Battle Against Bald | A Battle Against Hair Loss Through Hair Restoration

Women's Hair Loss Project

The Women's Hair Loss Project is a blog that acts as a forum for women suffering from hair loss.  The blog's creator has been dealing with her own androgenetic alopecia for over eight years and she hasn't even celebrated her 30th birthday yet.  She admits that her condition has consumed her life; she thinks about it all day long and spent years crying about it.  But while it still depresses her, she wanted to make a change for the better. She knew that if she were able to read about other women's struggles with hair loss she wouldn't feel so isolated, so the blog was born.  She shares her own stories and other women's stories, and welcomes comments . 

The women who share their stories on the Women's Hair Loss Project blog are not sharing their pain, they are sharing their strength and hope by talking about their experiences with one another.  Just by reading some of the comments on the site, I noticed that this is exactly the thing that women suffering hair loss needed; so many just want to be able to talk to others in the same situation.

From all of us at Battle Against Bald, we invite each of you—men and women—to feel free to write us and share your hair loss stories to be shared with the rest of our online community.  We should take note of how important the Women's Hair Loss Project is to some and use it as an example of how important it is for us to be open about our hair loss and how it makes us feel.  It can make a world of difference.

Hair restoration results on the news

Actually, the title of this entry should be called "hair restoration results IN the news." Why? Because a Palm Beach, Florida ABC news anchor, Jim Abath, features his own hair restoration results on his news program. Supported by his female co-anchors, Abath details the results of his, as well as two other mens', hair restoration procedures. After a year of hair restoration efforts, including two surgical hair restorations and a daily dose of Propecia, Abath and his co-hair restoration subjects prove that re-storing lost hair is possible. Additionally, the men show further proof that hair restoration does work. Enjoy!

Hair loss expert

At Battle Against Bald we love spreading the word about other hair loss and hair restoration resources we come across. Just this week we were introduced  to Hair Loss Expert, a UK web site helping people understand hair loss, alopecia and baldness. Battle Against Bald, in our opinion of course, is still the most comprehensive resource on the web for consumer grade hair loss and hair restoration information, not to mention seeing hair restoration results in real-time. But in respect to the straight facts about hair loss and its many causes, Hair Loss Expert might just be our new favorite.

Hair Loss Expert is an all-encompassing reference point for understanding hair loss. Information comes in the form of features and articles written by professional journalists and experts who have a particular interest, or a background in, a specific area. Here are a few of our favorite Hair Loss Expert features:

• Diet and hair loss—For most, hair loss is inevitable, but diet can, in many cases, play an important roll in preventing or slowing down hair loss.

• Temporary hair loss—Contrary to popular belief, not all hair loss is permanent. Some people experience temporary hair loss, which has many causes. Stress is probably the most common cause of temporary hair loss, but there are a few additional types.

• Coping with hair loss—For women, losing their hair can be quite a traumatic experience. Hair Loss Expert puts things into perspective for women suffering from hair loss and helps them battle their baldness.

Naturopathic remedies: hair loss cure or hearsay?

Popularity is gaining as the effectiveness of naturopathic remedies for hair loss is spreading through word of mouth testimonials, says an article from MyHairLossAdvisor.com.  More people are turning to herbs to work with the body's natural mechanisms, rather than trying to correct their hair loss with medications and surgical hair restoration procedures.  The article, "Herbal hair loss remedies," reports that there are edible and topical herbs that may be both effective and less expensive alternatives to some of the topical solvents and procedures that are more popular today.  Ingestible herbs include ginkgo biloba, green tea, he shou wu, pygeum, saw palmetto and stinging nettle.  Topical remedies include aloe vera, onion, red pepper and safflower oil.  None of these have been proven to have any positive or negative effect on hair loss.

While the supposed purpose for most of the herbs listed on the site are specific to curing hair loss, it seems as if naturopathic treatments for hair loss are directed more at improving your general health, rather than specifically targeting the causes of the disease.  If that's the case, there is no harm in trying. However, until doctors investigate the usefulness of these herbs, we see no reason to invest too much time or money on nothing more than hearsay.

Hair loss may be spared in cancer treatment

In the next few years, claims an article from MSNBC, cancer patients may be able to skip chemotherapy in order to avoid its consequences, which include nausea, weakened immune system, and, of course, hair loss.

The claim comes from an increase in research that is allowing doctors to diagnose cancer on a more individualized basis, discovering the effectiveness of chemotherapy and determining its relevance on a case by case basis.  Though more research is still needed to define the subsets of cancer cases, it has already been determined that patients with breast cancer may be eligible to avoid the treatment.

Rather than simply determining the area where cancer may exist in a body, doctors are discovering and categorizing subsets within each form of cancer so that they can target specific cells during treatment rather then blanketing the entire body with treatments such as chemotherapy.  This will eventually lead to less painful treatment with little to no consequential damage to non-affected parts of the body.  We will soon, hopefully, be able to attribute hair loss, among other things, to cancer treatments of the past.

Battling baldness on FoxNews.com

Once again, hair loss and hair restoration has made the news. First was NBC's "Follicle Five" feature, then it was BattleAgainstBald on "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch." Now, Fox News.com has jumped onto the hair loss and hair restoration band wagon with this morning's story, "Battling baldness goes high-tech."

In the article, author Angela Macropoulos details the growing popularity in hair loss treatments among men.   She enlightens us on two rising stars in the hair restoration realm:  the HairMax at-home laser comb and hair cloning.  The HairMax is a new product that uses low-level laser treatment to dilate blood vessels in the scalp in order to allow more circulation which, in turn, promotes new hair growth.  The technology is said to not be perfected yet, as Macropoulos reports that doctor are saying patients "should not expect outstanding results."  Not yet, at least.

Hair cloning, which is only in a trial phase, will supplement hair transplant procedures by alleviating the need to find an abundance of healthy donor hairs.  If the trials are successful, this technology will provide an unlimited amount of donor hairs available for hair restoration.  Similar to the HairMax, research for hair cloning is nowhere near complete.  It will be several years before the technology is fully realized.

While both of these new technologies are not ready to become widely used, they each seem to have promise.  It's great to see that alternative procedures are being tested, from high-tech lasers to bio-tech procedures.   Which would you prefer?

The Bald Report: Weekly Hair loss and Hair Restoration News

Once again, it was another busy week in the world of hair loss and hair restoration on the Web. Last week's hair loss and hair restoration news was all about testing mice for the sake of a hair loss cure. Now this week's news isn't as exciting as a potential cure for baldness, but it's insightful and entertaining to say the least. Without further adieu, here is the news:

• Apparently  smoking doesn't just cause cancer, it causes hair loss too —The myriad of chemicals in cigarettes (over 4,000 to be exact) prevent the right amount of oxygen from getting carried to cells in the users body, including your hair follicles.
• Bald men go to great lengths to get girls —At least that's what our friends at Propecia tell us in their newest ad. Apparently, the only thing bald men need in order to get girls is, well, hair.
• Cure for hair loss remains in sight, or, does it remain in mice? —The BBC reports on the biggest story in the world of hair loss and hair restoration, the hair loss cure that brings hope to baldness.

Hair loss and laser therapy in the news

"Today" on NBC recently did a featured segment on hair loss and the methods used to correct it. This particular episode is a lot like the hair loss feature Battle the Against Bald that Donny Deutsch did a few months ago on his show, "The Big Idea." The only difference is that it's a bit shorter and not as descriptive, but reiterates the fact that there are cures for baldness, and hair restoration surgery reigns supreme among all other options. Enjoy!

The Bald Report: Weekly Hair Loss and Hair Restoration News

This week on the Web was a busy one in respect to the amount of hair loss and hair restoration news circulating. Each morning I make it a habit to scour news sites and my RSS reader in search of relevant content for Battle Against Bald. I'll usually find at least one or two articles of new hair loss resources worth blogging about each week, but this week has been difficult because of all the choices I've had. For this reason I decided it would be a good idea to summarize and consolidate my finding. That said, here's this week's hair loss and hair restoration scoop:

• Is  mom to blame for male pattern baldness? - I blogged about this very topic earlier this week, but here is another authors perspective of who in the gene pool is to blame for hair loss.

• Balding isn't just for men, women suffer from hair loss as well - Female pattern hair loss is on the rise, fortunately there's almost as many hair loss treatments for women as there are for men.

• Wounded mice may lead to the discovery of cure for baldness - This is great news for bald men and women, but terrifying news for injured mice preferring the bald look.
  

• Mice continue to sacrifice for the sake of discovering cures for hair loss - At least they were already injured and are receiving free hair restoration. Most humans have to pay upwards of $10,000 for the treatment.

• Thinning hair got you down? Find out about the causes and cures of hair loss - This is probably nothing new to regular Battle Against Bald readers, but a good review nonetheless.

Hair loss treatments: Propecia - how it works?

As men around the world become more motivated to restore their natural hairline and correct male pattern baldness, interest in hair loss treatments continues to grow. For this reason we've decided to further detail all the different hair loss treatments available.  If you're a regular BattleAgainstBald reader you probably know a lot about surgical  hair restoration, but sometimes we feel like we neglect some of the other treatments. After all, complementing your hair transplantation with another baldness treatment can—most times—add to the success of your hair restoration efforts. To kick off BattleAgainstBald's hair loss treatment series I'd like to start with the popular hair loss drug Finasteride, otherwise marketed as Proscar or Propecia.

We get a lot of questions asking if Propecia works. Put simply the answer is yes, Propecia/Finasteride does work. However, how well it works differs from patient to patient. Additionally, Finasteride is proven to stop, as well as prevent, hair loss from happening and does not claim to regrow previously lost hair. That said, a new study shows that 20 per cent of men taking Finasteride experience moderate amounts of new hair growth after a year of using the drug.

Manufactured by Merck with the intention of correcting enlarged prostates in men, Finasteride/Propecia was approved by the FDA in 1997 as a safe and effective treatment for hair loss. As the only FDA approved pill proven to stop hair from falling out, Finasteride is a popular choice for men in the early stages of hair loss, before the bald spots become more transparent—like in the case of myself and Torrance.

Here are few interesting Propecia facts:

• Like surgical hair restoration, it takes a minimum of three months for Propecia to show results. In some cases it takes upwards of one year before significant results appear.
• On the downside, Propecia has a number of potential side effects including:
  • Women, especially pregnant women, are not supposed to touch it as handling the pill while pregnant can result in infant birth defects
  • In some cases men taking Propecia experience erectile dysfunction. Don't fret—there are drugs available for that as well!
  • Most recently, Finasteride has been found to interfere with prostate cancer tests

Stay tuned for next week's part 2 of BattleAgainstBald's hair loss treatments saga: Minoxidil, otherwise marketed as Rogaine.