Many men start losing their hair as young as in their 20’s. It often causes embarrassment, lack of self- esteem and a feeling that you look much older than your age. There are over the counter hair treatments, but they are messy and you have to continue for life. Hair transplants are painful and very expensive, the classic toupee is certainly not an option. So, many men were left to wear baseball caps and perhaps use the hair powders to try to cover the bald areas. None of the above are solutions for most men.
Our editors read about Dr. Ray Nettles the inventor of the first treatment for androgenic alopecia that can support its success claim with a money back guarantee.
At a young age, he saw his father, then older brothers’ hair get thin then go bald. He knew this was in his future as well, so he started to research genetic inheritance patterns and DNA which led to medical school followed by specialized training in all facets of hair restoration, including working alongside pioneers of the FUE method.
He soon realized that transplants do not stop the progress of hair loss and had an AHA moment when discovering that just as we now understand the good and bad types of cholesterol, so testosterone also has good and bad components and that the ratio between them would lead to his ultimate discovery of precision medicine.
After more than 25 years of research and clinical treatment, Dr Nettles has discovered that not only is every person unique, but the contributing factors to their hair thinning can also be unique. As a result, he developed a comprehensive set of lab panels to understand not only the factors contributing to your hair loss, but that also impact your overall health and well-being.
We were anxious to learn more and thank Dr. Nettles for the informative Q and A below
Dr. Nettles, can you share some information about your background?
I realized when I was very young that I was different from other kids. My mother always told me that God gave me to her as a special gift and that I was given to her to help the people of the world. It wasn’t long before I noticed that first my father and then older brothers were losing their hair. I saw that it made them unhappy. I wanted to help. In high school I started studying genetic engineering and wrote a thesis on genetic inheritance as I saw it passed down from my father to his sons (including me as I got older). I then went to medical school and became a doctor, after which I became a hair transplant surgeon, because at the time, that was really the only way to treat hair loss. I quickly discovered however that a transplant does not stop the ongoing hair loss and that most people if they do nothing else will require at least 5 transplants before they run out of donor hair and have to shave their heads anyway.
One thing that did happen while I was a transplant surgeon that helped me to create my treatment was the opportunity to take a fellowship in retinal vitriol surgery. I wanted to hone my very precise surgical skills for the introduction of the FUE single hair transplant method that was the hot new thing in transplant surgery at that time. What I observed there though would make a big impact. I’m not sure if you know this, but Glaucoma generally affects people in only one eye, and I noticed that many of my glaucoma patients would stop using their eye drops because it was growing the eyelashes of that eye really long and fast and it looked weird to them because it was only on one eye. Aha I thought, perhaps this could also grow hair. I did in fact go on to study that group of medicines to find one that would grow hair. I still use that same ingredient – Latanoprost in my formula today.
One thing to note though, is that while latanoprost will grow hair really well, it does not stop the underlying cause of hair loss. And anything in fact that only grows hair is the same. Depending on how strong the growth factors are it could be like taking 1 step forward and 2 back (in the case of latanoprost) or like Rogaine which is a much weaker hair growth stimulant it could be 1 step forward and 3 steps back or like the laser comb for example 1 step forward and 4 or 5 steps back as the underlying cause of your hair loss is stronger than the regrowth stimulant you are pitching against it. So, I kept on studying and researching.
I was lucky to have the opportunity to practice medicine in many fields and to have a steady stream of hair transplant patients willing to participate in my experiments. I am an MD, I was a hair transplant surgeon, besides Ophthalmology I have also worked in dermatology and endocrinology. I studied Botany, Biochemistry and Genetics. I consider myself more of a scientist than a Dr actually. And then a few years ago I also got my Masters in Human Behavior. I wanted to understand more about how people think, why they do the things they do and how to motivate them to make the changes to their diet and lifestyle in some cases needed to ensure successful hair regrowth.
What was very interesting to me was that people were not asking why to get to the real underlying root cause that makes hair loss happen. All the current available treatments treat the symptoms and not the underlying cause of hair loss. That’s why they don’t work effectively. Also, both Propecia and Rogaine the 2 most common treatments weren’t even created specifically to treat hair loss, hair regrowth was discovered as a side effect for some people using those medications for their original purpose.
I continued my research and study. Luckily there was a pretty recent medical invention that helped me: X-Ray Crystallography. X-Ray Crystallography enabled me to see the shapes of the pico-sized enzymes within our blood, and to see that some of them have minute defects. Defects which cause us to produce our hormones in an un-balanced way. When our hormones are out of balance, we get side effects, not just hair loss, but also things like fatigue, low metabolism, loss of libido, anxiety, depression, inability to build muscle or lose weight easily, and more.
What I also was able to see with X-Ray Crystallography is the shapes of the ingredients needed to precisely fit the defective enzymes and repair them.
Why did you choose to specialize in hair regrowth?
Actually, I didn’t choose it, it chose me. I’ve spent the last 30 plus years researching and studying and trialing different things first on myself and then on my transplant patients until I didn’t need to do transplants anymore. My last transplant was in 2013, since then I’ve been successfully re-growing hair. By 2016 it became so successful I was able to introduce my money back smile guarantee. The way that works is that if after 12 months of using the program as directed you don’t have more hair than when you started you are eligible for your money back.
Please share your process on how a patient begins treatment? Non -surgical interventions?
The first and most important part for anyone looking to regrow their hair is our comprehensive 2-part assessment. What I found is that there is not just one cause of hair loss. Sure, there are a couple of enzymes which can carry inherited defects that need to be repaired, but each person could have a different percentage of enzymes and different enzymes with defects. There are also other factors involved too. Stress and other lifestyle factors can cause hair loss, and nutrition in particular plays a very big role. What I found is that the human body is literally made of the food that we eat. Digested and then rebuilt into us. Each one of us chooses the food we put in our mouths each day. Buts it’s our genetics, or the recipes we inherit from our parents that convert that food into us. Sometimes those recipes may be off just a little but that can make a big difference to how our bodies operate and how we feel. Luckily now using X-Ray Crystallography I was able to see how this works and now I can make tweaks to those recipes by repairing defective enzymes to get everything back on track. I can also see using comprehensive lab tests how what you’re eating is working for you. Is it helping your body or harming it? Are you destined to poor health when you are older because of the food you eat?
At Stop and Regrow, not only are we re-growing hair, but also reducing risk of cancer, preventing diabetes and heart disease, reducing osteoporosis, reducing anxiety and depression, improving libido, metabolism and most of all confidence. Our clients are so happy and confident and have a new lease on life.
The comprehensive assessment begins with a review of the client’s medical and health history. We’ll also take macro pictures and if they are able to come into the office, we use a powerful microscope to look at their scalp and hair follicles magnified over 1000 times so we can really see what’s going on. If they are not in LA and now also during the safer-at-home orders, we see our clients virtually. We already do this for our international clients which are spread across 6 continents around the world.
Another very important part of the initial assessment is the lab tests we need to see what’s happening on the inside. The comprehensive set of 10 panels I created to give me all the information I need on both the genetic and nutritional components that affect our hair health I named the Biochemical Report Card. It includes all the biomarkers which I found contribute to hair loss. Using that information, I can create personalized precision formulas to treat the problem both topically and orally plus also include nutritional guidance and recommendations as well as stress management practice and support too.
How long after treatment begins do most men see new hair growth?
I prefer to give worst case examples and then do better. So, our worst-case benchmark is that the hair loss stops getting worse by 6 months after they begin the program. By 12 months they should be able to easily see themselves noticeable hair regrowth. For women this can take longer as the stress and sometimes nutritional components have a bigger impact on women’s hair and scalp. However, I do have plenty of both men and women that start to see hair growth even well before the 6-month mark.
Will patients see significant hair growth?
The answer is yes. So long as they have active live follicles then we can regrow them to full thick healthy hairs again. How long that takes has many factors involved, both psychological and nutritional. The supplement I give them always repairs the inherited enzyme defects for them, but I can’t control when and what they eat or whether they are able to or want to manage their stress (if stress is a problem) and both those components can slow down their progress significantly.
https://www.stopandregrow.com/biochemical-report-card
Do they need to continue with treatment for life in order to keep the hair they regrew?
Let me start by asking you a question: Do you need to clean your teeth every day to prevent cavities? Do you need to go to the gym on a regular basis to maintain muscle?
We all produce the enzymes in our body every day. Some of us create enzymes that are defective because of the recipes or genes we inherited from our parents. We therefore produce new defective enzymes every day. To repair these, current technology requires us to take a supplement every day that repairs those enzymes as they are produced. I hope that one day in future I can create something that doesn’t have to be taken every day, perhaps in future we can fix the genes themselves or I can give an injection that lasts for 3 months or we can use a skin delivery patch or something else. But I’m not quite there yet. So currently it is a supplement in a very small capsule, but while they are in the hair stopping and regrowth phases there is also a topical solution applied to the scalp once per night to help speed up the hair regrowth process.
Are your methods of hair growth natural or with specific meds?
The hair regrowth itself is natural, i.e.: it’s your own hair that regrows from your own follicles in their original natural position on the scalp. The program is personalized to each person based on the results of their comprehensive assessment and their biochemical report card. Each person’s ingredients and dosing and program components can be different. This is one of the biggest reasons why big pharma hasn’t invested in finding a solution. They have realized that it’s not a one size fits all solution. It isn’t just one thing they can mass manufacture in bulk and store on the shelves for years in even just a couple of doses. Plus, it requires coaching and support around the nutrition and stress management components in particular.
The end result though is not only hair, but better health, more confidence, improved energy, higher libido, reduced anxiety and depression. Basically, you end up becoming a better, healthier version of yourself – with hair.
And yes, some of the ingredients used do require prescription – the latanoprost which grows the hair is one of those. But I don’t use anything from big pharma for a number of reasons: The main one being that I don’t like a lot of the inactive ingredients used. Generally, with medicine it’s the inactive ingredients not the active ones which cause people problems and side effects. Also, the currently available medicines were created originally to prevent prostate cancer. They do a good job at that, but that’s not what we are trying to do. To treat cancer, you need to shut down production of some hormones completely, that is absolutely not what we are doing.
What are the first steps for our readers who are experiencing hair loss to begin this journey? Can this be done all online due to the current “Stay at Home Orders?”
The first step is a complimentary phone consultation with one of my hair regrowth consultants. They’ll walk them through our process and how to get started as well as answer any questions they might have about our program and how everything works. This is a phone call so very easy to do from home or anywhere.
Next step is the comprehensive assessment where we dive in to all the factors for the individual concerned that might be causing their hair loss. It can be different for each person. This can also be done from home. We do offer virtual appointments and have been treating our international client base in this way for several years. The blood draw for the labs is the only part that currently cannot be done from home, but we work with LabCorp nationwide and LabCorp is designated as an essential service, PLUS they are not doing covid-19 testing and are refusing service to potential covid-19 patients. Obviously as a medical service they are also practicing safe covering and disinfecting routines between each client they see to ensure there is no possible spread at their facilities. However, it is also possible to wait a couple of weeks for that component until we can flatten the curve if people prefer. Then everything they need is shipped to them at home. They will be assigned a hair growth consultant and success manager to support them along the way and make sure their hair regrowth is successful.
Can you share some of your patient success stories?
This is Luis at the start of his program then at 6, 12 and 18 months. We were initially a little concerned about the center back area whether all the follicles were still alive to be re-grown, but as you can see from the last picture they definitely are and he will regrow a full and complete head of hair. How long will that take? Generally, we see it taking 1/3 to ½ as long to completely regrow as it took to lose. So, if it took 10 years to get to here, somewhere between 3-5 years to grow it back, noting that once it starts re-growing, every day more hair. Isn’t that something nice to look forward to?
Below is another client of ours at 12 months into the program. I expect him to be fully regrown within 3 years, which is about average across all clients we see. Note that our clients range from people who are just starting to thin and are looking just to maintain their hair to those who have
been thinning for 30 years or more.
Our YouTube channel also has some great success stories. Here you can see Michael talking about his results:
You can see more of our clients talking about their success on our website here:
You can see before and after images on their website and learn more about Dr. Nettles.
https://www.stopandregrow.com/success-stories
This may be ideal time to begin the process with Dr. Nettles and begin your hair regrowth journey!
