Tag Archives: hair cycle

Blog

How Much Density Will a Hair Transplant Give Me?

Leave a comment

hair graft density
Perhaps the most pressing concern for potential hair transplant patients, besides the safety and permanence of their procedure, is the amount of density they can achieve. Most men and women want to return to the density they had when they were in their late teens or early 20s. While this is usually an impossible ideal, an experienced and highly skilled hair transplant surgeon can add a great amount of density to give a strikingly full appearance.
When considering the question of density, the amount a surgeon can transplant is determined by many factors. Including the hair thickness and quality, donor density, age and family history of hair loss. A conservative approach to follicle extraction is always best as one should preserve the donor site for future sessions as one ages.
The color of the hair is also important in contrast to the color of the scalp. The more contrast, the more hair is required to achieve optical density. Dark hair on a Caucasian scalp is going to appear thinner or sparser than lighter color hair such as blonde, gray, or white. The same is true of lighter color hair on an African-American or darker pigmented scalp.  The quality of the hair is also important for determining density. Hair that is curly or wavy appears to achieve more optical density since it camouflages the skin to a greater extent than straight hair. In the 1970s men would perm their thinning hair to reduce the visual contrast between hair and scalp.
The texture of the hair is one of the most important factors influencing the number of grafts required for a specified area of the scalp. Hair shafts can either be very fine, fine, medium, medium-coarse, or coarse. The difference is in the width of the hair; the wider or thicker the hair, the more optical surface density will be visualized. As follicular unit grafts heal, as in any skin graft, the skin contracts or shrinks to its center. The result of this contraction leads to small gaps between each graft which can be improved during a second surgery to fill in these spaces.
Techniques for density creation vary from surgeon to surgeon. At Modena Hair Institute, Dr. Yazdan utilizes an extremely fine 0.7mm punch and implantation technique that allows for density optimization and a natural looking hairline. This not only reduces the risk for scarring, but reduces the risk of shock loss in surrounding follicles.
Patient Warning
Find a board-certified hair transplant specialist who is highly experienced in adding the kind of density you desire. It is of the utmost importance to conduct thorough research and find an experienced and technically advanced hair restoration specialist to diagnose and treat your specific hair loss situation. A veteran hair transplant physician or surgeon will be able to accurately assess and evaluate your individual hair loss needs and provide the best surgical outcome for you.

Dr. Amir Yazdan, MD, is an internationally renowned hair transplant surgeon, expert guest on Dr. Phil and The Doctors, creator of the GroMD hair restoration product line, ISHRS member, accredited member of the IAHRS and a visceral advocate for patient care. Learn more about Dr. Yazdan or read rave reviews from his patients.

Blog

Postpartum Hair Loss: Causes and Solutions

Leave a comment

Postpartum Hair Loss
Everything seems to be going well with life as a new mother, when slowly you begin to notice increased hair loss. It could be extra strands of hair on your pillow or more loose strands during washing, which could progress to hair falling out in clumps. You may change your shampoo or try various hair tonics, but you start to panic about going bald.
As a new mother it’s important not to fall into distress – the above scenario is very common.
Causes
There are many possible causes of hair loss, generally known to dermatologists and hair restoration specialists as alopecia. In postpartum hair loss, we are dealing with a very specific type of alopecia known as telogen effluvium, and it is one of the most common conditions treated by dermatologists.
For the majority of individuals, 5 to 15 per cent of the hair on one’s scalp is in the telogen phase, meaning that these hairs are in their resting phase. Telogen effluvium is triggered when a physiologic or hormonal change causes a large number of hairs to enter telogen at one time. Shedding does not occur until the new anagen hairs begin to grow, which usually takes two to three months. The emerging hairs help to force the resting hairs out of the follicle, which is why most people notice a sudden increase in hair fall a few months after delivery, or after an acute illness. The good news is that the prognosis is excellent and in almost all cases, recovery occurs within six months. Often, no specific treatment is required.
Unlike some other animals that shed hair, human hair growth is asynchronous, which means that there are hairs in different stages of the growth cycle at any one time. Normal hair grows in cycles and goes through three stages:

  • Anagen: growing phase
  • Telogen: resting phase
  • Catagen: falling phase

Therefore, the effect of normal or physiological hair fall is usually not too obvious because about 80 to 90 per cent of our scalp hairs are in the growing anagen phase at any given moment. Thus, it is normal for a person to lose as many as 50 to 100 strands of hair daily, and these usually show up on a comb, brush or on the bathroom floor, especially after washing your hair.
Solutions
As a first response to excessive hair fall in newly made mothers, supplements are occasionally prescribed and, in some cases, medical topical therapy as well, taking into account whether the mother is breastfeeding or not.
At Modena Hair Institute in Orange County, we generally advise patients to use a doctor-developed conditioning shampoo like groMD, as well as minimize activities that might result in excessive hair loss, such as rough combing and brushing of the hair, or tying it into very tight braids or buns. It’s uncommon for hair loss associated with pregnancy to persist unless there are other medical issues involved such as iron deficiency or thyroid disorders. If symptoms of excessive hair fall continue beyond six months, you should seek medical counsel.
In summary, there are a number of modalities which combat the specific form of telogen effluvium that is postpartum hair loss. Patients may try one modality at a time, beginning with the least involved and add or replace modalities as they see results. Each has positives and negatives and not all will be equally effective. Hair transplantation is the final and most definitive solution, however this should be delayed until you have reached a stable hair pattern. This is due to the fact that the transplanted hair is permanent and if you have not reached a stable pattern you can expect further losses and the need for more grafting to avoid the appearance of a double hairline (grafted hairline followed by losses and the receding natural hairline)
Conclusion
The crucial first step before considering various treatments is establishing the underlying cause. In most cases, as discussed previously, hormonal changes associated with pregnancy are a likely suspect. Given enough time, most of the hormonal effects caused by child birth are transient and will balance themselves out in six to eight months. If no response is noted, a medical workup is recommended. Once these issues have been properly addressed, the mother should consider the above listed modalities and decide where to get on board with the help of a hair restoration specialist.

Dr. Amir Yazdan, MD, is an internationally renowned hair transplant surgeon, expert guest on Dr. Phil and The Doctors, creator of the GroMD hair restoration product line, ISHRS member, accredited member of the IAHRS and a visceral advocate for patient care. Learn more about Dr. Yazdan or read rave reviews from his patients.

Blog

Hair Cycle and Hair Loss

Leave a comment

hair phases
At Modena Hair Institute we care scrupulously about the details and processes behind hair cycle and loss. Knowledge of hair cycles (or phases) are foundational to understanding the nature of hair loss, as hair thinning and problems with hair growth occur when your growth cycle is disrupted. This can be triggered by conditions such as metabolic disturbances, illness or improper nutrition.

The hair cycle is the all-important mechanism regulating hair growth in the body. Normally, each individual hair strand follows its own hair cycling schedule, completely independent of other hairs on the scalp.

In the following article we will dive into the nature and consequences of hair growth cycles.

The average adult human scalp begins with approximately 100,000 individual hair follicles, and each one of these follicles is constantly undergoing a regular cycle of growth, shedding, and re-growth. This means that the average, healthy person naturally sheds between 50 and 100 hairs from the head every day.

However, this loss goes largely unnoticed since, unlike other mammals, human hair growth and shedding is random, not seasonal, so the follicles are almost never in the same phase simultaneously. More likely, at any given time a random number of hairs will be in one of three distinct stages of hair growth and shedding: the anagen, the catagen, and the telogen phases.

Anagen Phase: Aggressive Growth
During this phase, the cells in the root of the hair are dividing rapidly, and the hair is growing about half an inch per month, or six inches per year. This new hair pushes through the dermis to the surface of the scalp, dislodging older hair along the way. Scalp hair can remain in an active growth phase for anywhere from two to six years, depending on an individual’s genetics, which is why some people find it easier to grow their hair longer than others. At any given time, about 75% of the hairs are in the anagen phase.

Catagen Phase: A Brief Transition
After the anagen phase comes the transitional catagen phase, a relatively short period, lasting about two to three weeks, when growth stops and the follicle effectively renews itself. During this phase the outer root sheath shrinks and attaches to the root of the hair, forming a stubby hair which is easily shed. This shrinking of the hair follicle is similar to what occurs during common genetic hair loss or androgenetic alopecia, but in the case of the catagen phase is only temporary.

Telogen Phase: Shedding
When the hair enters the telogen phase, it remains completely ‘at rest’ for roughly 100 days. During this time the follicle begins producing a new anagen hair shaft, which pushes out the fully formed club hair that is still resting on the surface. Pulling out a hair in this phase will reveal a solid, hard, dry, white material at the root. Only about ten percent of the hairs on the scalp are in the telogen phase at any one time, except in cases of telogen effluvium, a relatively uncommon form of hair loss that can be brought on by significant physiological stress.

Understanding the regular pattern of hair growth gives us important insights into the progression and underlying causes of hair loss, so it is something that the hair restoration experts at the Modena Hair Institute spend a great deal of time studying.

Dr. Amir Yazdan, MD, is an internationally renowned hair transplant surgeon, expert guest on Dr. Phil and The Doctors, creator of the GroMD hair restoration product line, ISHRS member, accredited member of the IAHRS and a visceral advocate for patient care. Learn more about Dr. Yazdan or read rave reviews from his patients.