rogaine working?

Question
QUESTION: Hi there, I have been using rogaine for a bit over three months and am noticing new growth at the top of my scalp. However, I still seem to be losing volume ie: my ponytail is getting thinner as each week goes by. Is this normal? I have lost more than 60 per cent of the volume of my hair and am increasingly worried about it. Dermatologist is unsure as to whether its chronic TE or AGA as the biopsy was indeterminate. There is no history of female hairloss in my family but my dad's father did have MPB. Should I persist with the rogaine? and have also been considering laser therapy - what are your thoughts on that? Best.



ANSWER: Rogaine stimulates the hairs to grow and is a good crutch to use no matter what the cause of the hair loss. Laser therapy works about the same as Rogaine in artificially stimulating the hair follicle to grow. If you are losing much more than 100 hairs per day every day then you may well have a chronic TE and the problem is to find out the cause of the shed. Sometimes women lose hair at a fairly normal rate but can not grow the hair back because they do not have enough iron in the form of ferritin. Your serum ferritin should be over 70. Many doctors and laboratories assume normal range goes down to 10 or 20 but at low levels it is difficult to grow back lost hairs and your hair will thin out. If your periods are not regular you could be experiencing increase loss due to AGA. I would have your serum ferritin checked as well as your levels of DHEAS and testosterone. The problem with AGA is that you can be sensitive to even normal levels of testosterone and lose hair because of them. You may want to ask if you can take spironolactone to block the male hormones.



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QUESTION: thanks for the reply. My iron levels have been above 70 for a while thanks to supplements and hormones came back normal. Could it be that a larger prop of follicles are in the resting stage or have miniturized? Shedding seems ok on rogaine but still getting thinner (i know that sounds odd). Is there a key way to differentiate between Cte and Aga? Besides a biopsy


Answer
If your "shedding is ok" with normal amounts of hairs lost then the problem is why are they not growing back. A CTE would cause an increase in daily loss. Normal loss with continued thinning and miniaturization is AGA. It would seem you have AGA if you have normal levels of hair loss and continue to thin. If you are not sure whether you actually are carrying the bald genes you could ask your doctor to do a swab of your cheek to check for the genes. Go to www.hairdx.com to see about the genetic test.