In a recent article published in Dermatologic Surgery Journal, Dr. Nausbaum et Al discusses naturally occurring female hairlines. His study was based on a large panel of normal women for the purpose of comparing and contrasting hairline variables to attain the perfect female hairline. Given that male hair restoration has almost always been the focus of hair restoration this new information can help benefit women who are candidates for hair transplant surgery.

The author came up with a guide or type of blueprint to help determine the best hairline for a woman. This guide was based on the average recorded parameters in women with healthy, non-balding hair. Among a panel of 360 women, the most dominant feature found in 81% of the women was in fact the presence of the widow’s peak. In addition, around 90% of these women also showed lateral mounds.

It’s great to know that there is now a bigger emphasis in hair restoration for women with more viable information and techniques to help solve their hair loss. Our hair transplant surgical offices already specialize in female hairline reconstruction in women suffering from female patterned hair loss or male patterned hair loss. This technique has also been applied on transgender (male to female) patients to help soften and alter their masculine features.

We at our California offices of US Hair Restoration perform transgender hair transplants regularly and I personally believe that hair restoration is one of the most key procedures in sex reassignments process for transsexuals.

As with any surgical procedure, you would have to worry about certain side effects or tedious maintenance. We are asked by every potential surgical patient, “When can I go back to work after my hair transplant surgery?”

Downtime doesn’t only apply to the amount of time you would spend away from your office or how soon you can return. This all depends on the type of work that you do, whether or not you can use a hat, how sensitive the issue of your hair transplant is and whether or not you want to keep it a secret.

We have a few follow up dates after the hair transplant surgery in our California Hair Transplant Offices and each must be completed. On the day after surgery, all patients must have a hair wash done in office to best instruct the patient. We make sure to clean the patient as thoroughly as possible without damaging the hair grafts in a professional and comfortable manner. We make sure the patient understands that scabbing and redness must be dealt with as soon as possible.

Patients are most concerned about how they will look the first few days. Redness and swelling are the most common side effect of the surgery and can last 4-5 days after the surgery. Patients can choose to wear a hat to cover the transplanted area from plain site.

On larger hair transplant cases, the swelling may actually progress to the eyebrow area or even the eyelids and under eyes. 5 to 6 days is all it should take for this kind of swelling to go down, generally. The swelling is most always triggered by large (2500 graft surgery) or mega-session (3000+ graft surgery) procedures but is almost undetectable on smaller cases.

The final concern or issue after hair transplant surgery is the visual aspect of the existing hair. Most cases, we trim the hair in both the recipient and donor area (0.5 to 2cm) and it will stay at about that length for 2 to 3 weeks. In about 90% of patients that undergo surgery, the transplant hair will fall out within the first 3 weeks. This means will look like they did before hair transplant surgery. By this point, there should not be any swelling or redness. Staples and/ or sutures are removed in less than 2 weeks after surgery and the transplanted hair follicles will then go into their resting phase until they are ready to grow again.

We understand people like to pamper themselves. A patient of ours wrote to us regarding a scalp and body massage. He had his hair transplant surgery in our Encino Surgical Office almost 8 months ago and asked, “Would get a head massage risk loosening the implants?” He also wanted to know if that would help increase circulation to the grafts and improve growth.

Hair that has been transplanted over 3 months ago and is growing normally is considered permanent and cannot be dislodged from your scalp. The main concern is in the first weeks of a hair transplant surgery when the hair is still settling in. Even so, some cases where the hair is removed the active part of the follicle may still remain and a new follicle will grow shortly after. At this point, hair cannot be harmed.

However, there is no proof that a scalp massage to increase scalp circulation is proven to increase the quality of existing or newly transplanted hair. More so, it has also not been proven that lack of blood circulation or oxygenation in scalp will cause hair loss.

Alopecia Areata (AA) is an autoimmune hair loss condition. It presents itself in the form of patchy hair loss on the scalp or other areas where hair exists. Some have questioned if AA can also be triggered by emotional stress. It has been discussed in some medical journals but the exact mechanism has never been explored. There has been a study conducted and published on the relationship between stress and the pathogenesis of alopecia areata. This was done by subjecting AA-affected and normal lab mice to ether anesthesia (stress) through restraining the animal.

The mice with alopecia areata had a marked increase in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal tone and activity centrally and peripherally in the skin and lymph nodes. Plasma corticosterone, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and estradiol levels were determined in this study as indicator or stress level, whereas gene expression in brains, lymphoid organs, and skin was measured by quantitative RT-PCR for corticotropin-releasing hormone, arginine vasopressin, proopiomelanocortin, glucocorticoid receptor, mineralocorticoid receptor, corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor types 1 and 2, interleukin-12, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, and estrogen receptors type-1 and type-2.

Compared to normal mice, there was an altered interaction seen between the adrenal and gonadal axis proving that the stress level in those animals was in fact higher. Stress also caused changes in the activity of the hypothalamus pituitary axis in the mice with AA.

In addition, animals with AA had significantly blunted corticosteroid and ACTH responses to acute ether stress (physiological stressor) and a deficit in habituation to repeated restraint stress (psychological stressor). These findings further suggest that altered brain responses caused by stress may be associated with the occurrence of alopecia areata, proving the hypothesis that stress plays an important factor.
Treatment of AA is done through observation of the patient and, in some cases, steroid injections can also prove useful. These treatment options have shown some improvement in those who have extensive types of AA like Alopecia Totalis. We do not recommend any patient to get hair transplant surgery if they have active AA since the chance of losing the newly transplant hair is very likely.

Although AA is not genreally treated with hair restoration, we at our offices of US Hair Restoration in LA, BH and Orange County visit and treat patients of AA in a regular basis.

A patient sent us an email regarding his hair loss condition. He has male patterned baldness and it is still progressing. He already met with a dermatologist and had several studies done prior to the email and was even using Chronostim for approximately 3 months. Now that he’s used up the bottles of Chronostim, he has noticed no change is his hair loss situation. He wants to have a full head of hair and does not want to take hair loss medication for the rest of his life. Before we forget, his wedding is in 2 months.

Chronostim has not been clinically proven to correct or prevent male patterned baldness or any other form of hair loss. It should not be considered a replacement option for medications that have been both proven effective and FDA approved safe for consumption like Propecia (finasteride) DHT blocker.

We highly suggest that all patients experiencing any form of hair loss to be seen by a good hair transplant surgeon and have a miniaturization study done. If the condition is in fact male patterned baldness or androgenetic alopecia, finasteride should be a part of your everyday hair loss treatment plan.

Hair restoration surgery can restore the areas damaged by hair loss by transplanting healthy permanent hair from the donor. In this situation, however, neither of the aforementioned will make enough of a visible difference for the day of your wedding. These procedures take time to show their fullest effect. There are cosmetic options available like Toppik that can cover the balding or thinning areas of your hair through the use of microfibers. If anything, you can use that product for the wedding day while you either consider a hair transplant surgery or at least try using Propecia (finasteride) so that you may see true results a few months after your wedding.

For patients whom have had hair transplant surgery or for those considering surgery, many questions while arise in regards to the procedure itself. One typical question that comes up has to do with maintenance right after their hair transplant procedure. One patient whose father was caring for him after his surgery asked in a recent email, “When can my son start handling his hair after his hair transplant without any caution?”

It’s always good to be cautious when it comes down to surgical procedures but luckily hair transplant surgery is a relatively minimally invasive procedure which requires very little maintenance. We tell our patients to be most cautious within the first few days (day 1 through 4) of their hair restoration surgery and after that period to continue with their regular washing and handling routine. If you feel the need to conceal the treated areas, it can be easily done by changing your hair style or covering it with a hat or head wrap (bandana).

At this point (day 5), there is really no limitation as to what can be done with your hair except in regards to sun exposure. It is highly recommended to avoided excessive sun exposure to the scalp and treated area for the next 6 months and, if possible or necessary, to try to wear some sort of sun protection (sunscreen or hat).

We schedule to see patients in our offices of US Hair Restoartion in Southern California days 1, 10 and 10 months after hair transplant.

For patients whom have had hair transplant surgery or for those considering surgery, many questions while arise in regards to the procedure itself. One typical question that comes up has to do with maintenance right after their hair transplant procedure. One patient whose father was caring for him after his surgery asked in a recent email, “When can my son start handling his hair after his hair transplant without any caution?”

It’s always good to be cautious when it comes down to surgical procedures but luckily hair transplant surgery is a relatively minimally invasive procedure which requires very little maintenance. We tell our patients to be most cautious within the first few days (day 1 through 4) of their hair restoration surgery and after that period to continue with their regular washing and handling routine. If you feel the need to conceal the treated areas, it can be easily done by changing your hair style or covering it with a hat or head wrap (bandana)

At this point (day 5), there is really no limitation as to what can be done with your hair except in regards to sun exposure. It is highly recommended to avoid excessive sun exposure to the scalp and treated area for the next 6 months and, if possible or necessary, to try to wear some sort of sun protection (sunscreen or hat).

You can read more on what happens after hair transplant surgery in our website.