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Hair Restoration (Encore™)
Why Women Lose
Hair :
What can be done :
What is Encore
What
can be done? In cases of hair loss that are due to stress, medication or
pregnancy, hair growth will return to normal as soon as the
condition causing the hair loss ceases to exist. When
female hair loss is caused by scalp disorders or vitamin
deficiencies, these conditions can be corrected with proper
therapies, many of which can be obtained without a prescription.
However, for the vast majority of
women suffering from female pattern baldness (FPB), the answers
and corresponding solutions are not as easy to come by.
Below are the solutions that
people with thinning and baldness seek:
- Topical Solutions
- Drug Therapy
- Transplants
- Wigs
- Hair Augmentation
Below we will describe these
solutions advantages and disadvantages.
Topical Solutions
There are many topical lotions
sold by beauty salons across the country, specifically for
women with thinning hair. For many women, this is the
first attempt at correcting their excessive hair loss.
However, for women with androgenic hair loss (female pattern
baldness), lotions and creams simply will not work.
Drug Therapy
Minoxidil has now been approved
for use by women in formulations containing 2% of the drug.
Now sold as an over the counter product, minooxidil has been
approved by the FDA as a hair loss cessation/hair growing
drug. However, minoxidil has only been show to grow hair
in the crown, not in the frontal hairline. The hair that
minoxidil can grow, even in the crown, is usually hair that is
not considered "cosmetically acceptable", meaning that will
not grow long and healthy enough to cover the scalp.
As for minoxidil's ability to
stop hair loss, the success rate varies widely from individual
to individual. In most cases, the hair loss still
continues but will sometimes do so at a lesser rate. In
all cases, once minoxidil use is stopped, hair loss returns to
it's original levels; any hair growth achieved will also
cease. Transplants
Transplants are now being
performed by doctors on women patients. Hair transplants
have been vastly improved in the past ten years, and no longer
produce the "row of corn" appearance that was the case in many
day of "hair plugs". It
must be noted that transplants do not create new hair. They
simply move hair from the back of the scalp (the donor area)
to the desired areas of the scalp where there is hair loss.
The amount of hair on the scalp itself remains the same.
It is just rearranged. In order for transplants to be
successful, the patient must have enough hair in the donor
area to cover the thin or bald areas. If enough donor
hair can't be harvested, significant cosmetic coverage will
not be achieved in thin or bald areas. Another
consideration is future hair loss; since your natural hair
continues to fall out, the question then becomes, will there
be enough donor hair to eventually cover the balding areas
without leaving the donor area denude of hair too?
The reason that transplants are
more widely touted for men and not women has to do with the
amount of hair that can be harvested. Both men and women
have the same number of hairs on their scalps, but in men,
it's more acceptable for light coverage to be the result -
it's better for a man to be thinning than bald, is the theory.
For women, thin hair that makes her look like she is going
bald is rarely acceptable.
Wigs
Standard machine-made wigs offer
a number of advantages. They provide full coverage of
the thinning areas, for one. And unlike many so-called
women's hair loss solutions, they're guaranteed to work.
But machine-made wigs are not
for everyone. The less expensive ones that use synthetic
hair can be less than natural looking. Machine made wigs
can not only be cumbersome. For women with an active
lifestyle -especially women who exercise and engage in other
physical activities - wigs can be limiting: you certainly
can't swim in them, and even sunning or being intimate can be
compromised by a wig's limitations. And of course, they're not
part of you; at night, they generally come off.
For some women, the advantages
far outweigh the disadvantages. For other women, wigs
are not a viable solution. It depends on lifestyle, your
expectations, and the trade-offs you're willing to accept.
In other words, whether or not to wear a wig is an intensely
personal decision.
Hair Augmentation
There are many different methods of women's hair restoration
that fall under the general heading "hair augmentation". Some
of these methods rival wigs, for the most part. Others
are far different. By
definition, hair augmentation refers to the process of adding
to a woman's existing hair, rather than covering it up as a
wig would. If this is done in such a manner that results
int eh hair becoming "permanently" part of the scalp, it
offers a woman a plethora of advantages over other solutions.
The idea of augmentation was
largely derived from yesterday's "hair weaves". The
intent was not to cover the entire scalp, but only to add hair
where needed. However, weaves had so many disadvantages
that other methods were created to overcome them; thus, the
beginnings of modern day hair augmentation. However,
just like wigs and weaves, there are many different types of
hair augmentation, some much better than others.
Why Women Lose
Hair :
What can be done :
What is Encore
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