Everything you want to know about procedures, clinical trials, medications, and more.
Cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy are known to save lives, but they also unfortunately are infamous for one of their side effects: hair loss. The FDA-approved drug minoxidil, which is approved to treat pattern hair loss when used topically and as a blood pressure reducer when used orally, is sometimes used off-label for cancer hair loss, too.
Black men and women often experience the most common type of hair loss: androgenic alopecia. However, hair loss may also be due to a number of other disorders, including central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia, traction alopecia, and pseudofolliculitis barbae. Some of these forms of hair loss can be resolved with lifestyle changes, while others require treatment with medications.
No hair loss treatment starts working immediately. This delay in effectiveness is well known, but it also comes with a less known side effect. In order for treatments to make new hairs grow, they have to push out old hairs first, causing hair shedding. When caused by a hair loss treatment like finasteride, this side effect is often called finasteride shedding.
Microneedling for hair growth has become increasingly popular. It's usually performed alongside another hair loss treatment, like platelet-rich plasma therapy, or after applying a topical product like minoxidil. Studies have shown that this procedure is helpful in combination with other hair loss treatment treatments, but using microneedling as a stand-alone treatment has still not been studied extensively.
