Hair Restoration Blog

Earlier this year, in an L.A. Times story, business columnist David Lazarus said he had visited a hair transplant center’s open house and noticed a lot of men in attendance. A lot more than he expected. He spoke to the director of the business and found out that, these days, a lot of the men looking for hair transplants are hoping to increase their job prospects by having a full head of hair.

Some studies have shown that people who are more attractive, or are not overweight, or are younger, tend to have an edge on the job market. They get paid more, are more likely to get promoted, and are likely to be treated better. Although this finding may be saddening, it unfortunately may be somewhat of a reality.

Considering this finding, there are balding men in our society who believe they can increase their job prospects by having a full head of hair. It may simply turn out to be a psychological edge, or a self-image booster, for these men to perform well during their interviews.

Nevertheless, what seems more important is the manner in which a job seeker presents himself to his prospective employer. The answers he gives, his attitude, eye contact, and overall vibe. But, it seems, to some people, it wouldn’t hurt to have a full head of hair.  Plus, due to the current state of the economy, hair transplant costs are at an all-time low for high-quality hair restorations.

Alopecia areata

Alopecia areata is an autoimmune condition and causes patchy hair loss in any area in body. The bald areas of the skin usually look normal with no gross evidence of irritation or inflammation. A genetic association could be found in some cases and it could also be linked to other autoimmune disorders. Alopecia areata is usually a self limiting disease, but could be treated by a dermatologist with injection of steroid or with topical medications if necessary. See my article on alopecia areata “Treatment of Alopecia Areata РTreat or Not Treat”

Traction alopecia

Traction alopecia is very common cause of hair loss in children. This condition that is particularly seen among girls happens mostly due to the fragility and weakness of hair follicle in children. Tight ponytail is the common cause of traction alopecia that can cause hair loss at sides and frontline in most cases. Traction alopecia could present with elevation of hair line as an initial sign. Treatment of traction alopecia of children is by cutting hair short and by eliminating the physical assault. Recovery is generally spontaneous, and may take a few months. In some cases of prolonged traction alopecia, damage to the hair follicles could be permanent and hair transplant might be necessary.

Tinea Capitis

Tinea Capitis is a fungal infection of scalp that affects head and neck hair. Approximately 3 to 8 percent of American children are affected. Many of these children are never diagnosed. Tinea Capitis is more common in children between 2 to 8 years of age and like other fungal diseases can be transferred through direct contact or contaminated comb, brush, towel and cloth. Fungus attacks hair shaft and decrease its integrity and makes it fragile. Again a good dermatologist should be involved for treatment of this condition, which may need systemic antifungal medications.

Trichotillomania

Trichotyllomania is one of the other common causes of hair loss in children. It is a compulsive disorder that the patient has a constant urge to pull his or her hair. It is not limited to scalp hair and could be seen in any hair bearing area. Parents are not aware of this condition in many cases and treatment is through psychotherapy and behavioral therapy. Most cases resolve completely after treatment of the compulsive disorder.

Telogen Effluvium

Telogen Effluvium could be seen in adults and children. Many factors like sever infection, big surgery, trauma, fever, and emotional distress will cause this condition through converting the growth phase of hair follicle into resting phase. The hair in resting phase starts to shed. This hair loss is typically self limiting and recovers spontaneously without treatment especially in children. Diagnosis of this condition is often through excluding other causes of hair loss. Complete recovery is expected within 4 to 6 months.

Q:
Our 2 year old son has very fine hair and his hair growth has been very limited around his scalp. Is he going to lose his hair or you think his hair may grow as he gets older? Is there anything we can do that his hair gets better.

A:
Hair loss in children is generally not associated with their pattern when they become adults. In fact, most hair loss cases or limited growth patterns during the first two years is hereditary and if you search child’s family hair growth pattern, you should be able to find similar pattern in other family members when they were that age.

Children’s hair loss usually resolves spontaneously in vast majority of children. Other than congenital hair loss of children, they may lose hair due to a variety of other causes including: Alopecia Areata, Traction alopecia, Tinea Capitis, Trichotillomania, or Telogen Effluvium due to different disorders. Although most types of hair loss is self limited and resolves without treatment, any child with a hair loss should be evaluated by a dermatologist to rule out treatable causes of hair loss.

Toppik hair loss scam, does it really work? The fibers used by Toppik are made of the same material that hair shafts are made of and that is Keratin. The fibers of Toppik bond with hair and it’s nearly impossible with the naked eye to see that there is anything on your hair. It gives the appearance of fullness that you have a natural, thick looking head of hair. This is temporary because it does not grow hair but conceals it in the short term for a special meeting, date or party. Toppik is natural and safe and can eliminate the appearance of balding or thinning in only a certain group of patients.

The people who can get the most of Toppik are the ones who have hair with some degrees of miniaturization or thinning. If the hair is totally gone like in higher classes of baldness, Toppik does not help. Toppik needs some hair to be bond with to create the appearance of fullness.

Toppik - Scalp microscopic view

A scam is only realistic if you want to believe in it. We all know that hair loss is a bitter truth that affects many men. Men do anything to improve their appearance and hid their baldness. There are many methods that can help someone with hair loss to improve the appearance of his hair including hair transplant surgery and medical treatment for hair loss. Cosmetics like Toppik offer another way to deal with the hair loss problem.

Toppik for hair loss is a scam or not, does not really matter. The fact is that you should do whatever makes you feel better about yourself. Hair restoration is a proven treatment for psycho-social adverse effects of baldness. If you can use any other method such as Toppik to look better and feel better, why not trying it?

I just received the last issue of the Hair Transplant Forum International, the Journal of International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS). Our article, Psychology of Hair Transplant‚ is published as the cover article on this issue of the journal. I also have a copy of the article in our hair loss library in our website. Here is the abstract:

Psychology of Hair Transplant

Parsa Mohebi, M.D., William Rassman, M.D.

Balding and its psychological impacts has been the subject of many studies in the past. The relationship between hair loss and stress is clear to all clinicians who practice in this field. Negative psychosocial impacts of hair loss in male patterned baldness and in women with generalized thinning have also been seen. Many of us (hair transplant surgeons) have seen the negative effects of hair loss on self esteem and self-image.

We know that hair loss impacts some men sex life and their stability with regard to career choices in men of different ages. Despite the solid evidences and published literature on psychological impact of hair loss, the corrective effect of medical and surgical hair restoration has never been studied. After observing the drastic changes in patient behavior and the high level of patient satisfaction in those who had hair transplant procedure, we were motivated to look into the psychological impact of hair restoration on different aspects of a patient’s life.

We came up with a series of criteria that could have been modified by having a hair restoration procedure; we used some indexes that were previously studied comparing bald and non bald men on different psychological variables. We initially performed a pilot study and asked patients about different aspects of their lives during their post op visits. We gave our patients open ended questionnaires and probed their psychological state after their hair restoration procedure was complete. Eventually we focused in on eight major criteria that have been reported and documented as variables associated with hair loss in the literature. We collected a subset of them in our pilot study. Included were questions on the general level of happiness, energy level, feeling of youthfulness, anxiety levels, self confidence, outlook on their future and impact on their sex life.

We have chosen the patients who had their first hair transplant surgery between one to three years from the time of our study, so they had seen the final result of their hair restoration procedure. We limited the study to male patients with male pattern baldness and the ones who had surgeries less than three years ago so they still had a fresh memory of the changes they experienced. Each patient had exclusively follicular unit transplants that reflected our standard of care for that period. We sent a questionnaire with a brief description on the nature of this scientific study. We did not collect any patient identifiers and the response was totally voluntary. We sent the two hundred questionnaires with stamped return envelope.

The response rate to our questionnaire was 37 (18%). Each patient was used as his own control since we asked about the changes that they experienced after surgery in comparison to those variables before the surgery. We used T-test to compare patient’s responses. Table 1 shows the mean and standard error in eight different criteria that were asked. Patients had significant improvements in all eight criteria regardless of their stage of baldness and their ages.

In another attempt to compare psychological changes that patients experienced in different stages of baldness, we divided patients into two groups: (1) those who had Norwood IV patterns or less and (2) the ones with Norwood V patterns and above. We observed the most significant difference in two categories, (a) sex life and (b) career experience. Patients with less balding had a greater impact on their sex life and career when compared to patients who had more advanced stages of hair loss. These changes were not age related.

Hair restoration surgery can affect many aspects of a patient’s life. Hair transplant can potentially reverse psycho-social problems associated with hair loss. The positive impact of hair restoration surgery is more visible among patients who suffer from those undesirable effects the most. In early stages of hair loss, patients may have more awareness of their condition and they might be more affected than men in the later stages of hair loss.

Patients who experienced hair loss at an early age while involved in an active social life were more prone to the negative side effects of balding. That could explain why younger people with hair loss appeared more benefited by hair restoration procedures. Also it could be assumed that hair loss can have a negative impact on a patient’s outlook which seems to reverse after receiving a hair restoration procedure which improved their outlook.

Low response rate from a blind mailing has always been a drawback in questionnaire studies. We received 37 out of 200 of the questionnaires that we sent out (response rate was 18.5%). Giving incentives to responders may be a good way of increasing the participation rate of any questionnaire studies. We presented the result of this study at the annual scientific meeting of ISHRS and have been contacted by many of our colleagues who expressed interest in collaborating in a larger scale study. We are currently trying to rise funding for repeating this study to optimize our response rate and the statistical value of the study.

If you have any questions on the content of this article you can contact US Hair Restoration office at Los Angeles through email at info@ushairrestoration or phone.