Hair Restoration Medicine: Non-surgical Solutions

Description

While True & Dorin is known for their hair restoration surgery, they also offer highly effective hair restoration medicine. Men can benefit from prescription oral medications, or an over-the-counter topical treatment. Women can rely on easy-to-use solutions and low-level light therapies.

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We are hair restoration surgeons, so a bulk of what we do is surgical therapy, but we also treat hair loss for both men and women with medical therapy. Fortunately, we have several good agents that can help a majority of patients. For men we have a prescription medication, Finasteride or Propecia, which is a tablet that's taken once daily. For over 90% of men with male pattern baldness the medication will control the progression of hair loss, and for some patients actually produce some recovery of balding. Also for men there's an over-the-counter topical, Minoxidil, that comes in various brands. The most commonly known one is Rogaine. It comes as a foam and is simply applied to the scalp twice daily. It also helps to prevent progression of male pattern baldness. Both of these treatments can be used independently or together, and they're generally very safe and well-tolerated. For women, Finasteride or Propecia has not worked, but once again, Minoxidil solutions do work. Something else that can be particularly of benefit for women and for some men is low-level laser light therapy. These are devices that have been developed for in-office use or also for home use in which low-level laser light is applied to the scalp generally for 30 minutes three times a week. The effect of that is that it makes the existing hairs become thicker and grow stronger. More recently, we have some biotech treatments that we can use for both men and women to help promote reactivation of dormant hair follicles. This involves injection into the scalp of platelet-rich plasma combined with ACell, which is a biotech engineered acellular matrix. This combination of substances contains a very high number of natural wound healing factors, stem cell supportive factors, and when these are injected into the scalp they can induce recovery of hair loss which then can be maintained through the use of other medical treatments. We use all of these independently as medical treatment, but we also use them in association with surgical therapy. We almost always recommend medical therapy before initiating surgical therapy, especially for young patients, men who present with onset of male pattern baldness in their early 20s. The main reason for that is that we want to try and stabilize what will be a rapidly progressive situation before we initiate surgical therapy. There are other people that have more diffuse hair loss which is not really localized. They're much better treated with medical therapy than with surgical therapy. With women, because their hair loss often tends to be more diffuse, we almost always turn to medical therapy before we even think about surgical therapy. Medical therapies are very safe. A small percentage of men who use Propecia will have side effects. We can't really predict who will have those up front. The only way we know is to try. Fortunately, the side effects, in my experience, are fully reversible if they occur, without any lasting consequences. Women are not candidates for Propecia or Finasteride. It doesn't work for them. The mechanisms of hair loss in women, even though they are genetic, seem to be a little bit different than they are for men. We recommend for women a combination of using low-level laser light therapy, topical Minoxidil or Rogaine, and for some women we also do injections of PRP and ACell. If you would like more information, please call the office and schedule a complimentary consultation.

Dr. Dorin

The Hair Loss Doctors
By Robert J. Dorin

At The Hair Loss Doctors with our Surgical Headquarters in Garden City, NY and clinics in Manhattan, NY; Boston, MA; and Short Hills, NJ, Dr. Robert J. Dorin helps men and women reverse the effects of hair loss through various surgical and non-surgical treatments including Follicular Unit Transplantation and Follicular Unit Extraction. Our Founder & Medical Director is affiliated with:

  • The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery
  • The American Board of Restoration Surgery
  • The International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons
  • The American Osteopathic Association

For more information, or to schedule a consultation, please contact us online or call (212) 826-2525.

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