Dr. that does hair counts with Propecia?

[FrontalRetreat]

I'm looking for a couple of doctors in Southern California (San Diego would be best) who prescribe Propecia AND will do routine hair counts on patients (monthly, quarterly, etc.). I've called a couple doctors here in SD, and the receptionists said the doctors there can write prescriptions for the drug, but do NOT do individual hair counts. When I asked how do they measure the effectiveness of the drug (i.e. Propecia in this case) for an individual patient, they said they take pictures and compare those pictures. That doesn't seem like a very exact method of measuring the effectiveness of a drug for a particular individual to me. There was a place I was talking to where I use to live and they did do actual hair counts by circling the same 4-5 locations and measuring the number of Vellus and Terminal hairs from month to month in those same locations. Therefore, the patient and Dr. could numerically determine the effectiveness of the drug for that patient and showed which particular types of hair the drug was improving (i.e. Vellus or Terminal). Does anyone here know of any physicians that will actually do hair counts to measure the effectiveness of Propecia (and/or other drugs) in San Diego or another So. Cal. location?

 

Thanks.

[FrontalRetreat]

I'm looking for a couple of doctors in Southern California (San Diego would be best) who prescribe Propecia AND will do routine hair counts on patients (monthly, quarterly, etc.). I've called a couple doctors here in SD, and the receptionists said the doctors there can write prescriptions for the drug, but do NOT do individual hair counts. When I asked how do they measure the effectiveness of the drug (i.e. Propecia in this case) for an individual patient, they said they take pictures and compare those pictures. That doesn't seem like a very exact method of measuring the effectiveness of a drug for a particular individual to me. There was a place I was talking to where I use to live and they did do actual hair counts by circling the same 4-5 locations and measuring the number of Vellus and Terminal hairs from month to month in those same locations. Therefore, the patient and Dr. could numerically determine the effectiveness of the drug for that patient and showed which particular types of hair the drug was improving (i.e. Vellus or Terminal). Does anyone here know of any physicians that will actually do hair counts to measure the effectiveness of Propecia (and/or other drugs) in San Diego or another So. Cal. location?

 

Thanks.

[MrJobi]

Frontal

 

Why would you want to do that? Just take the meds and you should see a cosmetic difference. If you are that concerned with "RESULTS" why not just take before and after pics?

 

Remember, you are concerned with you appearance not with hair count. You will know 6-12 months whether it works

[hairdude83]

does propecia work on everyone? why doesn't it work on some ppl?

[hoose]

IMO, almost anyone with MPB can receive some benefit from propecia compared to not taking it at all. There are many physiological factors involved that vary from person to person: aggressiveness of hair loss; stage of hair loss, age, genetics, etc.. For example, for somebody with very aggressive hair loss, it may appear that Propecia doesn't work for them; but they are probably at least slowing down the hair loss process, compared to if they were not taking it at all. So it is still working for them, but it doesn't appear to be.

[MrJobi]

Nothing works on everyone but I would say it is a VERY high percentage. it also depends where you are in your hairloss. New balding men always benefit better with Propecia and Minoxidil than someone later in the process.

[FrontalRetreat]

Mrjb,

 

Thank you for your comments, but are you seriously confused as to why someone would want numerical proof that a drug is working ? Maybe I'm just overly analytical here, but having numbers to compare would be much more valuable to me than just looking at pictures and wondering if things look better because of lighting, or how my hair was parted, or the angle of the camera, etc on the day the pictures were taken. Yes, I am concerned with appearance, but if the drug is only slightly increasing the thickness of existing hairs or only working to slightly slow down my hair loss, then I doubt my eyes would be able to determine this and thus I may incorrectly believe that the drug is/is not working because my eyes and pictures are not exact tools for measuring this (or anything).