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Lichen Planopilaris, Scarring Alopecia and Lupus Surgical Options

What can you do if you have Lichen Planopilaris and Scarring Alopecia?

Lichen Planopilaris is a scarring type of hair loss and has symptoms such as white atrophic areas that do not allow hair growth.

The question really becomes what can be done to surgically improve this or to get hair back in this area? There are many things that can be done, one thing being if the patient is inclined to do is excise or cut out the scar, pull it together and do a surgical procedure and bring both hair barring areas back together.

In other situations, Dr. Mejia utilizes Follicular Unit Excision or Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) procedures where donor hair is removed from the back of the scalp and is transplanted into the scarring area. Hair follicles can grow in scars to restore the area. With certain types of hair loss conditions that are autoimmune, like Lichen Planopilaris or lupus hair transplanting into atrophic areas can be considered problematic in the sense that Dr.Mejia has to advise patients that the results may not be one hundred percent successful and the reason is that when he has a diagnosis of an inflammatory, autoimmune condition that is damaging the hair follicles, any transplanted hairs that are put into the atrophic areas can potentially also be involved with the same issue.

When you’re transplanting into scars you have to understand what the pathology is and what the diagnosis is because while it can be done many times the grafts may not grow completely or they may grow fine for several years only to get the disease reactivated and when you have the disease reactivated into the area the transplanted hairs may be affected, damaged and lost similar to what was lost, to begin with.

To answer the question, “can you transplant into scars?” The answer is yes you can, but it depends on what type of scar you’re transplanting into and if you’re transplanting into disease processes that are inflammatory in nature, it should be under the direct follow-up and close supervision of a clinical dermatologist specializing in hair transplantation surgery.

Hair loss cure in Mc Donalds fries? Dr. Mejia weighs in.

There has been a lot of buzz lately regarding a chemical in McDonald’s fries and how it relates to a cure for hair loss. The chemical is a product called Dimethylpolysiloxane which is used in the cooking oil of the McDonald’s fries and other eateries like Taco Bell and Chick-fil-a to help decrease the frothing in oil. It is also used in culture media to help cells grow.

Researchers in Japan have shown that they take these germ cells and they put them in a culture which contains the Dimethylpolysiloxane chemical. In this culture, they are actually seeing some hairs that grow. These cells or hairs are then transplanted into nude mice and some of those hairs grow.

So, how does this translate to humans? Human hairs and mice hairs are completely different. It is a very complicated issue of getting hairs to really grow in culture. It is not really proven that this is going to work in humans and how exactly it would work, but it does show some promise that maybe there is a product or a chemical that gives us the ability to grow hairs better.

Hair transplantation is a great procedure for patients, but getting the right chemicals to help grow them in culture and to grow those and transplant them back into humans is a very complicated issue. Time will tell what comes about from this research and we will have more answers as we move along.

Folliculitis Treatment and Causes

In this video Dr. Mejia talks about folliculitis treatment. The word breaks down to hair follicle and “itis” translates to inflammation, which leads to Folliculitis being the inflammation of the hair follicle.

Folliculitis can be caused to due to irritation from clothing, spandex, shorts, etc. In women, it can occur on their lower legs due to constant shaving, ingrown hair follicles and bacterial contamination. If Folliculitis occurs on the body, doctors prescribe an antibiotic and in severe cases an antibacterial body wash soap. If it occurs on the scalp there are similar treatments depending on the clinical situation.

Folliculitis can be very mild, but in some cases such as the scalp, it can be very serious and progress to what is known as “dissecting folliculitis” which results in hair loss and scarring.

If inflammation of the scalp, pimples, or any other signs of folliculitis occur, visit and consult your dermatologist to get the appropriate treatment.

Does Rogaine Work? Yes It Does!

One of the questions Dr. Mejia gets asked alot is “Does Rogaine Work?” The answer is yes. Rogaine is an FDA approved product which contains minoxidil. Minoxidil is an ingredient that has been used for many years that has shown clinical growth in hair follicles.

So the advantage for both men and women is that if you use Rogaine two times a day for men and once a day for women, you can experience hair growth and/or stabilization of the hair follicles. What happens with time is that your hair follicles will slowly wither away through the genetic aspects of hair loss. Rogaine can minimize that and keep all the hair that you have and in some cases even grow hair.

Rogaine, like any product for hair has to be used on a consistent daily basis to get the results you are looking for and to maintain the nourishment of the hair follicle for growth. It is a maintenance treatment, so you need to use it as long as your hair is important to you.