Novel approaches to hair restoration & HT recovery

[gbhscot]

Just been reading an article about athletes who use cupping techniques to recover from training / competition in the hopes of increasing blood flow and it got me thinking...

 

Seeing as blood flow plays a role in the end success of a HT, would this be a good idea to try out, say a few weeks after surgery? How else could we increase blood flow?

 

If we believe the Ivory Dome theory for baldness (and I believe there has been evidence which proves this to a certain extent) in which fibrosis of the scalp is a cause of it, could hair loss sufferers borrow other fiberous tissue reducing techniques from other disciplines to apply to the scalp? That would mainly involve massage...which has also shown efficacy in treating hair loss (google scholar "detumsence hair loss, search detumsence on this forum for recent thread..)

 

Anyone have any other approaches from other disciplines they think might have a positive impact? Considering we are in an age where guys sit wearing laser helmets, lather their heads with numerous oils, drag tiny needles over their scalp and play with their sexual health all in the name of hair, no suggestion is too weird - so wire in!

[mahhong]

Funny enough this also crossed my mind when I read about it - funny how us hairloss sufferers think, eh!

 

I'm actually not sure how well this would work for transplanted follicles - if it had any benefit I would imagine it would be for follicles already miniaturising on the scalp - but I have my doubts.

 

The degradation of healthy blood supply to the hair follicle and the resulting weakening of that follicle is definitely one of the major causes of hairloss. Although it's quite a complicated and not entirely understood process, broadly speaking a genetic susceptibility to DHT seems to cause a kind of signalling cascade, causing inflammation in and around the hair follicle and scalp which leads to a reduction of blood supply and essentially causes the follicle to shrivel and eventually lose the ability to produce hair (or only produce inconsequential vellus hair).

 

Promoting blood supply to the hair follicles in theory and in practice produces reverses some of this damage. That's partly the reason why minoxidil works and also why there may be some truth to the idea that massage could work too (though I think the detumescence theory has been far from proven).

 

So you could see in theory why cupping might offer benefit. I'm sceptical for a few reasons though:

 

Firstly there's no seriously good scientific evidence cupping works at all. Yes there's a lot of people who swear by it and anecdotal evidence too, but I don't think it's been rigorously studied scientifically.

 

Secondly, even if it was proven to have some efficacy, I'm not sure how easy or safe it would be to cup the scalp. It's not like the back or shoulders or legs, where there's a lot more fat, muscle and flexibility. It's pretty tight up there, so I'm not sure how easy it would be to cup or whether it wouldn't cause injury.

 

Thirdly, it wouldn't stop the genetic "attack" on your follicles. This has always been an issue with minoxidil - it can work well but it doesn't stop the underlying reason for the degradation of the follicle. That's not to say long-term benefit couldn't be achieved via different methods, but ultimately I still think the most effective treatments would look to disrupt the underlying mechanism by which the follicles are attacked. Finasteride does this by inhibiting DHT, but there may be other more targeted ways of disrupting MPB (this is still very much under research though).

 

I think when it comes to microneedling, laser combs and all the other weird and wonderful ways of saving your hair, the main problem is just lack of research or lack of proof of efficacy from that research. I daresay needling and lasers and massage and rubbing pumpkin oil on your hair may have some benefit in some men - but without any data it's impossible to say how much benefit how many men can expect it. And of course, none of us really want to spend 3 or 4 hours a day massaging and rolling and pouring all kinds of gunk on our heads, especially without any proof it does anything!

 

The bottom line is nothing has gotten close to working as well or as often for baldness as finasteride and minoxidil (particularly finasteride). Whilst of course there are some question marks over safety and side effects in some men, the simplest and most effective way to save your hair is to pop one pill every day or other day and maybe combine that with a lotion you apply once or twice a day. Everything else, with the exception of maybe ketoconazole, has yet to really prove itself as having any major benefit, and there's also the issue of time and expense where it would become prohibitive to spend tens of hours and dollars a week using a treatment cocktail that hopefully offered some benefit.

 

For what it's worth I think massage and microneedling could both have some role in treating MPB - but the issue of how well they work for the effort and time is murkier. We need more studies but they're unlikely to be forthcoming in any great number. I'm not sure I can be disciplined enough to engage in deep massage once or twice a day for twenty minutes a day in the hope it will work even as good as finasteride or minoxidil!