Does propecia/finasteride work for thinning hair at the front?
Propecia or finasteride works by inhibiting
an enzyme called 5 alpha reductase which converts testosterone to dihydrotestosterone or DHT.
If your hair loss is associated with a particular susceptibility of the hair follicles to DHT,
then you may benefit from finasteride. As far as the location of the scalp, its important
to understand that male pattern hair loss affects the whole scalp. There is variability
in the pattern at which hair thins such as with temporal recession and thinning of the
crown. There’s some confusion since a lot of men who have very aggressive frontal balding
often don’t respond to finasteride. Essentially, if your hair is responsive to finasteride,
you should benefit throughout the scalp including the front. In our practice, we’re seeing
many people from around the world who have tried finasteride and it didn’t work for
them as well as men who are afraid to take finasteride because of concerns of permanent
sexual dysfunction. We have been able to help these patients with a treatment called Hair
Regeneration. We developed hair regeneration using an advanced wound healing material called
extracellular matrix which we combine with your own concentrated healing growth factors
called platelet rich plasma. By developing customized formulations and methods to deliver
this formulation into the scalp we’ve been able to reverse hair thinning with a single
treatment session. 3-5 years of data from treating hundreds of patients from around
the world has allowed people to avoid taking medications daily and even avoid having hair
transplant surgery.