Introduction to Hair Loss and Dr. Nancy Echefu

Kerry Reller 0:28

All right. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kerry Reller. Today we have Dr. Nancy Echefu. Welcome to the podcast. Hopefully I did it right.

Nancy Echefu 0:40

Mebane, thank you.

Kerry Reller 0:42

Yeah, so today we're gonna talk about basically, a scenario. Have you ever looked down in the shower drain and thought, "Oh my gosh, I'm losing so much hair"? Maybe your ponytail feels thinner, your part seems wider, or you're starting to see more of your scalp than you used to. My forehead's getting a little bit bigger, I think. But this is where Dr. Nancy specializes in. So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Nancy Echefu 1:07

I am Dr. Nancy Echefu, a hair transplant physician. What I specialize in is in fixing your hair loss. That's what I specialize in. So I'm the owner of Havilah Hair Restoration. So Havilah Hair Restoration, from the name, we do all things hair restoration and aesthetics of hair. So we're in the business of beautifying your hair, making it beautiful. So the I call it a one-stop clinic or one-stop shop clinic. What do I mean by that is that whatever you need for your hair loss, we are going to fix it. We're gonna figure it out. So we do the heavy lifting. You only need to sit pretty in my seat while we figure it out

Kerry Reller 1:46

that's awesome. So you've had lots of, awards for some of your, I guess accolades in hair loss and restoration, which is very impressive. And also, you host an annual hair loss show, is that right, as

Nancy Echefu 1:59

Yeah, we do host an annual hair loss show. We haven't done it in two years now, but we host, try to host annual hair loss show. And the goal for the show is, like I said, is more to put the awareness out there what you can do. We do treatments when we sh- when we do the shows. We want people to ask questions. We want people to say, "Hey, this is Dr. Echefu. What are your questions? What is holding you back? What have you tried?" So that is the goal for the hair loss shows

Kerry Reller 2:25

Awesome. All right how did you get into this? How does one become a hair transplant physician?

Dr. Echefu’s Personal Hair Loss Journey

Nancy Echefu 2:30

It's funny how you asked the question. I just had this question recently. Someone asked me this question. So it's gonna be two parts. So my personal journey led me to this place. Like I was saying, emergency medicine dealt with hair loss because of the burnout, the stress. I was that physician that I changed my hairstyle every two weeks. I was that physician there was a lot of pulling, tugging, traction on my hair. I didn't recognize it because I was too tired to even think about my hair. All I wanted to do is to go to work, come back home, and sleep. That's all I wanted. But the problem is that the mirror you look at every day, the mirror in your bathroom will tell you the story. Once you take off that wig, and you look at yourself, you'll be like, "Damn, do I look this way? What? How did I change? I'm aging." But, so you need to take care of your hair, and your hair starts from your scalp. So most people just see the after effect of what has been going on with their scalp for a long time. So that's where it starts from. So my personal journey led me to Havilah Hair Restoration, so trying to figure out how c- how can I help myself? And what I tend to say is that you go to this clinic, and they offer you medical treatment. You go to this hair transplant clinic, they o- can only offer you hair transplant because that's only what they know what to do. But that is not the full picture when it comes to hair restoration. There's a regenerative therapy. That's where the PRP comes into play. There is medical treatment. There's surgical treatment, which is the hair transplant. Sometimes you don't even need all that. You might just need let's say people that just want to be bald. You might just need scalp micropigmentation, which is just a scalp tattoo. You tattoo on the scalp, makes it appear that you have hair, but you don't. So these are the things,

Kerry Reller 4:19

that one.

Nancy Echefu 4:20

That's what I'm saying. So these is... The- these are the things that we talk about when it's time for consultation. We need to meet you where you want your hair to be. We need to set realistic expectation. So that's what I say about Havilah Hair Restoration, that we meet you at your point of need, and we tell you what we think will be the best for you. 'Cause some people have come to me, they've been on medical treatment, they need more. That it's time to escalate their treatment. Some people have tried different things, serums, oils, and all this they sell online, and they come to me, and the first thing I tell them is, "Trash that." That's the first thing. You need to trash everything. Let's start all over again. So some people come with me with so many lab tests. I'm like, "I'm not chasing lab tests. I'm chasing my patient. I'm looking at your hair. How can I help you?" See? So that's the beauty of hair restoration.

Kerry Reller 5:14

Yeah, you mentioned, stress and burnout and things like that, and w- can you tell us a little bit why that might affect somebody's hair?

Nancy Echefu 5:23

Because

How Stress and Health Conditions Affect Hair

Nancy Echefu 5:23

with burnout, you don't really care as much. All you just want, you're just in survival mode. That's all you do. So even with your bo- even with your system, it's not even just about hair loss. Hair loss sometimes can be a symptom of what is going on with you. Some people have GI issue, they have diarrhea, constipation, and it can manifest in their hair loss. When you're having diarrhea, you're losing nutrients. You're deficient in something, and it can manifest with hair loss, so that's why we do the system review, what is going on. So stress is just a blanket statement, just a broad term, but if you really want to dig into stress, we have to look at the person's lifestyle

Kerry Reller 6:05

Absolutely. So if someone... how do they, how do you really know they're just actually losing hair? How do they know it's just not normal shedding? Is that maybe something probably before people come to you, but how can you kinda tell the difference just so someone can be on alert, for, to

Nancy Echefu 6:20

I can

Hair Thinning vs. Normal Shedding

Nancy Echefu 6:20

tell the difference is the person that tells me, "I used to have gorgeous hair two, three years ago. Now my hair is thin." So it starts from thinning. May- some people walk into the clinic and you'll be like, "Your hair looks good." But no, you can't say that because what? They used to have fuller hair than what we're looking at. So it's subjective. So what is that person telling you? That's why somebo- everybody's story is powerful. I need to listen to your story. How many, how, when did you notice it? How was your hair before? Some people bring pictures, So I can't tell you, "Oh, this is what you need to watch out for." You need to look out your, look at your symptoms, where you started from and where you are right now.

Kerry Reller 7:01

Yeah, so maybe th- they would have y- notice, right? Your, your more hair in

Nancy Echefu 7:06

People notice, yes. Like I,

Kerry Reller 7:08

thinner.

Nancy Echefu 7:08

yes

Kerry Reller 7:09

I said earlier the, the forehead gets bigger. Or,

Nancy Echefu 7:13

Yes. Yes

Kerry Reller 7:13

there also there's some cases where there's patches of hair missing

Nancy Echefu 7:17

They have patches of hair, like I said.

Kerry Reller 7:19

in clumps, right? It's

Nancy Echefu 7:21

Yes.

Kerry Reller 7:21

pretty

Nancy Echefu 7:22

Yes. Yes

Kerry Reller 7:23

Actually, I just had a patient who came to me, With that problem, and it was way more severe than I've seen, with the gra- more gradual hair loss. Big patches of hair loss. What I did, so you can tell me when I'm wrong here, 'cause I'm like there's gotta be something going on medically or deficient or, right? You mentioned d- nutritional deficiencies due to diarrhea or something like that. We did do some testing, but I also, probably gonna be referring her on to somebody who does something like you, and I think that maybe may happen. But so anyway, how do you how would you start with that? Do you even do any of the lab testing, or is this something that has already kinda been done, or is that something you guys do at all in your practice?

Nancy Echefu 8:06

So you're talking about if someone comes in with patches of hair loss? Is that what you're saying?

Kerry Reller 8:11

Oh, just in general. If,

Nancy Echefu 8:12

In general

Finding the Root Cause of Hair Loss

Kerry Reller 8:13

What are you recommending? How do you work

Nancy Echefu 8:15

Okay. So if you're dealing with hair loss or even hair thinning, the first thing is always to see a dermatologist. If you can't see a dermato- you can start with a a trichologist, which are people that specialize in scalp and you know, scalp specialist or hair specialist. So you can start with that. Then the most important thing is that you need to know the person's medical history, what is going on. We start with, like I said, we do our system review, what is going on, other medical conditions. Some people will have thyroid issues, and they don't know. People can have other autoimmune disease, they don't know. Some people can have metabolic syndrome, they don't know. We look at it. So you have to do a system review. So based on your review, you know what blood test you're gonna get. So going and just getting a random blood test Is not really going to help you. You still have to go through a system review. Most of my clients, I ask them to s- if they've had, if they have a primary care physician, I need them to send in the results if they've had a routine blo- lab test, so I can build on that, so I know where I'm starting from. So I'm not gonna go and start all over again, no. I'm building from where you stopped. How can I help you? Remember what I said, I need to look for, how can I help this person? Why are they having this? So that's what we do. Then we have to think about, do we need to have a biopsy? You take a sample of the scalp, send it off for the dermatopathologist to take a look at it and tell us, "Hey, what kind of hair loss is this?" Then all these are just testing that helps you to confirm what kind of hair loss this person is dealing with. These are the things we have to do. So it's not as easy as this is the kind of hair loss they're having. They might have four or five things going on with them that's causing their hair loss. So that's why it's dangerous to just say, "This is the kind of hair loss you're dealing with." And that's why when my clients come in every other month or every three months, whichever one, they might be dealing with a different kind of hair loss each time they come in

Kerry Reller 10:14

That makes it complicated.

Nancy Echefu 10:16

That's why I said that hair restoration is not as easy as people make it seem, and that's why it's dangerous when people say, "Use this oil. This oil grew my hair. This serum grew my hair." No, because you might not be dealing with the same thing that person you're looking at is dealing with

Kerry Reller 10:31

Yeah, k- from the primary m- prime... From the primary care perspective, I can't talk today some of those like things you mentioned, like I may already know. I'm definitely gonna know their metabolic health maybe probably have tested the thyroid at some point as well, and maybe I haven't done autoimmune, workup or anything like that, so we did talk about those things. But, when we talk about, I usually am at least looking for some deficiency and, a- and in this case that I'm talking about, this person is, very thin and sometimes underweight, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was something like that. But, it's important, like you said, to get that whole full picture of what could be going on because like you said, there's multiple etiologies or reasons why someone might be having hair loss. So we that pretty thoroughly. I think that it's very nice to, be able to refer to someone, like you said. I think you mentioned saying go to, you said der- go to dermatology, right? And get like a full workup and maybe a biopsy, which, that's basically what I had told her is we will probably need to be sending you to dermatology if not, right away. I did basically say, "You're going to dermatology. Let's just get these labs

Nancy Echefu 11:33

That's right.

Kerry Reller 11:34

Anyway it will be a challenge. You know why? Because the insurance that she has is gonna be a difficult one for us. But anyway, so yeah, you mentioned and then we talked about you mentioned earlier I think may- maybe when we were recording about some medications associated with hair loss. So not just the review of systems, but also the review of the medication history as well, and I think what you, one of the ones you particularly mentioned was that GLP and a lot of people think that they're losing their hair because of, taking this medication. I don't know, what has been your experience with that or how would you like to answer th- that

Nancy Echefu 12:08

half

GLP-1 Medications, Weight Loss, and Hair Shedding

Nancy Echefu 12:08

of the women that come to my clinic are on GLP-1 medication. So it's really like I said, there might be a lot of reason why someone is losing hair. So I don't focus on the GLP-1 medication. The education should be how much weight loss are you losing per week? How is your protein intake? So I don't focus more on the GLP-1, especially if they've been on it for one year, two years. I don't focus on that because what? You're gonna become biased and focused on that GLP-1. So you have to, like I said, take a look at the whole picture. Are they having diarrhea? You need to, like I said, draw those blood tests based on their symptoms, based on your history, what you're seeing. So I don't focus on GLP-1 because it's a good medication for weight loss, but you have to safely use it, and that is where the education, like I said, comes into play

Kerry Reller 13:01

Yeah, that's the same thing we do, in our practice too I usually am trying to re- let them realize that anybody who is losing weight has that risk of using-- of losing hair. It's not necessarily related to the medication. We don't know. But it is, it's certainly possible. And like you said, making sure the protein is right and all the nutritional things. That's the same discussion that we do have with that as well. But there-- I know there are some people who have actually stopped it because they say their hair loss is so bad from that. But they are always looking for the quick fix. Yeah

Nancy Echefu 13:32

me tell you the trick. When you're using GLP-1, when is the expected timeframe for you to use it? Three to six months. Anything more than six months is not a GLP-1 medication. You actually have androgenic hair loss That is it. So anything, remember anything more than six months is not your GLP-1 medication

Kerry Reller 13:55

That's good to know. I didn't really realize the timing or anything like that because

Nancy Echefu 14:00

Because it causes hair shedding

Kerry Reller 14:01

lose the most weight or have that most stressor on the body is typically how we,

Nancy Echefu 14:07

Mhm. Mhm. Mhm

Kerry Reller 14:09

that's that's good to know. Yeah. So

Nancy Echefu 14:12

yeah

Kerry Reller 14:12

that's good 'cause you don't discourage them from taking a medication that

Nancy Echefu 14:15

I don't. No

Kerry Reller 14:16

benefiting them for cardiovascular reasons, liver reasons, obviously weight reasons, right? Yeah. So you mentioned earlier, there are some things... this is like a billion-dollar industry, right? The supplements that you can buy for hair loss, and I feel like they've had a big boom even in it with these GLP-1s and more people losing weight, and

Nancy Echefu 14:38

Molekule

Kerry Reller 14:38

said, "Throw everything away." So is there anything that actually helps for hair loss, or is it all marketing?

Hair Supplements, Minoxidil, and Treatment Options

Nancy Echefu 14:45

I said hair loss is just saying hair loss is... That's why to give an advi- to give advice like, "This is what is going to help," is that, and that's where people get deceived. You have to have a diagnosis. Hair loss, alopecia is just alopecia. What type of hair loss are you dealing with? So That's why it's important. Just like you saying diabetes, "I have diabetes." What type of diabetes do you have? Type 1, type 2? What do you have? So treatment is different. So that's why it's important. I said you need to go have a proper scalp and hair evaluation. Based on what you have, start with the medical treatment. So if you have androgenetic hair loss, you can start with minoxidil. See?

Kerry Reller 15:27

don't you go through the different types so that they can be

Nancy Echefu 15:30

Okay.

Kerry Reller 15:30

clear?

Nancy Echefu 15:31

So the way I look at it is that do you have baldness? Do you have thin hair? So if you have baldness, if you are bald or just an area, like your front area is gone, like your hairline, you probably might need a hair transplant because a hair transplant will construct that hairline for you. Your native hair, the other hair you have, so that you don't have progressive hair loss, you need to support that hair. So that's where the minoxidil will help to supply increased blood flow. 'Cause you want-- 'cause the problem with hair is that hair is in cycles. We have the growth phase, then we have the transition to the shedding phase. This is where the medications cause your hair shedding. So your goal is to always keep your hair in growth phase, so that minoxidil will help, now we're talking about the hormonal issues. That's where the androgens come into play. That's where people use the finasteride. So you wanna block that is causing you to, for your hair, for you to have hair loss. So these are the ways you need to look at it. So we have the minoxidil, we have the finasteride. Now we have the androgen receptor blockers, which is when people now use so everything also, you have to also think about, is the person perimenopause, premenopause, menopause? treatments are different. Now you also wanna talk about regenerative therapy. That means what? You want to regenerate the hair. You want it to grow. You want that cycle, that hair cy- you want that hair to grow, to make more hair, so that's where your PRP grows it because your PRP has those growth factors, now, when people complain about minoxidil, why is your minoxidil not working with them? You might be using too little dose. That means here using the 2%, it's time to go to the 5%. You Might need microneedling. Microneedling is like making the concept of, you know, making sure that minoxidil is absorbed. Now, that minoxidil is also a prodrug-

Kerry Reller 17:26

minoxidil

Nancy Echefu 17:27

Yeah, topic, we're talking about topical minoxidil. Sometimes the topical minoxidil, do you need to go to oral minoxidil because you're not compliant with the topical minoxidil, especially for us ladies that are busy, that don't have time to wait, we can just start with your-- You can just say, "Okay, let me just go ahead and do oral minoxidil." Why the history, your schedule, everything about you is very important to me to know the best thing to start you on. See? So if your minoxidil, topical minoxidil, when people complain that it's burning, that means that you might be using the liquid one, we need to go to the foam because what? You're having allergic, or irritant contact dermatitis. So it depends. Everything depends on the situation, what you present with. Have you tried minoxidil before? Did it work for you? Why did you stop using it? Do we need to add finasteride? Do we need to add spironolactone? Do we need to do PRP? Do we need to do microneedling? So we need to know all this. Some people don't like needles, and that's why we also have our TED hair restoration. It's an ultrasound-based machine. We just make use of vibration to push in the medication into your scalp. So when people don't like needles, when people have these vasovagal issues when they're, when you're doing blood draw, so you might think about that TED hair restoration

Kerry Reller 18:45

Interesting

Nancy Echefu 18:45

all different treatment. Now, some people, I always give my clients expectation. Now, they've been dealing with hair loss for 10 years. My-- I'll tell them, "Hey, my goal is to get you to a 60%. I can't guarantee 100% because you've been dealing with this for 10 years, and probably we might never be able to get to 200%." So now they understand that, hey, my hair might probably grow to 60%. Now, if it grows to 80%, I'm happy, we're happy. If it's at 60%, at least they have a, an expectation. This is where I've told them that we're going to get it to. Now, once we get to that 60%, sometimes they might still need-- see patches of hair loss on their scalp, and they said, "Hey, Dr. Chafu, I don't like the way my scalp is shining." That's why we do the scalp tattoo to cover all those shiny bald spot, so these are the process, how we go through. So my clients actually have to have clients for two years, three years. We have some different treatments going on. They have to be on maintenance, therapy. So there are so many things how we help our clients. So everyone is not the same. Some people come in, like I told you, bald, and they just want-- they like their bald look. They just want the scalp tattoo, which is scalp micropigmentation. So I'm like, "Okay, you got it, as long as you understand it's not a hair loss treatment. It's a scalp coverage treatment." That's different. So everybody has different expectations, so we have to meet them and help them understand what type of hair loss they are dealing with, how we can help them, how we can treat them, and give them a like I said, an expectation what to expect with the treatment.

Microneedling, Oral Minoxidil, and PRP

Kerry Reller 20:20

It was very interesting with the microneedling. So you said that you could be using topical minoxidil and that can... Using microneedling with it can make the minoxidil more effective essentially?

Nancy Echefu 20:31

effective. Yes, helps with absorption of the minoxidil. Also, sulfur transferase, which is an enzyme that helps to convert the micro-- the minoxidil from a prodrug to an active form, minoxidil sulfate, microneedling can help with activation of that enzyme.

Kerry Reller 20:50

Does

Nancy Echefu 20:50

So

Kerry Reller 20:51

Work faster too?

Nancy Echefu 20:52

it's not like it makes it work faster, it's just that you have more product in the system. Okay?

Kerry Reller 20:58

But

Nancy Echefu 20:58

So we have...

Kerry Reller 20:59

is it as good as taking oral minoxidil?

Nancy Echefu 21:02

Taking oral minoxidil is al-always the best, to start taking oral minoxidil. But these are w-when people don't like oral medication, some of the clients that come in will say I don't have any medication. I don't take any medication. I don't want to. I don't want to," so we start on topical minoxidil. Sometimes if we take the minoxidil for a couple of months and it's not working, either we'll go up on the dose or we add microneedling, or we say, "Okay how, what more do we need to add to make sure that minoxidil..." We look at the time they're using the minoxidil, daytime versus, night, when they're using it, how much are they using? Is it actually getting on your scalp or on your hair? So we need to know all those things, so that's very important. When you just say, "I've been using this medication, it's not working," no, we need to dissect the meaning of it's not working. What do you mean it's not working? How are you using it? What dose? You might need to go up on the 5% now, the 5% order of preference, I prefer oral minoxidil. But like I said, some people want to start with topical, so I'm not opposed to that too

Kerry Reller 22:08

Yeah. Tell me about... So you tell our listeners about the PRP and why that's helpful and how you use

Nancy Echefu 22:14

Okay. It's not a-- Like I said, every case is different kinds of hair loss. The issue with PR... The, the PRP have been proven to help with androgenic hair loss, okay? So for women dealing with hair loss, we can use PRP. PRP has those growth factors that we need. There's vascular endothelial growth factors that we need. Remember I was telling you about the cycles of the hair. We have the growth, the transition, then to the shedding, resting, that will cause shedding. So we want to keep the hair in that growth phase.

Kerry Reller 22:52

So do you inject it into the scalp? Like the, PRP, platelet-rich plasma

Nancy Echefu 22:56

yes, we inj- we can inject, yes.

Kerry Reller 22:57

growth

Nancy Echefu 22:57

Yes, thank you. Thank you.

Kerry Reller 22:59

to

Nancy Echefu 23:00

Yeah, so we inj- so some people inject into the scalp. We can also use it together with microneedling

Kerry Reller 23:08

Ah, okay. Cool

Nancy Echefu 23:09

So the goal is to make sure it gets to where you need it to be. So we inject, we can use with microneedling, and you will get a good result. And remember, it's not just a one-time treatment. You have to do it monthly for at least three to four treatments. Then you have to have a maintenance treatment, like every six months. So whatever... One thing I want people to know is that whatever you use for hair loss, you have to continue using it. You can't just stop. Because if you stop, that's when your hair loss, after a couple of months, the hair shedding, like I was telling you, when people talk about GLP-1 making them lose their hair, it's the same concept. After three months, you have to start having hair shedding. That medication is no longer working, 'cause you stopped taking it

Kerry Reller 23:55

So you haven't mentioned collagen yet, but tell me all about that

Nancy Echefu 24:00

I don't use collagen. Remember we have to go with evidence-based medicine first, then every other thing like PRP is microneedling, all that are regenerative therapies. But are they FDA approved? That's a different topic for another day. See? So that's why collagen, what is the goal of the collagen? Are you talking about collagen for the hair? Or collagen... No. So I really don't,

Kerry Reller 24:25

no, collagen people think that they need to take collagen supplements. Some of the online brands

Nancy Echefu 24:30

there's no studies that... There are no studies that have shown that collagen has helped with hair growth. So I can't really talk too much about collagen 'cause I don't use it. I don't subscribe to that. Like I said, people take a lot of things, but is it going to help with your hair loss? No

Kerry Reller 24:47

So tell us when is a patient ready for a hair transplant?

Hair Transplants and Different Types of Hair Loss

Nancy Echefu 24:52

so I always give this analogy that everybody's different. When a, I have a, a man that comes into my clinic, they are always ready for a hair transplant right at that moment. But for women

Kerry Reller 25:07

yeah

Nancy Echefu 25:08

I have to go through A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. I have to go through all, everything before the person meets my criteria for a hair transplant. So for men, sometimes they've all already been on minoxidil and finasteride Then they're like, "Hey, doc, I still need my hairline. I still need that hairline." So I ha-- like I said, the hair the hair transplant will help you fix that hairline. We will reconstruct, help you give you a good hairline. But for women, we have to figure out what is going on. Any autoimmune disease, any other thing going on before we say, "Hey, you can go for a hair transplant." Now, there are other women that have come to my clinic, and they've been seeing other places too. They've already been on medication, and they've been referred for hair transplant. And

Kerry Reller 25:57

hmm

Nancy Echefu 25:57

when they come in, I always tell them, "You are not yet a candidate for hair transplant." Because sometimes they might have scarring alopecia that has some inflammation that is not under control. So doing a hair transplant is actually doing a disservice to the person. So I'm quick to say no than yes. So I say a lot of no. I always say no than yes. So it depends on who walks into my clinic And where are they at now?

Kerry Reller 26:23

Yeah, It makes sense with what you're saying with the men ready to go. But do you have I guess with different types of hair loss and hair types, is there a certain one that's more common, what is the most common thing that you see? I probably

Nancy Echefu 26:36

almost everyone that walks

Kerry Reller 26:37

or women. Women,

Nancy Echefu 26:38

almost everyone that walks into the office has androgenic hair loss. That's almost like 70% of people that walk in, androgenic hair loss. But now, when you're having hair shedding, it makes your hair loss worse. You-- Like I said, it starts from ha-hair thinning. Then let's say now you're trying to lose weight, you start on GLP-1 medication, and you're not eating, you're losing a lot of weight, or you are just starting on medication for something else, see? Or there's stress that will cause hair shedding, that will make your hair loss more obvious.

Kerry Reller 27:14

I g- could you define androgenic hair loss for me,

Nancy Echefu 27:17

So androgenic hair loss from the name is androgen, which is where the testosterone, the DHT, that's the androgen. Then the genetic part is coming from your mom either your mom or your dad's side, but most especially your mom's side. If someone in your family has lost their hair, probably that's going to be so your hair follicle is susceptible to hair loss, those androgens. So that's what the meaning of androgenetic hair loss.

Kerry Reller 27:43

Okay. What if a patient came in and said "My ponytail is half as thick as it used to be," what's your first thought? Where would you start?

Nancy Echefu 27:52

We start with traction. I tell you, stop doing whatever you're doing. Like I told you, the first step with me is that you have to stop everything. Trash it. We need to purge your system of everything you've been doing. You need to change your mindset. So that ponytail that's looking very skinny, let's stop what we're doing first. Now, they can have traction alopecia in addition to androgenetic hair loss, both. So we need to address those two issues

Kerry Reller 28:22

So you're gonna look at me and tell me, "Get your hair bun out of there." And that's what my hairdresser said, "Stop using the hair bands and stop putting your hair up."

Nancy Echefu 28:32

So what I always say is that it's okay to put your hair in style, different styles and all that, but avoid any pressure, tension. If there's pressure, if there's tension, if there's pulling, if there's tugging, it's going to be a problem. So if you remember that concept, it's easy if your bun is too tight if it's too tight, it's gonna cause retraction on the patient

Kerry Reller 28:55

Okay. So what if a woman has been taking extensive hair supplements for a year, but her part kinda keeps getting wider? What would she do next?

Nancy Echefu 29:05

There are different treatments for hair loss. You're not on a treatment for hair loss. Supplements are not treatments for hair loss, so that is nothing to me.

Kerry Reller 29:13

To

Nancy Echefu 29:13

So you're not in, you're not on treatments.

Kerry Reller 29:15

treatment

Nancy Echefu 29:16

You need to be in medical treatment or surgical treatment or regenerative therapy. So which one? If you haven't tried any of this, you haven't started

Kerry Reller 29:24

Yeah, and honestly, the amount of money that they spend on these products and things like that, it could be invested into something that's actually going to work it sounds

Nancy Echefu 29:33

I tell people that if you think about how much stuff you've used in past, past 10 years, you probably just use the money and just get a hair transplant or just,

Kerry Reller 29:42

Ja.

Nancy Echefu 29:42

something. If

Kerry Reller 29:44

yeah

Nancy Echefu 29:44

you think about it your house is full of junk, all those vitamins, everything. If you think about it, probably would have used the money and bring it to me at Havila. I'll take care of your hair.

Kerry Reller 29:54

What do you think is the biggest mistake that you see people make when they first notice hair loss?

Nancy Echefu 29:59

I try to follow everybody's advice. The same way that your blood pressure is high and you let- be like, "Okay, I think it is high because I'm stressed out today." No, it's not. You might have hypertension. It's the same, it's the same way with hair loss. When you follow everybody's advice, try this. Blend this 100 seeds and rub it on your hair, on your scalp. Try this. No, don't try. Just go see a dermatologist. Just go. Just go make the appointment. Like I said, you can start with a trichologist in your area

Kerry Reller 30:30

So what is something that people assume about hair loss that simply isn't true? You may have

Common Hair Loss Myths and Final Takeaways

Kerry Reller 30:35

already said this

Nancy Echefu 30:36

It isn't true is that every hair loss is the same, and women can get a hair transplant. And if you're a busy profe- you're not, yeah. If you're a busy professional, you can get a hair transplant, and you will be able to go back to work. So you don't have to take two, three weeks downtime. No, you will go straight back to work. So there are different kinds of hair transplant we can do for people that are busy. We have, even if you're having your wedding next week, we can still do a hair transplant

Kerry Reller 31:05

Wow

Nancy Echefu 31:05

you out. We do eyebrow transplant. We do eyelash transplant. We do mustache, beards facial transplants. So we do all that. As long as we are looking for hair, we'll fix it

Kerry Reller 31:18

In case a listener, when we think about transplants, some people think about immunosuppressive drugs. Is that something that's required for a hair transplant?

Nancy Echefu 31:28

No, definitely no. No, please

Kerry Reller 31:30

Just wanna make sure that's understood by anybody listening. Okay.

Nancy Echefu 31:35

it's not,

Kerry Reller 31:36

Good. Anything else that you'd like to share or add to our discussion today? It's been a lot of fun

Nancy Echefu 31:42

Every, everything is possible. Regrowing your hair is possible. I've had 65-year-old, 75 years old regrow their hair. Think it's not possible to regrow your hair. But when you understand that there are options, you want to you take the appropriate step. What do I mean by that, is that there are so, there have been so much misinformation, but I'm here to say that regrowing your hair is possible through medical treatment, surgical treatment, which is hair transplant, regenerative treatment. And don't buy into the hype of vitamins, of this grew my hair, this grew my No, it did not. One simple trick is even if you stop every bad hairstyles, like all the pulling and tugging, your hair will grow. I promise you. So these are the lies that we've been sold, that you can d- do a DY- is it DIY at home and fix your hair? You cannot. You cannot.

Kerry Reller 32:42

It's funny 'cause you mentioned all these things that you're being sold and I don't know, when you look up something or after this discussion, I'm sure I'll even see more posts on Facebook or something that will say hair restoration or something like that. We see a lot of these products and there's one interesting, that keeps coming up on my feed lately and it's, I think of more about the scalp stuff and I don't really know what it does 'cause they don't tell you. But it's scary just 'cause they're marketing to everybody and, in, in truth, like you said, you need to see a dermatologist and, get a full evaluation and then be sent to someone like yourself if that's needed. But a lot of misinformation out there so hopefully this episode will kinda dispel some of those myths and save some people money and put it in the right direction hopefully. But Where can people find you if they wanna learn more about you, follow you, or work with you?

Nancy Echefu 33:34

So we're online, Instagram, TikTok, name Havilah Hair Restoration. You can type and look for Dr. Echefu, and you will see me blabbing online. And on YouTube, Dr. Echefu. TikTok, Dr. Echefu. Facebook, Havilah Hair Restoration. We're in Peachtree City, Georgia, and we do seven days a week free virtual consultation. When seven days a week, we are out to help people. It's a commitment, so I don't want you to say, "I'm busy on the weekdays." You have the weekends. If you say you're busy on the weekends, you have the weekdays. If you say you're busy in the morning, we have the evenings. So we help people seven days a week. So make that appointment so that somebody from my team will get in touch with to talk to you and find out how we can help you. Then the next step is to see if you need to come in for a full, examination, full physical from head to toe. We are going through everything. We do one hour, 30 minutes consultation, so it is extensive. And we're not just a regular clinic that just say, "We draw the blood test and send you away." No. Sometimes you don't need a blood test. We need to talk to someone that understands. They have been through it. They understand where to start from to help you. We meet you where we meet you where you've stopped, basically. We want to help you, guide you, to help you on your journey of hair regrowth. You can also go to my website. I have hair regrowth journal if you want to, if you want to do it at home. It's almost like having a hair coach at home. So go to my website, download it. I have one for menopausal women. I have one for just, just a regular hair loss journal. It goes from January, February, March, April, what treatment you've used, and you can score yourself from one, zero to 10. Has it helped you? Has it not helped you? So when you're coming in for a consultation, you can bring that journal, say, "Hey, Dr. Echefu, I followed your advice. This is what I did. This is where I stopped. This is what I've used." It can help me build on where, what you've already done. So it's so easy now. So if you decide not to do anything, your hair loss is gonna get worse by next month, by next two months. So do something. We're here for you

Kerry Reller 35:45

That's really interesting that you made a journal, and I think it's really appropriate 'cause, this is not something that's fixed overnight. It takes, like you said, the, the life cycle of the hair follicle, usually it's three months, that it, it can take a while. So keeping a, a journal like that and showing what you've done or not done or whatever can make a big difference, I think, in really identifying what's going on and what has helped or not helped and things like that. So I think that's a, a great idea and a great resource. We'll put all that in our show notes as well. I think obviously the biggest takeaway from this conversation is that hair loss isn't one diagnosis. There's many different types, many reasons. If someone starts losing their hair, you need to be figuring out what's causing it is an important thing, and not just spending money on lots of supplements and products or procedures, and finding, the right person to help you evaluate it. That is what you agree with, what your summary is, right? Yeah.

Nancy Echefu 36:35

That's right, yeah

Kerry Reller 36:35

Awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us on Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. And everybody stay tuned next week for next week's episode.

Nancy Echefu 36:44

Thank you.

Kerry Reller 36:44

Thank you

Nancy Echefu 36:45

Bye-bye. Thank you

Kerry Reller 36:47

All right.