Hair Restoration Blog

Q:

Dear Dr. Mohebi,

Thank you for taking the time to see me on Saturday! Your correspondence providing a summary of our discussion was very comprehensive and is much appreciated!

Since our meeting on Saturday, I have done some research and would like to trouble you with a few more questions:

1) Is Alopecia the correct term to describe my hair loss pattern?

2) Would you consider cortizon shot treatment for me?

3) Would you consider laser therapy?

4) If I were to use monoxidil, does it have to be 2% or a higher percentage would yield more and faster hair growth?

5) you recommended a complete medical evaluation, could you please recommend someone that you trust?

I wish to thank you again for all your time and patience!

Best regards,

A:

Hi,

Here are your answers in the order you asked:

1) Is Alopecia the correct term to describe my hair loss pattern?

Alopecia is a general term that means hair loss. We have many different patterns of hair loss or alopecia, like male pattern or female patterned alopecia or alopecia cicatricial. Your pattern is similar to a male pattern because you lost your hair on the frontal area while you kept your hair on the donor area intact, which is why you might be a good candidate for a hair transplant procedure considering that your medical evaluation is negative for any medically treatable cause of hair loss.

2) Would you consider cortizon shot treatment for me?

No, steroid shots are sometimes used for Alopecia Areata (AA), which is an autoimmune disorder. Alopeica Areata is a hair loss condition with patchy hair loss spots. Your condition does not seem to be Alopecia Areata.

3) Would you consider laser therapy?

I do not recommend laser therapy for hair loss in the form of laser comb or laser machines because of the lack of solid medical evidence that support their effectiveness at this time.

4) If I were to use Monoxidil, does it have to be 2% or a higher percentage would yield more and faster hair growth?

You can start with 2% and then you need to be re-evaluated in six to 12 months and a treatment plan might need to be adjusted at that time.

5) you recommended a complete medical evaluation, could you please recommend someone that you trust?

Any good internist or endocrinologist could follow through with the lab works that you need.  Our letter includes the list of medical conditions that should be considered and lab works to rule out those women like you who have hair loss. You can share my letter with any good internist or endocrinologist and he or she should be able to follow through with your lab result and treat any treatable conditions that could possibly be found.

Have a great day,

Question:
Dear Dr. Mohebi,

I would like to thank you for your response. I really don’t know what life without you would be like, someone who can answer all my questions. It is funny because when I turn to other people the smartest thing they have to say is I don’t know.  Thank you again for everything. I wish you all the health and success for you and your family for the new year and the ones to come. One very last question, before 2008. (haha) What do you think about the laser hair combs with low level of laser therapy? Many websites claim that it has been used for 30 years and that there is no true side effect. Is that valid even though there have been over 2500 reported studies worldwide? Take care and god bless you.

Best,

Patient’s name

Answer:

The Laser comb is heavily advertised and sold worldwide based on it being FDA approved. You are right, the laser comb has been proved to be safe and that is why FDA approved it like other laser methods being used for hair loss. I would love to see laser comb devices work, so I could have another method to recommend to my patients who are fighting the process of baldness or for people who have significant miniaturization, but the body of medical literature around laser in general and laser comb in particular for treatment of hair loss is seriously lacking.

In the last annual meeting of hair restoration surgery in Vegas we did not see any new scientific presentation concerning the laser comb. So I can not endorse it until we have better documentations on the usefulness of laser as a treatment of baldness.

Have a great new year,

Parsa Mohebi, MD