Practical Observations

[35YrsAfter]

When it comes to hair everyone is different. I started losing my hair at 14. When I reached 16 my hair was finer and went from almost black to medium brown as the hair shaft diameter decreased. When you’re young, years seem to pass slower and a teenager or man in his 20’s often predicts that his life will undergo a transformation of priorities when he reaches 40, hoping he won’t care so much about his appearance. That’s not true at all in my experience. Most self-respecting men and women want to look their best regardless of their age. Having gone through hair loss at an early age, I can relate to the anxiety MPB causes. It’s like having your life fast forwarded. These days men can get away with a shaved head. When I was in my late teens through 20’s wearing a shaved head was considered odd. I remember seeing a guy in public with a shaved head back then and wondered if he was undergoing shock therapy for a mental disorder or something. Contrast that today with a friend of mine who is a Norwood 6, shaves his head and doesn’t care at all about being bald. He has more women interested in him than any man I have ever known. It’s because he has a positive personality, he’s self confident and knows how to talk to and treat women. I met a woman a couple years ago who told me she prefers bald men with a shaved head. She told me, she finds them incredibly sexy. Google that and you may be surprised. Self image plays a major role in how hair loss effects different men. It’s true in my opinion that men usually look better with hair. IMO, if you expect to go to a Norwood 6, I would recommend focusing on the frontal area if you decide to go the surgical hair restoration route. Resist the temptation of a low hairline. The best doctors out there know how to create a natural result. Natural to the point that nobody would ever know, no matter what light you’re in or how you comb your hair. The best doctors are proud of their hairlines and their after images will be sharp and properly lit.

Men with hair loss have fallen prey to scam artists for many years. This is an interesting article on the history of baldness remedies:

http://www.history.com/news/history-...baldness-cures

Look at number 5, Seven Sutherland Sisters’ Hair Grower, inspired and marketed by a family of sideshow performers with cascading tresses. Looks like a really slick marketing schtick. Put people with extraordinarily long and thick hair in front of potential customers and claim their thick luxurious hair is the result of using the product you’re promoting.

The following is an example of a contemporary (2012) marketing strategy I recently encountered related to a new hair growth technology. Exercise caution when looking at before and after rectangles of hair. I recently found one such example and put it to the following test:
I downloaded both the before and after rectangular images. I placed the “after” image on the bottom layer in Adobe PhotoShop, above that layer, I placed the “before” image and above the “before” image I created a new transparent layer. Through the top transparent layer, the “before” image is visible. I marked the top transparent layer with a 4px purple dot everywhere hair emerged from the scalp in the “before” image. Since the purple dots are on a transparent layer above the before and after layers, the dots aren’t married to either of the hair image layers. Once I had all of the dots placed indicating where the hair emerged from the scalp on the before image, I turned off the “before” image layer to reveal the “after” image. IF the before and after images were from the same rectangle of scalp, one would expect a good number of purple dots to align with the points where the hair emerges from the “after” image as well. They did not. Upon closer examination, I noticed that the hair direction was subtly off as well. The after region certainly showed stronger hair growth, but it wasn’t because a product improved the growth. It was because the “before” and “after” rectangles of hair represented different areas of scalp. It was obvious in this case that the improved growth area was from an entirely different area of scalp where the hair was denser and of thicker caliber.

- I work at Dr. Cole’s Office