Hair Facts Archives - Miami Hair Institute

Category: Hair Facts

December 13, 2021

Can You See Your Hair Loss Future When You See Your Family?

During the holidays, we tend to get together with extended family members who we may not have seen for long stretches of time. You can learn a lot about your family history during these gatherings from all of those uncles and aunts, grandparents, and cousins. And when it comes to whether you may experience hair loss, you may also be able to see into your future when you see your family.

While your genes aren’t the only things that will play a role in determining whether you will lose your hair, if your family history includes baldness, the odds are pretty good that at least some hair loss may await you. Also called androgenetic alopecia, pattern baldness is a hereditary hair loss condition responsible for 95 percent of all hair loss cases.

But when you look around that family gathering and see a balding parent, grandparent, aunt, or uncle, does that necessarily mean you need to be resigned to the same fate?

The reality is that in terms of your genetic predisposition to pattern baldness, not all relatives are created equal. For men, their maternal grandfather and their dad will be the ones who can give them an idea of what to expect from their hair as the years go by.

Many of the genes responsible for baldness and hair loss tend to come from your maternal grandfather, even though genes from both of your parents and all of your grandparents can also play a role. If your maternal grandfather is bald or is losing their hair, you are a likely candidate for hair loss problems yourself.

A maternal grandfather’s genes play an oversized role in predicting hair loss because men only have one set of X chromosome genes instead of two sets of autosomal genes. For the latter, men can have one set that causes hair loss and one that doesn’t, giving them a moderate chance of going bald. However, since males only have that single set of X chromosome genes, shared with their maternal grandfather, a baldness-related gene will be the only game in town. This means a much higher risk of developing androgenetic alopecia.

Call the Miami Hair Institute Today For a Hair Loss Evaluation

While looking at your family’s genetic heritage will provide some clues as to what to expect on your scalp in the years ahead, genes are not definitive, and hair loss is not a foregone conclusion. But if you do start experiencing hair loss, advancements in medicine, technology, and techniques have made hair restoration more available, more effective, and more convenient than ever before.

At the Miami Hair Institute, we offer the most innovative approaches to hair restoration available. Schedule an appointment with the Miami Hair Institute today by calling 305.925.0222.

November 29, 2021

Debunking The Most Common Hair Loss Myths

We are living in a world of misinformation and information. From politics to the pandemic, it can often be hard to separate fact from fiction. Somewhere on the internet, someone is no doubt claiming that 2 + 2 = 5. Bad information predates the internet, of course, and the subject of hair loss has been the subject of myths and misconceptions for centuries.

If you are currently experiencing excessive hair loss, you may spend a lot of time trying to figure out why. There are several very real reasons you might be losing your hair, from androgenetic alopecia to stress to poor diet, among others. But there are some “causes” of hair loss that you can disregard because they are simply not true. Here are three of the most common hair loss myths and why they are bunk:

Myth #1: It’s Your Mother’s Fault

One of the most enduring myths about hair loss is that you inherit the condition from your mom’s side of the family. People grow up believing that if their mother’s male relatives are bald or have thinning hair, then hair loss is their inevitable fate as well. This is simply not the case.

The vitality and strength of your hair are indeed related to your genetics. But the genes which play a role in hair loss come from many places, including your dad’s side of the family. This “polygenic” reason for hair loss means that you should shake all the branches of your family tree if you are trying to see into the future of your hair.

Myth #2: Thinning Hair Means You Have Lots of Testosterone

While men experiencing hair loss may want to take solace in the idea that it means they have robust testosterone levels, there is simply no link between baldness and high testosterone. That said, it’s easy to see why this myth remains out there.

Dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, is a testosterone derivative that is, in fact, scientifically linked to hair loss. But it’s not the amount of testosterone that is the issue, but rather the level of DHT fastening to hair follicle receptors in the scalp. Typically, due to genetics or other hormonal changes, hair follicles develop a sensitivity to DHT and start to miniaturize. This process shortens the hair growth cycle and eventually causes new hairs to stop growing.

Myth #3: Hats Will Make You Bald

If wearing hats a lot caused hair loss, every baseball player would be bald. This myth is absolutely false. Wearing hats frequently will not impact the strength of your hair or accelerate the rate at which you lose hair. But if you wear extremely tight often enough, it can cause stress on your follicles and lead to a hair loss condition called traction alopecia. So it’s not the hat that is causing the problem; it’s how you wear it.

Schedule an Appointment for a Hair Loss Evaluation Today

At the Miami Hair Institute, we know the truth about hair loss, and we know how to help men and women restore their hair and confidence. We will determine the actual cause of your hair loss and develop a treatment plan best suited to addressing it

To schedule your personalized hair loss evaluation, contact us online or call our office directly at 305-925-0222.

October 4, 2021

What Is a Hair Graft and How Is It Created?

In hair restoration surgery, we transplant living, healthy follicles from your donor area – usually the back and sides of your scalp – into thinning areas. These follicles comprise the “grafts” that are at the core of hair transplant surgery.

Strip Graft Harvesting v. One-At-A-Time

We form hair grafts by removing tissue from the donor area because that tissue can support hair growth. We then take that viable tissue and the follicles that they contain and carefully transplant them to areas of the scalp that no longer support hair growth on their own.

There are two main techniques for creating, harvesting, and transplanting hair grafts. When using the Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT), the surgeon will remove strips of tissue containing many follicles and transplant that strip all at once. In Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE), however, the grafts are harvested one by one. The surgeons at the Miami Hair Institute were pioneers of the FUE technique, which has now become a worldwide approach to hair restoration.

How We Create, Preserve, and Transplant Grafts Using FUE

During an FUE procedure, we use high-resolution digital imaging to identify, select, and remove grafts with extraordinary care and precision. The objective is to harvest grafts with the best chance of growing in the transplant area and leave most of the donor area hair in place and undisturbed so that it retains its natural look.

Given that goal, we try to remove as few grafts as possible to achieve the desired result. Equally important, we want as many grafts as possible to survive the extraction and transplant process. If removed grafts are not preserved in the most effective manner possible, they could lose their viability, leaving even fewer grafts available for transplantation.

Keeping hair follicle cells from dying during that period between removal and transplantation involves storing the hair in a preservative solution. We use a HypoThermosol + ATP solution in our hair transplant procedures because it provides the highest possible survival rate of the grafts and follicles we extract until they are ready to be transplanted. It is part of our ongoing commitment to using the most advanced techniques in hair restoration to help our patients achieve optimal results.

FUE transplants have a 90-95 percent hair graft survival rate compared to the older FUT method’s approximately 75 percent survival rate. The precision harvesting of FUE minimizes trauma or transection of the grafts during the harvesting process.

Schedule an Appointment for a Hair Loss Evaluation Today

If you are ready to take the first step towards addressing your hair loss issues, we invite you to schedule a personalized evaluation at the Miami Hair Institute. Our Drs. Nusbaum and Rose are internationally acclaimed hair restoration surgeons with more than 40 years of combined experience. To receive a personalized evaluation and treatment plan, contact us online or call our office directly at 305-925-0222.

November 9, 2020

Exparel: Post-Operative Pain Control For An Even Better Patient Experience

At the Miami Hair Institute, patient comfort throughout the entire hair transplant journey is a top priority. If you have been apprehensive about hair transplant surgery because of concerns about pain either during the procedure or in the hours and days that follow, anesthetic advancements have made the post-operative recovery period a largely pain-free experience.

Two Days Of Non-Opioid Pain Relief

Most of our patients experience minimal discomfort and only need pain medication during the first 24 hours after transplant surgery.

We have now added Exparel to many of our patients’ post-op pain management program. Exparel is a new long-lasting local anesthetic composed of liposomal bupivacaine, which acts in a timed-release manner to control donor area pain for up to 48 hours.

One of the advantages of Exparel is that it is not an opioid or narcotic. In addition to being potentially active or ripe for misuse, opioids can actually slow down your recovery by causing nausea, vomiting, and constipation or making you feel drowsy or confused. Unlike opioids, Exparel only addresses pain in the area where the surgery occurred rather than the whole body.

Because Exparel works over time, patients typically need fewer doses of other medications, including opioids. In fact, Exparel has been shown in clinical trials to help patients use fewer opioids as they start their recovery from surgery.

We have developed a technique that utilizes non-invasive ultrasound techniques to direct where the Exparel is administered. Most patients experience minimal post-operative pain for up to two days.

Call the Miami Hair Institute Today to Learn More About Hair Transplant Surgery

If concerns about pain have kept you from considering hair transplant surgery, we invite you to contact the Miami Hair Institute and arrange a personalized consultation with one of our world-renowned hair restoration physicians. We are confident that once you learn how pain-free the procedure is, you will want to move forward and resolve the hair loss issues that have bothered you for so long.

To receive a personalized evaluation and treatment plan, contact us online or call our office directly at 305-925-0222.

August 10, 2020

Male Pattern Baldness Linked to Increased COVID-19 Risks

Are men who suffer from male pattern baldness more at risk for severe COVID-19 symptoms and more likely to die from the virus? Unlikely as it may seem for there to be a connection between the two conditions, researchers recently noticed a higher incidence of coronavirus-related deaths in bald men than those who do not experience hair loss.

As reported in London’s The Telegraph, scientists suspect that the link between COVID-19 fatalities and hair loss is found in androgens, male sex hormones that are cousins of other similar hormones such as testosterone. Androgens trigger follicle miniaturization and make hair more likely to fall out. But androgens may also increase the ability of the virus to attack cells in the body, increasing the likelihood that symptoms will be severe.

“We really think that baldness is a perfect predictor of severity,” said Carlos Wambier, a Brown University professor who had conducted studies on the subject, as quoted in the Telegraph article.

Wambier conducted a small study in Spain that found that bald men accounted for 79% of all males with coronavirus admitted to three Madrid hospitals. Another study involving prostate cancer in Italy found that patients who received androgen-deprivation therapy were only a quarter as likely to contract COVID-19 as men receiving other cancer treatments.

Statistics since the dawn of the pandemic show that men generally are 2.5 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than women. Pattern baldness may be a big reason behind the disparity.

This has lead researchers to consider the enticing possibility that anti-baldness treatments that focus on lowering androgen levels could also be helpful in slowing down the virus in men who become infected, giving their bodies more time to fight and recover. Studies are already underway to explore the potential efficacy of these treatments, though they are in their earliest stages.

The Miami Hair Institute Remains Committed To Helping Our Patients Through These Difficult Times

These are challenging and unprecedented times for all of us. At the Miami Hair Institute, we know how difficult and stressful things can be as we cope with the uncertainties and disruptions caused by COVID-19. If you are experiencing hair loss, that can make matters even more stressful. During this time, we remain committed to helping our clients address their hair loss issues safely and effectively through our advanced hair restoration surgical techniques, technology, and alternative non-invasive treatments. To receive your personalized evaluation and treatment plan, contact us online or call our office directly at 305-925-0222.

July 6, 2020

Common Scalp Problems: How To Treat Them

Hair loss is, in its simplest sense, a scalp problem. Whether you suffer from genetics-related pattern baldness or you are losing your hair due to other factors, the health of your scalp plays a direct role in the health of your hair. But hair loss is just one of many ways that your scalp can cause you discomfort, embarrassment, or grief.

Tens of millions of Americans deal with a variety of scalp problems and spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to resolve these issues. Here are some of the most common scalp problems we see at the Miami Hair & Skin Insititute, along with ways you can effectively treat them, usually on your own.

Dandruff

Dandruff may be annoying or embarrassing, but it is not usually a cause for worry or a sign of something more serious. This condition is simply a visible sign that the skin cells on your scalp are producing new cells faster than is typical. This results in excessive shedding of dead skin cells, which then fall from the scalp as dandruff flakes.

While there is no “cure” for the condition, you can keep dandruff under control with over-the-counter medicated shampoos like Head & Shoulders or Selsun Blue. If OTC remedies fail to do the trick, you may need prescription anti-dandruff shampoo.

Seborrheic Dermatitis

A mild form of dandruff, seborrheic dermatitis can cause a reddening of the scalp and the production of a lot of oil. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, the condition is more common in individuals with oily skin or hair, acne, or psoriasis. As with dandruff, attempt OTC shampoos to alleviate the problem and see a doctor for a prescription shampoo if it persists.

Psoriasis

While psoriasis can develop anywhere on the skin, it most often shows up on the scalp when the body makes too many new skin cells. Those cells can build up and form thick, itchy, crusted scales.

Steroid creams or ointments are usually effective at treating scalp psoriasis, as are shampoos containing tar or salicylic acid. Severe cases may need prescription oral or injectable medication.

Folliculitis

Folliculitis, which appears as small pus-filled pimples on the scalp, is a condition involving inflammation or infection of hair follicles. It is usually caused by bacteria that make their way into the follicles from an infection nearby. You can also irritate the follicles when shaving or using makeup, or by certain fabrics in clothing.

While some mild cases clear up without treatment, an antibiotic can take care of the issue quickly.

Scalp Sunburn

Balding individuals or those with thinning hair are particularly vulnerable to sunburn on the scalp. Too much sun can turn your hair brittle, dry, and more prone to breaks and splits. Additionally, sunburn on the scalp can not only be the result of having areas of thinning or absent hair, but it can also cause hair loss, at least temporarily. Protect your scalp with scalp sunscreen or a hat, especially in the summer.

Schedule an Appointment for a Hair Loss Evaluation Today

If you are concerned about your hair loss and are ready to do something about it, we invite you to schedule a hair loss evaluation at the Miami Hair Institute. Drs. Nusbaum and Rose are internationally acclaimed hair restoration surgeons with more than 40 years of combined experience. To receive a personalized evaluation and hair restoration plan, contact us online or call our office at 305-925-0222.

June 29, 2020

5 Follicular Facts You Need To Know

For all the time you spend looking at, caring for, or worrying about your hair, how much do you really know about what’s going on up there? Do you know what your hair is made of, how it grows, or why you may be losing yours?

At the Miami Hair Institute, we believe in empowering our patients with knowledge about their hair, hair loss, and hair restoration options. To that end, here are five follicular facts you need to know.

Each human hair has three separate parts:
1. The shaft. The shaft is the part of the hair you can see above the surface of your scalp. Each shaft has three layers. The innermost layer, the medulla, doesn’t serve any particular purpose. However, the second layer, called the cortex, provides hair with strength, durability, and the ability to uptake water. The outer layer is the cuticle, which protects the shaft and helps it repel water.
1. The follicle. Sitting just below the surface of the skin, this tube-like pouch anchors the shaft and attaches it to the skin.
1. The hair root. The hair root attaches hair to the base of the follicle. The root is where hair grows and is nourished by blood capillaries.

The hair growth cycle has three distinct phases:
- Anagen phase. The first phase is the growing stage. Hair grows at about one cm each month, and the anagen phase can last between two and five years.
- Catagen phase. As this phase begins, the bulb detaches from the blood supply and pushes the hair shaft up. The catagen phase can last several weeks.
- Telogen phase. During this resting stage, which lasts about five months, there is no hair growth. At the end of the telogen phase, the hair sheds, and the follicle starts to grow a new one. At any moment, about 90% of the hair follicles of the scalp are growing hairs in the anagen phase, while only about 10% are in the resting phase.

Everyone loses hair every day. Seeing hair in your drain or on your brush is not a cause for panic: most folks who don’t suffer from visible hair loss still shed between 50-100 hairs each day.

Hair loss is a problem for tens of millions of Americans. While we all lose hair daily, those who suffer from hair loss lose substantially more than that, leading to thinning hair, receding hairlines, and baldness. The numbers tell the story:
- 35 million American men suffer from hair loss
- 21 million American women experience hair loss
- By the age of 35, two-thirds of American men have some degree of appreciable hair loss, and by age 50, around 85% of men have significantly thinning hair.
- Androgenetic alopecia, commonly known as male pattern baldness, is responsible for over 95% of hair loss in men.
- Approximately 25% of men who have male pattern baldness start losing their hair before they turn 21 years old.

Hair loss is not all your mom’s fault. Perhaps the biggest misconception about hair loss is that you inherit it from your mom’s side of the family. While your hair’s strength and vitality are, in fact, mostly a matter of genetics, the genes which play a role in hair loss come from many places, including your dad’s side of the family. This “polygenic” basis for hair loss means that you should examine all the branches of your family tree if you want to see into your hair loss future.

Schedule a Hair Loss Evaluation Today at The Miami Hair Institute

At the Miami Hair Institute, know the facts about hair loss and how to treat it. We evaluate each hair loss patient with a comprehensive and proven methodology so that we can determine the underlying cause of your hair loss and propose the optimal course of treatment. To schedule your personalized hair loss evaluation and begin your hair restoration journey, contact us online or call our office directly at 305-925-0222.

June 1, 2020

Hair Loss vs. Hair Shedding

When you walk out of your front door, that doesn’t mean you’re never coming back. Similarly, if you notice increasing amounts of hair stuck in your brush or the drain, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are suffering from permanent hair loss. Not all hair that falls out never comes back. Sometimes, hair falling out – hair shedding – is a temporary phenomenon that is no cause for concern. Other times, however, it can indicate a chronic hair loss condition in which hair loss is permanent. Knowing the difference between hair shedding and hair loss can help determine what, if anything, you can and should do to address the issue.

Hair Shedding

As a preliminary matter, even folks who seemingly have full, robust heads of hair lose between 50 to 100 hairs a day on average. This amount of hair shedding is normal, expected, and part of the regular hair growth cycle. But physical changes, life events, and lifestyle choices can cause hair to shed at a significantly higher rate.

These issues can lead to a condition called telogen effluvium in which hair follicles are shocked into a resting state. Since the follicles stop actively producing more hair to replace normal shedding, the thinning tends to happen in a diffuse pattern throughout the scalp. If the factors causing the shedding can be addressed and resolved, the follicles often return to their normal healthy state and fully regrow without treatment or surgical intervention.

Common reasons for temporary hair shedding include:

Excessive stress
Extreme weight loss
Childbirth
Menopause
Hormonal imbalances
Prescription medication
Recent surgery
Stopping birth control pills

Hair Loss

As opposed to shedding, hair loss involves conditions that stop hair from growing entirely. By an overwhelming margin, pattern baldness – androgenetic alopecia – is the most common cause of hair loss. Over 95 percent of hair loss cases involve this hereditary hair loss condition that affects over three million Americans each year. Androgenetic alopecia causes hair miniaturization, a phenomenon in which follicles become thinner and finer each time they go through the hair growth cycle. Eventually, those follicles will die and fall out.

Another common cause of hair loss is alopecia areata, which is a hair loss condition that involves a direct assault on your hair follicles by your own immune system and white blood cells. This attack shrinks the follicles and subsequently slows down hair growth. In turn, this leads to sudden hair loss in quarter-sized patches that can progress across the scalp rapidly and unpredictably.

If you apply constant tension to your hair follicles, they will eventually experience damage, weaken, and ultimately die and fall out. This is called traction alopecia.

No Matter The Reason Behind Your Hair Loss, The Miami Hair Institute Can Help

At the Miami Hair Institute, our world-renowned hair restoration physicians diagnose and treat hair loss cases no matter what the underlying cause. Through advanced hair restoration surgical techniques, technology, and alternative non-invasive treatments, we can help patients suffering from hair loss regain their hair and self-confidence.

To receive your personalized evaluation and treatment plan, contact us online or call our office directly at 305-925-0222.

May 11, 2020

Scalp Care: How to Maintain Healthy Hair

You can’t plant a beautiful garden in rocky, dry soil. Your flowers will die unless you ensure that they have the water and sunshine they need. Think of your scalp like the garden in which your hair grows. If your scalp is unhealthy, it can have a direct and significant impact on your hair health. If you already struggle with hair loss, tending to the health of your scalp can slow down shedding and keep the hair you still have strong and resilient.

Here are six ways you can take care of your scalp so your scalp can take care of your hair:

Increase your protein intake. Hair needs a sufficient amount of protein to grow. Make sure you eat plenty of protein-rich foods like fish, beef, and eggs, as well as are beans, lentils, and soy.
Reduce your stress level. Stress can negatively affect your health in a host of ways, including damaging your hair follicles. When your body overproduces hormones such as cortisol as a reaction to stress, it can lead to adrenal fatigue. In turn, the overproduction of stress-related hormones causes a corresponding drop in levels of other hair-critical hormones like aldosterone and androgens, causing hair to weaken and ultimately fall out. Find ways of alleviating stress that work best for you.
Get more sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep, it will catch up to you. Our bodies use a lot of energy every day and won’t work as they’re supposed to if they don’t have a chance to recharge. One function that won’t work as well as it should is the repair and regeneration of hair follicles. Insufficient sleep gets in the way of this process, causing hair to stop growing, weaken, and eventually fall out more than it would if you got enough rest.
Eat a healthy, balanced diet. To stop and avoid hair loss, be sure to eat a well-rounded diet rich in protein, biotin, vitamin E, vitamin A, and other essential nutrients.
Keep hydrated. Water is as vital to healthy hair as it is to healthy plants and flowers. Hair shafts are composed of approximately 25 percent water, and dehydration weakens those shafts. Make an affirmative effort to drink lots of fluids – at least 64 ounces of water per day – so you can keep your thirsty hair from drying out.
Wear scalp sunscreen. Balding individuals or those with thinning hair are particularly vulnerable to sunburn on the scalp. Too much sun can turn your hair brittle, dry, and more prone to breaks and splits. Additionally, sunburn on the scalp can not only be the result of having areas of thinning or absent hair, but it can also cause hair loss, at least temporarily. Protect your scalp with scalp sunscreen or a hat, especially in the summer.

Schedule an Appointment for a Hair Loss Evaluation Today

April 27, 2020

How Hormones Impact Hair Loss

Beyond making teenagers moody and difficult to live with, hormones perform a host of vital roles in our growth, health, and well-being. Life-events and the passage of time will cause our bodies’ to produce different amounts of hormones throughout our lives. Some people, however, can either produce too many or too few hormones, and when that happens, it can have negative impacts throughout the body, including on hair growth.

Hormone imbalances are the cause behind or contribute to many cases of hair loss. The good news is that there are medications and other treatments that can restore balance to hormone levels and stop hair loss caused by an excess or insufficient amount of them.

Multiple hormones play roles in the strength, growth, and health of our hair. The most common types of hormone imbalances and related issues that often contribute to hair shedding and loss include:

Thyroid imbalances. Both hypothyroidism (too few thyroid hormones) and hyperthyroidism (too many) can contribute to hair loss through their impact on the production of a hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT). A synthesized version of testosterone, DHT is a key hormone in sexual development and physical appearance. If too much testosterone is converted into DHT, it disrupts the natural growth cycle of hair. In turn, this causes the hair follicles to shrink, ultimately resulting in thinning hair and shedding.
Menopause. Menopausal women produce lower levels of two hormones critical for hair growth and follicle health: estrogen and progesterone. As the supply of these two hormones decreases, hair growth slows and follicles become thin, brittle, and more susceptible to damage. Making matters worse, this decrease in hair-promoting hormones comes with an increase in the production of androgens – hormones that trigger follicle miniaturization and make hair more likely to fall out.
Postpartum hair loss. Also called postpartum alopecia – hair loss after childbirth is a common issue. Up to 90 percent of new mothers have some degree of hair loss in the first three to five months after their child is born. During pregnancy, estrogen levels increase the percentage of hairs in the growth cycle, while also freezing hair that is in the resting phase of hair growth. After giving birth, womens’ estrogen levels fall dramatically, and all the hair that was growing so beautifully starts to fall out.
Insulin Resistance. When the body fails to regulate insulin production properly, the body can build up a resistance to this hormone, which can, in turn, lead to an increased risk of androgenetic alopecia, or pattern baldness.

Schedule an Appointment for a Hair Loss Evaluation Today

If a hormone imbalance is contributing to hair loss, the Miami Hair Institute can help. We offer a range of effective treatments, customized to your individual condition. To receive a personalized evaluation and treatment plan, contact us online or call our office directly at 305-925-0222.

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