» 2010 » February

Is flaking of the scalp normal after a hair transplant surgery? Well, yes but it depends on how long it has been since the surgery. If your scalp is flaking and you only recently had a hair transplant then it is very normal. The scalp tends to get dry after a procedure but more than that you can have continued flaking and even crusts develop long after the actual scabbing has subsided. This crusting is formed from a build up of edema. Edema is the yellowish fluid that builds up in the body after some sort of bruising trauma has occurred. Think of when you twist your knee and it swells up. This is from edema forming to insulate the area and protect it from further problems while it heals.

The same thing is happening in your scalp. After having thousands of tiny incisions made in your scalp the body starts to produce edema to protect itself. Some of this edema seeps out of the scalp, either through incisions or pores, and once it dries it creates a crusty by product. Sometimes this can completely cover the scalp and then when it cracks it can look like earthquake cracks in your scalp. What is even worse is that these cracks or rivulets as I call them are devoid of hair. Don’t worry, the grafts are still intact but the hair follicle was taken out when the crusties fell off. All is well and the area will fill in once the new hair begins to finally grow in four to six months.

This has nothing to do with hair loss obviously but I just saw the video of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the luge competitor from Georgia (the country, not the state) and the horrible crash that ended his life. It will be difficult to find for yourself online and I will not link to the video through here but if you do view the video do so at your own risk. I think I can safely say that he most likely did not suffer much, if at all.  I send my condolences to the family of Nodar Kumaritashvili and his 2010 Olympic luge teammates during this horrible time.

This interesting Wired article talks about a 4000 year old strand of hair that allowed scientists to sequence the oldest human genome yet. Among other characteristics such as hair color, eye color and skin color the genome sequencing allowed scientists to reveal that hair loss is not exclusive to only modern humans. There is an image included in the article showing what appears to be an “ancient” man with hair loss but it is not clear if the hair loss is representative of the hair loss information learned from the genome.

Ancient Man Not Immune to Hair Loss

About a year and a half ago I developed a scary case of dandruff. I say “scary” because it was the source of some quite large dandruff flakes and with many of the flakes a hair or two would be included. After several weeks of this my hair started to look a bit too thin for comfort. Considering how much has been invested in restoring my hair and of course my profession I became quite worried.

I tried about ten different shampoos including the requisite Nizoral and nothing worked for me. I then found this little beige bottle with the name Polytar AF on it and I gave it a shot. In two weeks flat my dandruff was gone and since then my hair has returned to it’s pre-dandruff state in that it is now thicker like it used to be.

I do not normally endorse products especially not shampoos but Polytar AF really did make a huge difference for me. After using it for quite a while now I think that dandruff could be

the cause for why some guys think they are thinning. Polytar AF may or may not work for you but I cannot recommend it enough since Polytar AF was the ONLY shampoo that knocked out my dandruff.

I have had a lot of guys ask  me where to get Polytar AF and I don’t think it is available outside of Canada. So, I looked around online and found a website that appears to be pretty legit and they have a fair price. You can see their logo around my website. The website is Well.ca. They do not sell prescription hair loss medications so don’t bother searching for them.

If you are having dandruff issues then I hope Polytar AF works as well for you as it did for me. The Polytar AF bottle lists other scalp conditions it treats but I am not familiar which ones they are.