When it comes to hair loss the male and female pop­u­la­tion will have expe­ri­enced it before the age 30. How­ever, the process of hair bald­ness dif­fers for each indi­vid­ual. For a num­ber of peo­ple, bald­ness is a genetic con­di­tion like andro­genic alope­cia or pro­gres­sive hair thin­ning, which is a com­mon type of hair loss.

Hair­line in women will not recede as com­pared to men; how­ever, the hair becomes thin­ner all over the head and it may lead to total bald­ness. While men at age 20 or even less get reced­ing hair­lines that look like a let­ter M, wherein hair thin­ning will start at the crown and around the sides of the head.

Another con­di­tion or type that causes hair loss is the alope­cia areata; it is often called spot hair bald­ness and occurs in all areas of the body caus­ing loss of hair, espe­cially on the scalp. There are two types of alope­cia: while alope­cia totalis is a total hair loss on the scalp, the alope­cia uni­ver­salis is a total loss of all body hair.

What­ever term suits the descrip­tion or dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of hair loss, hair bald­ness, or hair bald­ing, the fact still lies that at some point in an individual’s life the process of going bald may occur. Dev­as­tat­ing as it may seem there are solu­tions and var­i­ous options for hair loss suf­fer­ers and if prop­erly treated in the early stages the pro­gres­sion can be put to a halt.

Hair restora­tion pro­ce­dures have changed in the decades since they were first done. The ear­lier meth­ods of using hair plugs were not accept­able to soci­ety. Hair trans­plant patients appeared to have doll like hair. Now hair trans­plants are more nat­ural look­ing due to the inno­v­a­tive meth­ods being used, such as micro grafting.

In gen­eral, most hair trans­plant surg­eries today involve micro graft­ing. Micro grafts hold about 1–3 or four hair fol­li­cles. Older style hair grafts often held on aver­age a dozen hair fol­li­cles. These new micro grafts are only pos­si­ble because skilled sur­geons have refined their method of extract­ing them.

Micro grafts are use­ful in hair trans­plant surgery because they can give the hair a quite nat­ural appear­ance. The hair emerges from the scalp in the most nat­ural way, with the same num­ber of hairs that nature intended. If the pro­ce­dure is done cor­rectly, no one can tell the difference.

Pre­vi­ously, when hair plugs were used, doc­tors did the hair trans­plant surg­eries much dif­fer­ently. They used an instru­ment called a trephine to cut cir­cu­lar grafts from 2mm to 5mm in diam­e­ter. These plugs were inserted into the bald­ing area.

Finally, the micro grafts will be fin­ished by being divided into indi­vid­ual grafts by using a stere­omi­cro­scope. The sur­gi­cal team will make a vari­ety of grafts from eight-shaft mini grafts to one or two shaft micro grafts. These will be moved dur­ing hair trans­plant to the recip­i­ent sites so that the hair will have a nat­ural hair­line with full­ness on top.

Top 5 foods for Healthy Hair

When it comes to healthy hair, it’s not just what prod­ucts you use that con­tributes to its heath. Hav­ing healthy hair also includes hav­ing a healthy diet. If you were born with fine, thin hair, you’ll never have rope-thick tresses — no mat­ter what you eat — but a well-balanced diet that includes plenty of growth-promoting pro­tein and iron can make a dif­fer­ence. Read on for the top 5 foods that should be the foun­da­tion of your healthy hair diet.

1. Salmon

When it comes to foods that pack a beauty punch, it’s hard to beat salmon. Loaded with omega-3 fatty acids, this high-quality pro­tein source is also filled with vit­a­min B-12 and iron.

2.     Dark Green Vegetables

Spinach, like broc­coli and Swiss chard, is an excel­lent source of vit­a­mins A and C, which your body needs to pro­duce sebum. The oily sub­stance, secreted by your hair fol­li­cles, is the body’s nat­ural hair con­di­tioner. Dark green veg­eta­bles also pro­vide iron and calcium.

3.     Beans

Legumes like kid­ney beans and lentils should be an impor­tant part of your hair-care diet. Not only do they pro­vide plen­ti­ful pro­tein to pro­mote hair growth, but ample iron, zinc, and biotin. While rare, biotin defi­cien­cies can result in brit­tle hair.

4.     Nuts

Brazil nuts are one of nature’s best sources of sele­nium, an impor­tant min­eral for the health of your scalp.Walnuts con­tain alpha-linolenic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid that may help con­di­tion your hair. They are also a ter­rific source of zinc, as are cashews, pecans, and almonds. A zinc defi­ciency can lead to hair shed­ding, so make sure nuts are a reg­u­lar on your healthy hair menu.

5.     Poul­try

Chick­ens and turkeys may have feath­ers, but the high-quality pro­tein they pro­vide will help give you the healthy hair you crave. Poul­try also pro­vides iron with a high degree of bioavail­abil­ity, mean­ing your body can eas­ily reap its benefits.

When con­sid­er­ing under­go­ing any type of cos­metic surgery, being con­cerned that there will be prob­lems or side – effects is very nat­ural. Learn­ing the facts is vital for relief of any emo­tions that may be caus­ing hes­i­tance to go for­ward with a pro­ce­dure. Hair restora­tion is a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure that both men and women are embark­ing to per­ma­nently cor­rect their hair loss.

Hair restora­tion is not a major surgery in fact it is com­monly thought to be eas­ier than vis­it­ing your den­tist. It is an out­pa­tient pro­ce­dure and per­formed with a local anes­thetic. Your scalp is numbed and you are relaxed in a reclined posi­tion while the pro­ce­dure is being per­formed. After your hair trans­plant pro­ce­dure is com­plete you return home that same day and can carry on with the major­ity of your nor­mal activ­i­ties. Patients have even reported no pain and return to work the next day because there are no clear signs of hav­ing a hair trans­plant pro­ce­dure. Anti– inflam­ma­tory med­ica­tion is com­monly pre­scribed to con­trol and reduce any pos­si­ble swelling.

A com­mon ques­tion asked by indi­vid­u­als con­sid­er­ing hair restora­tion is, will there be any scar­ring? Scar­ring in the area where the hair fol­li­cles were implanted is extremely rare. In the area where the donor hair was removed, a trchophytic closer tech­nique is used to elim­i­nate any scar­ring; even under close scrutiny scar­ing is unde­tectable. With all of the mod­ern devel­op­ment in hair replace­ment ther­apy, hair restora­tion is a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure that has been suc­cess­fully sat­is­fy­ing hair loss patients. In the com­ing post-operative months their hair will begin to grow and thicken, and pos­i­tively impact­ing the rest of their lives.

With hair loss becom­ing a com­mon cause of con­cern amongst mil­lions of peo­ple across the world, every year a large num­ber of med­ica­tions, herbs, spices, nutri­tional sup­ple­ments, oils, sham­poos etc comes up in the mar­ket each claim­ing itself to be the panacea for hair loss. Each year, men suf­fer­ing from hair loss spend bil­lions of dol­lars in an attempt to treat their hair loss. Unfor­tu­nately, a large per­cent­age of all prod­ucts being mar­keted in the less than eth­i­cal hair loss treat­ment indus­try are com­pletely inef­fec­tive for the major­ity of those who use them.

If you are going bald you should seri­ously con­sider hair loss med­ica­tion treat­ments to halt or even reverse your hair loss. While there is no cure for hair loss drugs can often stop or even reverse alope­cia aer­ate in most peo­ple. Med­ica­tion for treat­ing hair loss slows thin­ning of the hair and increases cov­er­age of the scalp by grow­ing new hair and enlarg­ing exist­ing hairs.

Types of Med­ica­tions for Hair loss Treatment

Today there are two FDA approved med­ica­tions for hair growth – minox­i­dil which is sold over the counter as Rogaine, for both men and women, and Finas­teride, a pre­scrip­tion pill sold as Prope­cia, for men only. Two other drugs have been recently approved for hair growth and include a high-estrogen oral con­tra­cep­tive and Aldac­tone (How­ever, these two med­ica­tions are only for women due to their fem­i­niz­ing side effects.

Both these med­ica­tions slow thin­ning of the hair and increase cov­er­age of the scalp by grow­ing new hair and enlarg­ing exist­ing hairs. How­ever, the effec­tive­ness of finas­teride or minox­i­dil depends on your age and the loca­tion of hair loss. These med­ica­tions do not work for every­one, and you should not expect to re-grow a full head of hair.

Causes of hair loss induced by scalp infections.

Fol­li­culi­tis

Fol­li­culi­tis is a term for inflam­ma­tion of hair fol­li­cles. It looks like acne with lit­tle rings of inflam­ma­tion sur­round­ing the open­ing of a hair fol­li­cle. In the early stages of a fol­li­culi­tis, the hair fiber may still be present, but as the fol­li­culi­tis pro­gresses the hair often falls out. There are non-infectious forms of fol­li­culi­tis, such as those caused by oils and greases applied to the skin that clog up the hair fol­li­cles, but fol­li­culi­tis is usu­ally due to a bac­te­r­ial infec­tion. Non­pre­scrip­tion top­i­cal antibi­otics such as bac­i­tracin, myc­i­tracin, or neomycin can be used to treat minor folliculitis

Piedra

Piedra (tri­chomy­co­sis nodu­laris) hap­pens when the hair fibers are infected by a fun­gus. The vis­i­ble indi­ca­tor of a piedra infec­tion is devel­op­ment of hard nod­ules on hair fibers. Indeed, “piedra” is Span­ish for stone. Piedra infec­tion may affect hairs of the scalp, body, and gen­i­tal areas. Usu­ally the infec­tion is rel­a­tively benign. In parts of Malaysia, the nod­ules of black piedra are con­sid­ered attrac­tive and tra­di­tion­ally women encour­aged its growth by sleep­ing with their hair buried in the soil. Treat­ment gen­er­ally involves shav­ing off affected areas. Anti-fungals such as keto­cona­zole or terbinafine are also used.

Demodex fol­licu­lo­rum

Demodex is a lit­tle worm-like crea­ture that likes to live on skin and in hair fol­li­cles. It feeds on dead skin and oils, so it par­tic­u­larly likes to live in hair fol­li­cles where there are lots of both.

Humans are born free of Demodex, but dur­ing child­hood, through con­tact with oth­ers, the skin can become infected with it. For the most part, we never know they are there. They are benign, if repul­sive, lit­tle crea­tures. The most com­mon prob­lem with Demodex is that they may cause irri­ta­tion, par­tic­u­larly in the eye­lashes. If you have itchy eye­lashes, Demodex may be the problem.

There are a wide vari­ety of scalp infec­tions that can cause severe hair loss. For­tu­nately, most scalp infec­tion can be treated suc­cess­fully and have a sig­nif­i­cant effect on the hair growth. The main causes of scalp infec­tions are bac­te­ria, fun­gus, virus or par­a­sites. Fol­licul­tius is a bac­te­r­ial infec­tion which affects a large area of the scalp. If the infec­tion is deep in the hair fol­li­cles the dam­age may cause for a more exten­sive treat­ment but, if caught in time and treated it will heal quickly. An exam­ple of fun­gal infec­tion is Tinea Capits, which is cause by viral and par­a­sitic fol­li­culi­tis. Gen­er­ally it affects other hair grow­ing areas such as the body, beard, eye­brows, and eye­lashes. Pei­dra is another very com­mon scalp infec­tion that affects both curly and straight hair. It can lead to for­ma­tion of nod­ules on the infected hair, how­ever with care­ful exam­i­na­tion of these scalp infec­tions treat­ment can solve the hair loss.

Cost is never the same with hair restora­tion, there are many fac­tors that influ­ence the cost.

The cost of a hair trans­plant is per­son­al­ized for each patient based on the goals they wish to achieve. We take detailed fac­tors into con­sid­er­a­tion with each patient, there­fore in using this per­sonal approach each patient receives exactly what they wish to achieve while mak­ing a very valu­able invest­ment as well. Impor­tant fac­tors we must con­sider are such as, the size of the area that needs to be trans­planted, the degree of hair loss, and the amount of thick­ness you wish to achieve ect. We spare no expense in our goal of main­tain­ing our rep­u­ta­tion as “THE BEST” that is why we ask our patients to con­sider not the “COST PER GRAFT” but the COST PER GRAFT THAT GROWS.  The bot­tom line is value, and that is what you get at Bev­erly Hills Hair Restora­tion - VALUE is where the EXPERTISE is.

If you notice thin­ning or even large amounts of hair falling out, and have been under a lot of pres­sure or stress, this could be a sign of stress-induced hair loss.

Hair loss that is stress-induced is caused by a con­di­tion called tel­o­gen efflu­vium. Phys­i­cal stress, emo­tional stress relat­ing to a death in the fam­ily, preg­nancy, severe weight loss and surgery can all cause stress– induced hair loss. The hair typ­i­cally grows back when the emo­tional or phys­i­cal stress is resolved, although it can take months. For some peo­ple intense stress may trig­ger a type of hair loss called alope­cia areata, which causes the hair not to grow. The areas that are affected by alope­cia will start to fall out. The hair may grow back, but because the white blood cells are attack­ing the hair fol­li­cle and my cause a repet­i­tive cycle of hair loss. If stress is con­tribut­ing to your hair loss there are a few ways to reduce your stress level; exer­cise, yoga and med­i­ta­tion are all exam­ples of ways you can reduce anx­i­ety and stress levels.

Fol­lic­u­lar unit extrac­tion is a method used to har­vest grafts in the least inva­sive way.  Fol­lic­u­lar unit extrac­tion enables the sur­geon to extract hair fol­li­cles using a tiny punch, with­out the need to remove a strip of hair bar­ing skin. This method of har­vest­ing hair fol­li­cles is what makes FUE dif­fer­ent from the stan­dard hair restora­tion pro­ce­dure. In the typ­i­cal sur­gi­cal hair restora­tion pro­ce­dure a strip of skin con­tain­ing bald resis­tance fol­li­cles is removed, this strip is then dis­sected care­fully under mag­ni­fi­ca­tion to pro­duce indi­vid­ual hair grafts. Both the extrac­tion and the strip exci­sion pro­ce­dure pro­duce com­pa­ra­ble micro grafts. The major dif­fer­ence between the two meth­ods is the har­vest­ing of the grafts.

The Pros and Cons of Fol­lic­u­lar Unit Extraction

Pros

·         Fol­lic­u­lar unit extrac­tion is the min­i­mally inva­sive way which fol­lic­u­lar unit grafts are removed.

·         There is less trauma to the graft dur­ing the extrac­tion process then with the tra­di­tional method

·         Patients who have reduced donor den­si­ties, due to poor hair qual­ity in the donor area, have a bet­ter, health­ier selec­tion of grafts.

·         Patients with tight scalps, where tra­di­tional strip har­vest­ing can be prob­lem­atic, are able to receive hair restora­tion now that this method is being used.

·         There is no vis­i­ble scar, patients who like to keep a short hair cut would ben­e­fit from this

Cons

·         The max­i­mum amount of grafts can­not be harvested

·         Grafts har­vested from places other than the donor area will not be permanent

·         The cost is twice as much as the tra­di­tional procedure

·         Prob­lems of “cap­ping” (this is when the top of the graft pulls off dur­ing the extraction)

·         Mul­ti­ple ses­sions are required to equal one strip method procedure

·         Patients with curly or fine hair are gen­er­ally not good can­di­dates for FUE