Hair Loss and Genetics: How Your Genes Affect Balding

One reason that the team at the Regeneris Medical achieves such great results is our close attention to the nature of a patient’s hair loss. When patients in the greater Boston area visit our practice, we will carefully assess the cause or causes of hair loss in order to determine the proper surgical or non-surgical treatment.

Your genetic makeup plays a major role in your hair loss and the thickness of your hair. Let’s explore this issue in a bit more detail right now.

Male Pattern Baldness and Genetics

Male pattern baldness is the kind of hair loss that many men will experience at one point of their lives. This hair loss usually begins at the top/crown area of the head, with recession of the hair also occurring in the front of the hairline.

Male pattern baldness tends to begin around a man’s thirties, though it can happen sooner than that time. By the time a man reaches middle age, he will have typically suffered from some degree of male pattern baldness depending on his genes.

Balding and Your Mother: Dispelling a Common Myth

A common myth is that male pattern baldness is passed down through your mother’s side of the family. A related myth is that if your maternal grandfather was bald, you are likely to be bald as well, and that the baldness will skip a generation.

This is not necessarily the case, however.

The fact is that the genetics of balding are far more complicated. In some cases, a man with a bald maternal grandfather will have a full head of hair and vice versa. Your father’s genes will also have an effect on your likelihood for future hair loss. As a general rule, if balding runs in your family, you are more likely to suffer from male pattern baldness.

Female Hair Thinning and Genetics

While most people think about genetics with regard to male pattern baldness, genes will also have an effect on the nature of female hair thinning as well.

Female hair loss is much different from male hair loss. While men will lose hair in concentrated parts of their scalp, women may notice that their hair becomes thinner in general over time, sometimes leaving portions of the scalp more exposed. This is part of the aging process, and a variety of genetic and environmental factors can result in more pronounced hair thinning.

Thinning Hair and Your Female Relatives: Trends in a Family

Many times the nature and degree of your hair thinning can be determined by noting the hair thinning trends of your female relatives. If your mother, grandmother, aunt(s), and/or older sister(s) experienced or currently experience varying degrees of thinning hair, you can expect to also experience a certain degree of age-related hair thinning during your life.

Treatment Options for Genetic Hair Loss

For male pattern baldness, hair restoration surgery and the use of hair regrowth drugs such as Rogaine and Propecia are ideal options to consider. The right treatment for you can be determined during a consultation.

For female hair thinning, the best options tend to involve non-surgical treatments since the hair thinning differs fundamentally from male pattern balding. Changes to your hair care, diet, and general lifestyle tend to yield strong results for thickening your hair and improving its general appearance.

Schedule a Consultation at Our Practice

To learn more about the genetic factors that lead to balding and what you can do to restore hair growth, be sure to contact our hair loss and transplant surgery clinic today. The entire team here at Regeneris Medical looks forward to your visit and helping you look and feel your very best.

Eyebrow and Eyelash Surgery in Massachusetts – Look Better than Ever

  Full, thick eyebrows and eyelashes can be a stunning feature on women, giving their beauty a bold presence. And now more than ever, celebrities are opting for thick eyebrows to complement their famous good looks. Unfortunately, many women do not have the type of eyebrows they truly desire.

If you fall into that category, you are far from alone. Whether through genetics or through permanently damaging hair follicles via eyebrow plucking (a practice many women have used to seek thin eyebrows in the past), some women simply cannot achieve eyebrow fullness and density on their own.

How Can I Make My Eyebrows Thicker?

If you are unhappy with your current eyebrows, you fortunately have natural options to achieve your desired look. Eyebrow enhancement is a relatively new but highly effective procedure that has helped many women gain thicker, more dramatic brows.

So how does the procedure work?

By carefully removing hairs from a donor site, usually from the nape of a woman’s neck, our doctors can process hair follicles that naturally fit your eyebrow area. The transplantation process is then done meticulously to ensure that every inch of the area meets the woman’s desired look.

Choosing an Eyebrow Restoration Doctor

Choosing an eyebrow restoration doctor is a daunting, but incredibly important task. While some doctors are capable of performing the procedure, they do not have the artistic detail necessary to craft a bold, beautiful look. At New England Center for Hair Restoration, it’s as much about Art as it is about Medicine.

Call us today at 855-5-NEHair to schedule a free consultation. We will walk you through the eyebrow surgery process and map out a plan to have your eyebrows looking bolder and more beautiful than ever.

Hair Restoration – Choosing the Right Doctor and Asking the Right Questions

You’ve decided you want to pursue hair restoration, but you’re cautious in choosing your hair restoration doctor, and rightfully so. Everyone has heard horror stories about hair transplants gone wrong, and you don’t want to be a victim of shoddy hair restoration work. So how can you know the hair restoration group you meet with are trustworthy? There are several questions every patient should know to ask — and every group should be ready to answer.

How many surgeries does the doctor perform per week?

One factor many potential hair restoration patients do not consider when looking for a proper doctor is the amount of care he or she will receive, based on the business of their doctor’s schedule. If a hair restoration facility is running like a factory, trying to squeeze in as many patients as possible to maximize profits, you may not get the attention to detail you are looking for.

Can I see the before-and-after photos from past patients?

A big part of any hair restoration doctor’s resume is the concrete proof that the procedures they are performing are working. There is perhaps no better proof of success than the doctor’s patients’ before-and-after photos. Chances are, if a doctor has succeeded with past patients, he can succeed with you as well.

Choosing the Right Hair Restoration Center

If you are looking for a qualified hair restoration doctor, we encourage you to schedule a free consultation with New England Center for Hair Restoration. We will answer any questions you may have, show your our before-and-after photos, and map out a plan to restore you hair to the results you are looking for. Call us today at 855-5-NEHair.

Why are so many athletes bald? And what can they do about it?

  Not every athlete has the robust California locks of Tom Brady. In fact, many athletes have no hair at all — perhaps more so than everyday men.  So what is it exactly that makes athletes lose their hair, aside from the stress of bad referee calls? The answer comes down to hormones and a particular hormone athletes have more of than 9-5 workers.

It’s no secret that athletes live a testosterone-fueled life. The physical activity and competition that go into being a professional athlete require the body to be producing testosterone around the clock.  But as much as testosterone can benefit athletes on the field or court, it can hurt their appearance by destroying their hair follicles.

Testosterone is produced by the testes and the adrenal glands and it is converted into dihydrotestosterone popularly known as DHT by an enzyme called 5 alpha reductase in the peripheral tissues. DHT is the hair-killing hormone for men who inherit the male pattern baldness gene, as their follicles are extremely sensitive to the hormone. So ample testosterone can also mean ample hair loss for athletes with the male-pattern baldness gene.

Obviously, most men do not want to lower their own testosterone, just to save hair follicles. Lower testosterone means lower energy, and saving hair is hardly an even trade off for that. So is there a way to have both high testosterone and a full head of hair? The answer is yes.

In 2015, hair restoration technology is far beyond where it was 20, 15, and even 5 years ago. The number of hair restoration options for men with high testosterone is higher than ever, with everything from surgical to non-surgical options available for patients.

If you want to find out more about these options, schedule a free consultation with New England Center for Hair Restoration. We will go over every option with you in depth, including prescriptions available,  micro follicular unit extraction, platelet rich plasma (PRP) and stem cells. Call us now at 855-5-NEHAIR to immediately start your hair restoration journey.

The FUE Procedure Effectively Addresses Hair Loss

Hair loss can affect a person’s self-esteem and make patients look aged beyond their years. Fortunately, surgical hair loss treatment can restore a thicker, fuller head of hair to help patients create a more youthful appearance and give them a renewed since of confidence. At the New England Center for Hair Restoration, we strive to give our patients surgical hair loss treatment options that are technologically advanced, minimally invasive, and highly effective. We are one of the leading pioneers in the FUE hair transplant procedure, a technique that offers patients all of the aforementioned advantages. We are happy to educate our Boston patients on the FUE procedure and help them to determine if it is right for helping them achieve their hair growth goals.

The FUE Procedure

Traditionally, when it comes to surgical hair loss treatment, many surgeons consider the FUT technique, which involves cutting a strip of tissue from the patient’s donor site (typically the back of the skull) and then transplanting that strip to the treatment site. The FUE procedure, which stands for follicular unit extraction, instead allows our surgeons to extract and implant individual hair follicles, offering patients a more precise and less-invasive form of hair transplant surgery. Prior to FUE treatment, the patient’s hair at the donor site must be cut down very short (or shaved). This preparation will allow our surgeons an unobstructed view of each donor follicle. During the FUE procedure, a tiny instrument (which is roughly one millimeter in diameter) is used to extract individual follicular unit grafts from the patient’s donor site. While the back of the scalp remains the most common donor site, the FUE technique also allows surgeons to extract hair follicles from the chest or beard area. These grafts are extracted one at a time through the use of a very small, circular incision. This technique allows us to extract viable follicular grafts with minimal damage, which results in better results when these units are then placed into groups and then transplanted (via an implanter) to the recipient site.

FUE Recovery

Recovery from the FUE procedure is often fast and uncomplicated. Because of the small diameter of the incisions that are used during the FUE procedure, patients do not require stitches. These incision sites will heal on their own within a few days and are likely to leave behind only barely visible marks on the scalp or donor site. Within three months of the FUE procedure, patients will begin to notice new hair growth at the recipient site, with significant volume and growth often becoming apparent around six months after the FUE procedure.

Candidates for FUE

Because it is minimally invasive and allows for such precise hair transplant, the FUE technique is ideal for most of our patients. In addition to those who are generally good candidates, FUE is especially beneficial to those who have a limited supply of donor hair, those with poor skin elasticity, or those who keep their hair short and are worried about the scars that would be left behind following an FUT procedure.

Schedule an Appointment

If you are noticing that your hairline is receding or have sparse patches on the scalp due to hair loss, schedule an appointment with one of the experienced hair loss surgeons at the New England Center for Hair Restoration. We offer innovative hair loss treatment that takes advantage of the latest technological advances to offer our patients effective hair loss solutions. We look forward to working with you toward restoring a thick and full head of hair.