Minoxidil once used needs to be used life time?

Hair is an unusual organ. Every 3-4 months it automatically goes in a sleeping or resting phase. This hair should naturally come back to growth phase.However, due to influence of various factors the follicles continue to remain sleeping, stop producing hair and then finally become dead leaving behind a bald area. Gradually more and more follicles are affected leading to progressive baldness. Minoxidill wonderfully stimulates the follicles to remain in the growth phase, with external application and very low concentration of 2-5%. Not only minoxidil but any mode of stimulation will have to be used continuously for a sustained effect. LLLT laser, peptides, capaxil, meso injections, growth factors, PRP, all are effective only until they provide the support. Hair loss is not a disease like cough, cold, fever that can be treated with a cure. Hair loss is a slow down or failure of the natural body systems. Hair loss management is a care program to achieve good growth. As long as we take care the hair growth is excellent, if we do not continue to care the hair growth gradually becomes weak again.

Introduction: Hair transplant is a common cosmetic surgical procedure. Finer and newer techniques are coming up very often. We have developed this (suction assisted hair implantation) technique mainly to avoid post-surgical dermal cysts formation due to hypodermic needle prick and to get bloodless operative field

Materials& methods:

752 clients underwent suction assisted hair implantation procedure for past 5 years. Around 744 were males and 8 were females with age group ranging from 23 to 55 yrs. inserting the hair grafts by Suction Assisted Implantation made the procedure faster, safer and easier

Harvesting was done by

1: Follicular unit transplant (FUT)

Or

2: Follicular unit extraction (FUE)

For inserting grafts, we used 19 – 21 gauge hypodermic needles to make holes and to insert the grafts. For easy insertion of the graft we used suction negative pressure. The needle was attached to a 14 size suction catheter which in turn was attached to a suction machine which produces a mild vacuum suction pressure (approximately 40 – 80mm of hg).The suction power sucks out the  blood making the field clear for easy visualization of the hole. It also removes the skin debris produced during piercing. The negative suction easily guides the graft to get into the hole during insertion

RESULTS

By this technique the epidermal cyst formation was almost totally prevented and we were able to do the procedure in a bloodless field with easy insertion of the grafts

Conclusion:

1: The suction sucks out the dermal skin debris produced by the piercing of the skin with hypo dermic needles, and hence avoids the formation of dermal inclusion cysts.

2: Sucks out the oozing blood and hence produces clear field for easy insertion.

3: The suction negative pressure automatically guides the hair graft to enter into the hole easily without much manipulation and hence faster surgery can be done

Vertex area is the most difficult area to treat and nearly always the least important area to transplant.

Vertex transplant is indicated in following cases

1. Above 40 years
2. Abundant donor reserves
3. No family history of Norwood V,VI,VII baldness

I personally delay treatment of vertex as long as possible. Initially first I start with medical treatment

This classification mainly helps in a simple way to define accurate
treatment for hair loss.
Grade I – No Treatment Required.
Grade II – Mostly dealt with medical treatment.
Grade III, IV, V– Requires Hair Transplant with medical treatment.

Grade VI – Relative contraindication for hair transplant.
Grade VII – Absolute contraindication for hair transplant.