment as we continue to prove its benefit. It appears to have a minimum 3
years of benefit and maximum of 5 years. The younger the patient is and the more
coarse the hair is, it appears that they get remarkably more volume and
correction, which has a lot to do with early intervention. So when someone
notices hair loss, the earlier they come, the better it is. I would actually
say that in most patients who have existing hair, it far exceeds the benefits
of any hair transplants. I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck,
and thank you for your question.



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Your scalp needs to be examined microscopically and especial attention needs to be given to your back and sides where we call permanent zone.  Most people who have typical male patterned baldness never lose the hair on their back and sides.  If that is the case for you you can have a hair transplant successfully.For men who has lower density of hair on the back facial hair transplant is a good option.  They usually can harvest and transplant at least 2000-3000 grafts from their beard area.