Treatment Options
What are the various treatment options available for male pattern hair loss?
We are just scratching the surface on our knowledge and treatments of male pattern baldness and I believe the future looks quite bright. Unfortunately, there is no present "Gold Bullet" to cure hair loss, but there are some very legitimate and good hair loss treatments, surgical, medical, and cosmetic.
Dr. McAndrews is a board-certified dermatologist specializing in the treatment of hair loss. He is an Instructor at USC School of Medicine, teaching the residents in the latest advances in medical and surgical treatments of hair loss. An important lesson he teaches all residents is to make sure a patient with hair loss is realistic about what the various treatment options can achieve.
SURGICAL TREATMENTS
There are many different surgical techniques to correct androgenetic alopecia:
- Hair Transplants
- Scalp Reductions
- Scalp Flaps
Dr. McAndrews has been interviewed on ABC News, CBS News, FOX News, Good Day LA, and Channel 13 News on the latest advances in hair transplants and medical treatments.
Hair transplant clinics are springing up as quickly as 7-11's and McDonalds. Unfortunately, the patient is left on his own to determine if the procedure is the right match for him and if the doctor has adequate training in the procedures that he/she is performing.
For more information on hair transplants, please see our web site at HairGrowthDoctor.com
MEDICAL TREATMENTS
There are presently 2 medications that are FDA approved for male pattern hair loss:
- PROPECIA: more info
- Minoxidil: more info
There are no other medications on the market that can claim that their product causes clinically significant hair growth. There are products from Glaxo-Welcome and Upjohn that are presently in clinical trials that are showing significant promise.
COSMETIC TREATMENTS
There are various cosmetic treatments, such as:
- Hair pieces - the naturalness has greatly improved over the years to the point it is hard to tell normal hair from a hairpiece. The biggest down side is the continual maintenance that is involved in keeping it looking natural. Hair transplants and the present medications will never give you back the head of hair you had as a youth. I recommend hairpieces for my patients that will not be satisfied with anything less then a dense, full head of hair (like they were when they were 18 years old).
- Cosmetic concealers- there are many sprays and powders that give the illusion that there is less baldness, some are much more cosmetically elegant than others are. These products need to be applied daily.
"GIMMICK" TREATMENTS
One needs to be aware that there are many companies and doctors that play on the vulnerability of people with hair loss. There are numerous unethical companies that make claims that their products cause "fuller and thicker looking hair" and hope you interpret that as causing clinically significant hair growth. However, you will never get these companies to put in writing that their product "cause clinically significant hair growth" because they do not!
A partial list of unsubstantiated and/or false claims is:
- Balding men have poor vascular supply to the balding area. Numerous studies have shown that the vascular supply to the balding scalp is just as good as the non-balding scalp.
- Balding men have plugged follicles. A plugged follicle will not stop a hair from growing.
- Balding men have diseased scalps. There are a few rare diseases that can cause hair loss, but is not in the same pattern as male patterned baldness.
- Lack of vitamins causes hair loss. Hair loss due to a vitamin deficiency is rare in the United States. It is more common to see vitamin toxicity as a cause of hair loss.
- Some companies use electrical stimulation to the scalp or massage therapy. No studies have been shown that this causes clinically significant hair growth.
- The Demodex mite (a normal human mite) causes hair loss. This is completely unsubstantiated. The Demodex mite is found in most hair follicle in adults, not in just the hair follicles of balding men. And if the Demodex mite truly did cause hair loss, why doesn't it cause hair loss of the eyebrows, of the beard region, or of the sides of the head.
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