Getting ahead of your hair loss

For years, if you happen to had been affected by hair loss, you had however two choices – neither of them nice. Go full bald or mud off that toupee. From John Wayne to Ted Danson to even the unique Bond, males who wished to really feel like they’d full heads of hair needed to go about city with a rug on their head, by no means diving right into a pool and hoping it stayed hooked up in a convertible. Then got here plugs – a really painful process that by no means appeared proper and sometimes left some fairly nasty scarring. However now instances have modified. 

Andrew Kashian is the founding father of Remedy Clinics, a number one hair transplant and pores and skin restoration clinic in Chicago that gives clear, customized, and high-quality care at an inexpensive value.

We sat down with Kashian to debate hair loss, why it occurs, the myths and lies about it, and the way trendy medication and expertise have made the process painless, the outcomes practical, and the associated fee very inexpensive. 

YOU CAN FINALLY BLAME YOUR PARENTS!

(Editor’s be aware: DHT, also called dihydrotestosterone, is an androgen which helps give males their male traits. It’s linked to the hormone testosterone.)

“Males lose their hair due to genetics. It’s a launch of one thing known as DHT. Follicles are genetically coded and every follicle of hair has DHT receptors. There’s no lineage to a mom’s father or something like that. Hair loss is rather like each different function in your physique. It’s a complete crapshoot of no matter genetics you get out of your mother and father. Stress in your life and different issues may also help push that sooner, however at its basis, it’s what you’ve been both cursed or gifted with genetically. Ladies are biologically completely different and don’t have as a lot DHT, in order that’s why there’s not as a lot baldness working by ladies’s genetics.”

FORGET THE FLUFF

“Shampoos and conditioners, something over-the-counter, none of it’s going to save your hair. It helps with hair well being and wholesome hair will give the looks of development, however it’s not stopping the loss. The one means you’re going to cease hair loss is with prescription medication or with remedies. All the pieces else is simply fluff. 

Like something in growing old, hair loss is progressive. Our our bodies are slowly degenerating and dying with time. That’s simply part of life, and hair is a kind of issues. Most males are going to lose most, if not all, of their hair by the point they’re of their 60s, 70s, or 80s. However there are instruments in place that may enable you to prolong the lifetime of that hair. What we are able to do is a therapy like a PRP injection (a plasma injection). It’s utilized in numerous medication whether or not it’s for facials, torn ligaments, hair loss, erectile dysfunction, all kinds of issues. And there’s additionally a drugs known as Finasteride. It’s a drug that blocks the receptor that kicks hairs out. So as an alternative of that hair all falling out in 5 years, we are able to gradual it down and it would take 20 years. So, it’s all about extension, not lifetime preservation. 

Finasteride is available in two kinds. It is available in an oral tablet kind and a topical or liquid kind. The oral is stronger, however it does include the prospect of unwanted side effects. Now, the pharmaceutical firms that make this drug will say only one% of the inhabitants experiences a aspect impact, however we don’t assume that’s true. We’re seeing nearer to about 10-15% of our sufferers experiencing a lower in libido because of Finasteride. Now the excellent news is it’s an FDA cleared drug. It’s tremendous secure. Should you do expertise these unwanted side effects, you go off it and with time it’ll utterly go away. Possibility quantity two, which is comparatively new, is topical Finasteride which doesn’t have any unwanted side effects. It’s not as efficient as oral Finasteride however it nonetheless works very properly. We often suggest sufferers begin with the tablet model. In the event that they begin to really feel the unwanted side effects, we swap them over to the topical.”

FUE TRANSPLANTS

“FUE stands for Follicular Unit Extraction. Should you look actually intently at your hairline and take a look at the outlet that the hairs are going into, generally these holes have a number of hairs popping out. These holes kind a single follicle or a single graft. So, a graft can have as little as one hair to as many as 5. The previous methodology was known as strip methodology, the place you’d actually minimize out  a roll of grafts of hair after which suture that pores and skin collectively. It was a brutal process. Some individuals are nonetheless doing it immediately. And you find yourself getting that scar working throughout the again of your head.

However within the final six or seven years, follicular unit extraction was invented the place we use this microscopic software that has a rotating blade in a circle, virtually like a syringe tip. And that blade is simply massive sufficient to get across the width of a single graft of hair and minimize the bottom of the pores and skin. So now all of the sudden, as an alternative of doing 4 large incisions with an enormous suture and lengthy restoration time, we’re doing anyplace between a 0.7 to 1.0 millimeter incision per graft that’s eliminated. The fantastic thing about that is the restoration time is admittedly quick and the scar tissue is minimal. As soon as your hair grows again, you actually don’t see it in any respect, so it’s tremendous, tremendous discrete.

Most bald males have hair on the again of their heads as a result of that hair is genetically completely different from the hair on the highest of our head. That hair is definitely genetically proof against balding. So if you transplant the hair from the again of the pinnacle to the highest, it’s actually a everlasting repair as an alternative of a short lived repair. It’s a full restoration. So when somebody seems to be behind your head the place these hairs had been eliminated, our purpose is that there’s no indication that something has been performed there. The purpose for a profitable surgical procedure isn’t just hair development, however for the hair to develop in and for nobody to know {that a} transplant was even carried out.”

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

“The process takes at some point. Sufferers arrive at 7:15 and we shave the again of the pinnacle down as a result of hairs can’t be lengthy for the software to suit round. The primary half of the surgical procedure is the extraction, so the sufferers are face-down. The realm is totally numb, all native anesthesia, and each single graft is individually minimize and extracted. About 90% of our sufferers go to sleep in the course of the surgical procedure, and that may be a testomony to how snug it’s, as a result of they’re bored, not as a result of we’ve doped them out! It’s as a result of they’re sitting there for 5 – 6 hours. It’s a really tedious surgical procedure and requires a big crew. We often have about seven medical staffers engaged on a single affected person at a time. 

Common surgical procedure dimension relies on the affected person, may very well be as small as 1000 grafts, and the max we do is about 2200 grafts. We assume the common graft is three hairs, so that you’re taking a look at anyplace between 3000 hairs to upwards of 6000 or 7000 hairs. 

By midday, that portion is finished. After that, these hairs are noticed beneath a microscope to guarantee that they’re 100% wholesome and alive, that there’s no transections, which is like nicks or cuts within the hair. If they’re confirmed alive, they’re trimmed to the suitable size and ready for the transplantation to the brand new location. The position of hair density relies on the placement and a part of that transplantation course of within the second half of the surgical procedure is the place to place the grafts in. It’s an artwork kind. A pure aesthetic is one thing that’s at all times tough to realize. And attempting to duplicate what your physique naturally produces is without doubt one of the most tough issues to do in medication.”

RECOVERY

“The primary two days are probably the most essential for restoration, that’s when the physique is therapeutic probably the most.  Visible therapeutic – the place you’ll be able to exit in public with out sporting a hat and with none kind of scabbing or redness – usually takes about 10 to 14 days.

Normally after the primary month, you return to the way in which you had been earlier than and it doesn’t appear to be something was performed; the thinness continues to be there, the realm addressed continues to be bald. However then, the subsequent 12 months begins the gradual strategy of rising. The primary three months, you begin to get toddler development, little-teeny hairs beginning to poke by. Month six, you begin to see a majority of these transplanted hairs coming by. After which between month six and month 12, you go to full density. So, the complete remaining dense consequence takes a full 12 months.

The draw back is it takes time. The upside is the gradual development is nearly a means of easing the outcomes into acceptance for different individuals.”

SOMETIMES YOU GOTTA EMBRACE THE BALD

“When somebody is totally bald and so they don’t have any hair from hairline to mid-scalp, you need to have numerous donor hair. And if that space is simply too skinny, then the potential of doing a transplant and getting good density within the entrance is unlikely. It truly seems to be worse than in the event that they had been simply to shave their hair quick.

We consider in brutal honesty and transparency. I might reasonably inform the affected person, ‘Hey, you’re going to finish up spending some huge cash and it’s not going to present you an end result that you just’re proud of,’ than take their cash, do the surgical procedure and have them be disenchanted.

Our method with first time sufferers is to not attempt to persuade them or promote them. We don’t consider in that right here. When sufferers are available or attain out to us, whether or not or not it’s nearly, in particular person, or no matter, we seek the advice of you at no cost. And our purpose is to obtain footage from you after which spend time on the cellphone or in particular person explaining what’s occurring. That is what you’re experiencing. Listed here are your choices. Listed here are the caveats with these choices. After which the extra you find out about your physique and what you’re going by and the choices accessible, the higher you’re going to have the ability to make that call for the subsequent step, and the better and extra snug that step will probably be.

One other distinctive factor about our clinics is we now have totally clear fastened prices. We cost $5 per graft. That’s inclusive of all the things, taxes, post-care, treatment, surgical charges, comply with up charges, all of it’s looped in. And you may pay for that upfront or we now have interest-free month-to-month fee plans. Our purpose is a hard and fast honest charge that’s all-inclusive of all the things. Should you’re out-of-state, that value truly consists of transportation to our clinic right here in Chicago with housing after which transportation again. No improve there both. 

Our pricing is designed deliberately to be accessible. The typical transplant on the west coast or the northeast runs anyplace between $15,000 to $30,000. The costliest surgical procedure would ever be right here is round $10,000 and that’s for the biggest surgical procedure doable. We’re capable of preserve costs low and nonetheless be hyper-profitable. We’re constructing the biggest hair-loss clinic in your entire nation in downtown Chicago proper now. Don’t overpay for one thing simply because a flowery physician’s flexing their levels and attempting to persuade you. There’s a cause that physician has 4 Ferraris parked in his storage.”