Hair loss - get to the root, webinar

Presenter- Question: So, it comes from Mr Dikpal Chauhan from Indore. He says, I would like to know how I can stop my hair fall.

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Okay, Mr Chauhan. Thank you for your question. It is an interesting question because that is what I am commonly asked when I meet people. Id like to state two things here. The first is that hair loss can never stop. We all shed skin, although we cannot see it and, similarly, we shed hair. It is just that we see the hair loss, which is why we get alarmed sometimes. A normal hair loss of about 50 to 60 strands a day is normal. If youre losing anything more than that, you need to take action and treat it. I am assuming youre losing more hair than 50 to 60 strands. I think it is very important to find out the reason for hair loss. If I remember correctly, your age is 34, which means you could be in the age bracket for androgenetic hair loss of a male pattern hair loss. If you are losing hair from the front, if your hairline is receding, and if you are losing hair mainly from the top of your scalp, it is likely that you have androgenetic alopecia. This type of alopecia, even though hereditary, can be treated. I would suggest that you consult a trichologist immediately, who can assess the hair loss, identify it and then help you to treat it accordingly.

Presenter- Question: The next question that we have is from Mr. Mallikarjun Reddy from Hyderabad. He asks, how do I deal with my hair loss problem?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Mr Reddy from Hyderabad, good morning to you. I dont have your age, I dont have specifications, but again, I think the first thing youve got to assess is whether you are losing more hair than normal. That is the first thing you need to do. If you are losing more hair than normal, you definitely need to do something about it. Hair loss, like I mentioned, is of 40 different types. Most can be treated where you re-grow your hair, but some can only be managed and controlled. The faster you take your treatment and the faster you consult someone who can help you, is when you can get help. There are a variety of treatments from instant to permanent and it is important to sit with a trichologist, who can identify your type of hair loss and help to develop a customised plan to see which of these treatments will help you the best.

Presenter- Question: Next question comes from Mr Gursharan Singh from Amritsar. His question is, I want to know more about hair transplants.

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Mr Singh, that is a good question. Hair transplant is a very good way to get back some hair. Hair transplant can give you your hair back. I would just like to explain a few things about hair transplant. The first is that there are 40 different types of hair loss and hair transplant is a solution only for one type, which is male pattern hair loss or female pattern hair loss. So, if you are experiencing male or female pattern hair loss, hair transplant is a good solution for you. What is important is that before you go for the transplant; you need to first take some treatment to stabilise your active hair loss. Lets assume these are your natural hair and you are going to get a transplant, take hair from the back of your scalp and add it to the front. If you dont take treatment for your natural hair and transplant your new hair, the new hair will never fall, but if the hair that you have originally on your head falls, you will left with same result. Sy you have money in a bank. If you want some savings, you have got to save while you earn more and add to that kitty. That is how really your hair transplant works. In male pattern hair loss, men dont lose hair from the back. This hair never ever falls. This hair is not genetically programmed to fall. It is removed in a hair transplant and put in areas where you need to add that there. So, hair transplant is very good option. We have been doing hair transplant for the past seven years in India. We have six hair transplant studios. We get very good results, but you should first find out what your type of hair loss is, you should first control your active hair loss, see whether you are in the right age group for hair transplant and then it could be an effective solution for you.

Presenter- Question: From Mr Satyakam Mugali from Bengaluru. He says, can male pattern baldness be completely cured?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Its a good question. So, I think male pattern baldness, we have got to first understand what is cure. Male pattern baldness can definitely be controlled if you treat it early. Male pattern baldness, you can definitely get some of your hair back, and with the hair transplant again is an effective solution for male pattern baldness. What is important is how old you are? What is important is to what extent you have lost hair? Male pattern baldness had seven grades of baldness. In grade 1, you just start to loss hair; in grade 2, you start to have a little bit of receding hairline; in grade 3, you start to also get a patch on your scalp; and of course in grade 7, you are left with nothing but just that horseshoe on the back of your head. So, hair treatments depend on the cause of your hair loss, they depend on how strong your genetic factors are, they depend on what age you start baldness, and of course they depend on how hair you have left on your scalp. But let me assure you that there are some very effective solutions for treatment. There are some new treatments for male pattern baldness such as stem cell and such as groHair which also found to be very effective and of course like I mentioned the hair transplant. There is also a very interesting thing called Instant hair, which are hair fibers that you can use to cover up your bald patches. So with a combination of treatments, you can definitely get an answer to treat your male pattern baldness to your satisfaction.

Presenter- Question: The next question comes from Mr Hitesh Dutta from Ambala. He is a client with us. I am taking homeopathy treatment and groHair at Dr Batras clinic at Ambala, and I have got positive response. I want some of my hair should regrow.

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: So thank you sir for firstly choosing us to take care of your hair and also I am very happy to see that you are already getting some results. I think you have been taking treatment from a few months now if I can recall. Is it mentioned how long the treatment has been taken?

Presenter- No, that is not mentioned.

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Okay. So usually I am assuming you have taken treatment for a few months and with homeopathy your hair loss has come under control. Usually, hair treatments, you know the hair cycle, hair has a cycle where hair grows, rests and falls. Everyones hair has to go through that cycle. So, every strand of hair will grow for a few years, then it will rest, post which it will fall, and once it falls a new hair is suppose to come out from the hair follicle. Now, when this cycles gets imbalanced is when you start to lose hair. So, here when you are losing more than you are growing or when you are growing enough and losing normal or slightly more than normal is when you start to bald. Hair treatment, like I said the hair cycle lasts three to seven years and therefore hair treatments do take some time. You have to be patient with your treatment, you have to take it for a few months. GroHair is very good solution. GroHair we usually recommend at least 10 sessions to patients to see effective results. Like I mentioned, there is also stem cell. What I would request you to do is to talk to your local doctor and to see whether stem cell would help you to evaluate how many sessions you have taken of groHair and what is your result. And since I have your details now, I will be happy to look into your case personally and to also to advise the doctors to what we can do to help you better.

Presenter- Question: Mr Rohit Rathi from Gurgaon. His question is, I have a dandruff problem, please share your suggestions to deal with it?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Okay. Mr Rathi, thank you for the question. Dandruff again is a growing concern and can be of various degrees. It can be severe, it can be moderate, it can also be mild. Usually, mild dandruff, some anti-dandruff shampoos do help. I am assuming you have tired those and then ask me this question. Dandruff can also be caused because of certain skin conditions on your scalp. Severe dandruff is something called seborrheic dermatitis and this would need treatment. Dandruff can be very embarrassing, as you know, because you start to have flakes all over your shirt, all over your jackets. As you know, there are so many dare to wear black campaigns, which challenge you to wear black clothes so that you know you can show that you do not have dandruff. So, dandruff is a concern. I think what you can also do is oil your scalp because oiling scalp with coconut oil particularly has tended to show relief with dandruff. If it still does not help, you will need to come into the clinic and need to get treated, but you can try using coconut oil. Let me also tell you that oil does not help to grow your hair, that is a myth. But oil does help to condition your scalp. So, conditioning scalp and conditioning your hair are the only benefits of oil, but growing your hair really does not happen with oil.

Presenter- Question: Thank you, Dr Akshay. That is a great tip for us and let me also tell you that Dr Akshay would be giving all of us some more tips on how to control hair fall. That would be by the end of the webinar so stay tuned. Ill go on to the next question; Mr Manoj Hudke from Mumbai. His question is, what do I do about my graying hair?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Okay. Manojji, now, I hope you are not 60 years old that I am asking this question. Because if are, there is nothing we can do to help. Graying can be helped if it is premature. Again, what is important is that graying can sometimes happen because of medical conditions. That is what we need to figure out. We have seen children as old as 12 and 15 and 18 years of age who actually have gray hair and this happens because of thyroid condition, this happens because of low vitamin B12 levels. So, understanding the cause, looking at the age of the patient, we can help with the graying. Graying also is hereditary. So, sometimes in families, you can tend to gray early. We can somewhat help with that, but really graying can be treated if you are young and if you have an underlying medical condition that is causing you graying. If that is not the case, if you are say middle aged, I would recommend using a hair color; using a safe and natural product is important. Henna would be the safest color to use. I know it is not always the most easy on the eyes, people dont prefer it because it gives you that distinctive red color; however, using an ammonia-free hair color would be the next best option.

Presenter- Question: The next one comes from Shweta Gupta Rao from Dubai. So, the question is, Im suffering from hair loss and Im taking treatment for the last three months. What more can I do to re-grow my hair?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Okay. Shwetaji from Dubai. Firstly, thank you for logging in across international borders. It is good to have you. You have been taking treatment for three months. I think, the first thing you need to assess is, is your hair loss now under control after three months? It should take about three to four months to bring hair loss under control with good treatment. If your hair loss is under control in the three or four months period after taking treatment, you are on the right track. I think what you need to do now is you need to continue with the treatment, you need to treat your underlying causes, you need to look out for whether you have anemia, whether you have thyroid, whether you have polycystic ovaries. These are the three most common conditions in women that cause excessive hair loss and early hair loss. Post which after taking a treatment, once you eliminate these conditions, you can also look at treatments such as stem cell and groHair. These are innovative treatments that we brought into India from international markets and these actually help in some cases to even re-grow your hair and definitely to control hair loss even further. So, for example, with stem cell treatment, which is a treatment we have from South Korea, it is 10 sittings; one sitting every week, and we have just done some in-house studies which show that about 70% of patients have actually re-grown some of the hair after this treatment, which is phenomenal.

So, therefore, I would suggest, you wait for a few months more and then evaluate with your doctor, the benefits of taking stem cell or taking groHair as treatment option yourself.

 

Presenter- Question: That is really interesting, Shweta; stem cell is the route probably you should take. Let me go on to the next question. Manoranjan Haldar from Kolkata. His question is, my wife is suffering from baldness. Please advise to help her overcome from this problem?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Okay. Manojji, thank you for your question. Your wife is suffering from baldness. I think again what is important is: a) We have to diagnose what type of baldness is she suffering from. There are 40 different types of hair loss; each have their own causes and definitely each have their own treatment. So therefore, it is important to know what exactly is the type of hair loss so that we can treat it accordingly. I would recommend and suggest that you visit one of our clinics where our doctors can do a thorough analysis with a computerized machine that we have, which can look at your wifes hair, which can magnify it, which can help us to tell us the condition of her scalp and what type of hair loss she is suffering from, post which we can definitely help you. Also, we might have to conduct some tests on her to rule out some of these medical conditions but definitely we should be able to help her with the hair loss.

Presenter- Question: Thank you, Dr Akshay. The next one comes from Anjali Cherri. The question is, I have been suffering from patchy as well as generalized hair loss, diagnosed recently with diffuse alopecia areata. What are the options available for me?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Okay. This is an interesting one. Like I mentioned, alopecia areata is a condition where you can lose hair from all over the scalp, you can lose in patches, you can lose from all over your body actually. I am assuming this is still controlled because you have only on your scalp. As far as I can understand from your question, this is an autoimmune condition; stress plays a very important role in alopecia areata. That we need to also figure out, you know, we need to see and understand your stress levels, we would recommend and also to treat them so that your response to the stress change. Homeopathy has excellent treatment for alopecia areata. It has an excellent treatment for stress-related hair loss because it cannot alter your stress level but it can alter your response to that stress. The other treatment options for you, of course allopathy wherein you can try local steroids, you can try steroid injections. Some of these have known to work; however, they do come with side effects and they come with a very high rate of relapse. We have conducted a study internally in about 1000 patients a few years ago and we measured the difference in treatment versus allopathy and homeopathy. We found that homeopathy and certain allopathy treatments give similar results, which is about 85% in alopecia areata. But what was very interesting and came across as a big finding was that with allopathy, the relapse rate was as high as 50% and with homeopathy the relapse rate was only 9%, and alopecia areata is a condition which actually dermatologists across the world will never term as cured, it will only be termed as remission because relapses are known to occur very frequently and as you can see with homeopathy, the relapses are less. So I think, what is important is again get yourself analyzed correctly, understand the cause of your hair loss. Again, thyroid and anemia can contribute to this; so can stress. So get the underlying causes treated and like I mentioned, the good thing about alopecia areata or patchy hair loss is that all your hair can come back because there is no damage to the hair follicle and therefore potentially with the right treatment, you could have all your hair back very soon.

Presenter- Question: Looks like homeopathy is the way to go at least for me. Just wanted to ask you something since you mentioned stress is one of the major causes for hair loss. Does Dr Batras also have something specific for stress?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: So, I think in homeopathy because we primarily work in homeopathy and we are you know, known for homeopathy. In homeopathy, as you know, you take a detailed history of the patient. It is individualized and personalized medicine. So, when a patient comes in, even for hair loss, you could give different remedies to five patients for the same problem because the remedy is individualized. So that is where individualization comes in, the folk medicine comes in, it is tailor made for the patient and which is why of course stress levels are taken into account, what you eat is taken into account, your dietary habits, the way you respond to things. So, it is a personalized history and remedies are then given based on the personalization.

Presenter- Question: Thank you, Dr Akshay. So the next question comes from Mohit Sharma. His question is, I am 22 and I am experiencing hair fall. I oil my hair every alternate day and use a shampoo and conditioner regularly. Is there a way to reduce hair fall, as I am young?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: So, Mohit you are 22 years old and you are losing hair. I think what is very important at that age is first your diet. First figure out are you eating enough nutritious foods. We find a lot of hair loss in children or students at that age who have gone out of their house to study. Firstly, the water there does not agree and can cause hair loss. Secondly, of course, the diet because you know, people who study out do not have an access to good food, they go on to the fast food. They do not regulate their timings because their mothers are not around to feed them on time. So, these are things that clearly affect the hair fall. Also, Mohit you need to understand whether you have hereditary hair loss because, is there is anybody in the family in the fathers or the mothers side who has this kind of hair loss. What is most important, Mohit, is that you understand your type of hair loss and start some treatment quickly because you are young. With quick treatment, you can actually save your hair and you can keep it. I ask patients a very simple question when I meet them. I say that two years ago, did you have more hair than you do today and the answer is always, yes, and my next suggestion to them is or my next question is what if you had started your treatment two years ago, you would have been much better off. So, therefore, quick treatment for hair loss is very important. We find a lot of young people nowadays - girls and boys both - suffering from hair loss. Girls, of course, because of hormones, polycystic ovaries, iron, crash dieting and boys also because; I think today lifestyles have changed, dietary habits have changed. Young people nowadays also use a lot of products on their hair which can actually accentuate your hair loss. So I know, you want to look cool, you want to gel your hair, you want to color it, you want to spike it. We see young people of all age groups with different colored hair nowadays.

So, I think it is important that you refrain from chemical treatments, try to keep your hair as natural as possible, eat a healthy diet and if still you find hair loss, treat it as quickly as possible.

Presenter- Question: Thank you. Thank you, Dr Akshay. The next question comes from Sonal. Her question is, what is the scope of homeopathic medication when integrated with modern treatments?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: That is an excellent question. I think, question really is, whether homeopathy can be integrated with any other treatment or not and what are the options? So, we started off Dr. Batras as a Homeopathy Centre, Homeopathy Clinic. When I graduated my trichology, I came back and actually had to, you know, cajole my doctors to start using other treatments.

Because they believed in homeopathy and they still do and they were not aware of the benefits of all the other treatments.

So now, particularly for hair, we have an integrated treatment of approach at Dr. Batras. Which I think is very important. Because the world is moving towards integrated medicine and the answer is not which pathy is better, but the answer is which treatment is better for you. So, as a patient, you might find, you need only a hair transplant.

You might find you need a hair transplant along with homeopathy to keep your existing hair if you have some. You might find you need homeopathy as a base and then you want to add stem cell and many questions that we have been asked, you know patients have been taking groHair and stem cell to increase the pace and to increase the benefit. So, really the answer is homeopathy has very important role to play for two reasons; firstly it is personalized and secondly it has been proven internationally in many, many drug trials to actually help many different types of hair loss without any side effects. And that is why people are choosing homeopathy today and to add to that our doctors can actually sit with you and then tailor make a treatment plan for you, which can start with homeopathy and then can add other treatments such as groHair, such as stem cell which are therapeutic treatments which are technological breakthroughs in the field of hair, to hair transplants, to Instant hair. And also very important to the type of products that you use for your hair. So all of this is integrated together to form an individual bespoke treatment plan for the patient to give him the best results.

Presenter- Question: That is beautiful. So, homeopathy with no side effects which means it is absolutely safe. So, the next question comes from Gaurav Kumar Sahay. His question is, when should baldness be treated after the beginning of hair fall and dandruff problems. I have this problem since four years. What is the best time to start treatment?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Gaurav Kumar, the best time to start treatment would have been four years ago, but the same like, better late than never. The best time theory is now. You have been losing hair for four years, that is a long time to lose hair. Remember that like I said in many types of hair loss, you can only re-grow some of your hair, you can manage your hair better, you might not be able to regrow all of it in some particular types of hair loss and in some you can. Therefore, I think you have asked a very good question and the learning from this question is that if you are losing hair, which is not coming under control by, you know, changing your shampoo or which is not coming under control adding a better diet, you need to immediately consult a trichologist, who can identify your type of hair loss, identify the reason for your hair loss. Remember that hair loss is almost always medical; it is not cosmetic. And that is the big mind shift that I would like to make with patients or people in this country. If they start realizing that hair loss is medical, they will start attending to it and start doing things about it. Hair actually is a sign of our so many underlying ailments. As a trichologist, I see a patient, look at his hair or her hair and look whether the patient has anemia, has thyroid because the characteristics of the hair change depending on the type of underlying condition you have.

So, it is sign of internal health and by looking at hair, I can do that and if patients can understand that hair loss is more medical than cosmetic, I think we will have sea change and we will probably have, you know, be able to treat it faster and therefore have better results.

Presenter- Question: Thank you, Dr Akshay. The next one comes from Richard Rogers. Does extensive use of shampoo, conditioner and other chemical products result in acceleration of hair fall?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: If you have a predisposed condition where you have a male pattern hair loss or you have telogen effluvium, shampoo, conditioners, chemical treatments can definitely accentuate it. You know, I cannot name the brand, of course, but there are lots of dandruff brands which actually lose your hair, which make hair fall, And there are jokes about it in the medical circle that your hair actually falls off when you taking anti-dandruff shampoos because they are very strong.

Also, what is important is that many shampoos dont match the pH balance of the scalp. Our skin in our scalp has a pH balance.

And selecting a shampoo that is closest to the pH balance is very good. I do not mean to solicit here but our shampoo is the one that we match with the pH balance of the scalp.

And if you want to try other shampoos, of course, you can try baby shampoos, they are also safer and good enough. Natural products for your hair, shampoo with conditioners that are safe, ammonia free dyes, no chemical treatments, I think all these are very important to help you to not accentuate your hair loss and also while treating your hair loss, what is very important is that you stick to these rules. So that you get better treatment results.

Presenter- Question: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Dr Akshay. The next question comes from Mr Asif. His question is, my age is 47 years. I have very thin hair on the head; almost bald in the head front side, but in the back side there are comparatively better conditions. My health is very good, but I have BP. So he has high BP. What can he do?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Mr Asif, you are 47 years old. You seem to be suffering from male pattern hair loss. You mentioned that all you hair from the back of the scalp is still there; however, you have lost in the front but you still do have some on the top. I would say you are a perfect candidate for a hair transplant and you should definitely consult a good hair transplant surgeon. While we are going to have the webinar on hair transplants later.

Since the question is brought up, I would just touch a little upon it. I always say that getting a hair transplant is like stitching a suit because you can stitch it with a great designer, who can give you a great cut and make you look slim and tall.

And fashionable or you can stitch it from a local tailor, who can give you a suit but which would not make you look as good.

So a hair transplant is a science, but more of an art because the hair transplant surgeon needs to design your hairline to see what would look the best for you. You are 47 now; that hair will remain for the rest of your life. So, a good hair transplant surgeon will think about how you look good at 47 with a hair transplant as well as at 65 when the same hair is on.

So the hairline has to be designed very artistically; it has to look natural which is why a good hair transplant surgeon is very important, but a hair transplant be a very good answer for you. You also mentioned, you have some hair on your scalp even now and I think taking treatment to keep that hair is also important so that along with the transplanted hair and your natural hair, which is kept with medication, you will get some good results. Do remember that hair transplant is a solution only for male pattern hair loss. It also has some limitations because if you balded lot, if you are in the seventh grade of hair loss and you have lost all this hair and you have only this much left, a transplant cannot substitute for all that you have lost.

So, you can take out some hair and recreate you know a new hairline, but you might not be able to get all your hair back. So, sit with a surgeon who can design the hairline for you, who can tell you exactly how much hair he can put. In a good session what we do, we can transplant about 5000 to 6000 hair at one shot. Again, I would recommend always think about transplant for the frontal area because that is the area people see you more at.

And dont worry too much about the crown because that usually tends to get hidden. So, these are my suggestions for you.

Presenter- Question: Thank you. So hair transplant is an artistic job. The next question comes from Gaurav Singh. His question is, I am suffering through major hair loss due to excessive sebum secretion. What should I do in order to reduce it?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: So, Gaurav, I think you have understood that you have excessive sebum secretion and which is why you are losing hair. Let me just make the correlation here so you understand it even better. Sebum is also a product of testosterone and testosterone is what causes you to lose hair. So it is linked. So, your sebum secretion and your hair loss are linked; again we need to diagnose what kind of hair loss you have. It can be treated. You hair loss can be treated, your excessive sebum secretion can also be treated with homeopathy. You should of course take treatment which is really the answer for you, but I can also suggest that you should wash your hair at least once a day. You know, very often, people get scared to shampoo their hair very often.

Because they say that agar mai shampoo karunga toh mere baal zyada girenge, I will lose more hair.

You are going to lose how you much you are losing. If you are losing 50 strands a day; you shampoo every day, you lose 50 strands. If you shampoo it two days, you lose 100 strands; if you shampoo it four days, you lose 200. So it is a mathematical calculation.

So, if you dont shampoo your hair for four days, you lose 200 strands, you will say, oh god, Im losing a lot of hair.

That may not be really true. So, if you have excessive sebum, wash your hair every day, shampoo it every day but like I said, use a natural and light shampoo, especially one that matches the pH balance of your scalp.

Presenter- Question: Okay. Thank you, Dr Akshay. The next question is from Natasha Mehta. Her question is, how do I prevent hair fall, especially in extreme climatic conditions?

Answer by Dr Akshay Batra: Okay, Natasha. Extreme climatic conditions can sometimes be a root to hair loss. I remember coming across an article in the Gulf where the heat in the Gulf does cause a lot of hair loss and people lose hair because of the heat and the water and as you know there are excessive fluctuations there where it very cold in the winters and even at nights and the summers when the days tend to get very warm. I think what you can do is again follow a good hair care regimen, which is what you can do. You can wash your hair regularly; especially if it hot in the summer, you should wash your hair. I know it is not easy for women to wash their hair because it is long, it takes time to dry but washing your hair at least twice a week, if not three times