A 35-year-old female was diagnosed with thyroid disease 3 years ago post partum. Her disease is now regulated but her hair has not recovered, even though it has been over a year. She wants to know if she is a candidate for a hair transplant.
Dr. Amiya Prasad, a specialist in hair restoration, says that the photos this woman submitted are what many women notice if they have hair loss - the widening of the part. Unfortunately, there are limited options when it comes to female hair loss and these options have to be properly evaluated before a person makes a fully informed decision. He advises not do the transplant at this time. In male pattern hair loss, there is the recession of the temples, expanding crown, a bald spot area and eventually the areas meeting in the middle and progressing. With women, that hair loss pattern tends to be more diffuse. Hormonal issues also play a big role in hair loss for women. Lastly, genetics can also be major factor for female pattern hair loss.
In Dr. Prasad's practice, one of the things that he found particularly frustrating in transplanting in women is there's very small space between the hairs. In contrast to male pattern hair loss, an area can be smooth and bald and when he places the grafts, he's going through skin that doesn't have existing hair. Even if he places grafts between existing hairs, there is often very large gaps so he's not shocking the existing hair. He routinely uses a microscope in his examinations with hair. When he looks at women's hair that is thinning, the space between the hairs is often very limited. So even if he places a hair in between, she may lose one or two existing hairs from stress, also known as shock loss (telogen effluvium). Sometimes, even if the stress is over, they may not get back all the hair that you lost.
Dr. Prasad has been developing a method of treatment for female pattern hair loss called Hair Regeneration. This is a treatment using platelet-rich plasma combined with a wound healing material called extracellular matrix (ECM) by ACell. When ECM was used for hair transplant procedures to heal donor scars, it was noted that thin hairs became thicker. This is based on a wound healing mechanism that restores native stem cell activity that restores hair growth so it becomes thicker. In addition, it turns out that the thinned hairs that regenerate into thickened hair also comes back darker.
Dr. Prasad treats male and female pattern hair loss, as well as conditions such as alopecia areata with Hair Regeneration treatment. He does the Hair Regeneration treatment to 99% of his female patients rather than a hair transplantation, with the exception being a loss in the frontal hairline. If there is a loss of frontal hairline, then a hair transplantation makes a lot of sense. But if there is diffuse thinning, he would first do an evaluation, examination, review of hormonal status and a proper medical work-up to eliminate all other factors. In some cases, he would even do a biopsy in order to ensure that there is no scarring issue going on concurrently. A lot of patients that come to him have already done that groundwork by going to doctors locally or to major universities to make sure there are no underlying issues causing their hair loss.
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