ABC News Theradome Interview with Tamim Hamid

URL: https://vimeo.com/101235746

Male Anchor: If you’re fighting hair loss, there’s a new option hitting the market that may help you win that battle.

Female Anchor: It’s not a pill or a topical treatment, but a helmet developed here in the Bay Area. Health and Science reporter Carolyn Johnson looks at how it works.

Dr. Sara Wasserbauer:  See how these have mo… more hairs per…

Sean Ogg: Per follicle.

Dr. Sara Wasserbauer:  …unit. Exactly. So…

Carolyn Johnson: At 47, Sean Ogg says his family genetics had started to catch up with him.

Sean Ogg: Baldness kind of runs in my family, so I knew at some point, I would probably start losing my hair.

Dr. Sara Wasserbauer: This has lasers in it that…

Carolyn Johnson: To fight back, Sean is strapping on a helmet and preparing to do battle. It’s a new device called Theradome, just approved by the FDA to help regrow hair. Dr. Sara Wasserbauer is a hair loss specialist in Walnut Creek and reviewed data from the company’s clinical trial.

Dr. Sara Wasserbauer: The earlier you start, the better the… the data is. Not only does it thicken up the hairs, but it… it moves them into the growth phase.

Carolyn Johnson: The helmet is embedded with approximately 80 low-powered laser diodes. Light waves are absorbed into the scalp during 20-minute sessions, twice a week. The technology is similar to large stationary laser systems, which are believed to stimulate blood circulation to the hair follicles as well as increased cell metabolism. The Theradome is the first of its kind device to be approved for home use.

Dr. Sara Wasserbauer: We’ve known since 1967 that lasers work to grow hair. We don’t know whether lasers alone have this effect on… on hairs. We don’t know whether LEDs will have that effect, but we do know that, you know, lasers have been established as being able to grow hair

Carolyn Johnson: Theradome is headquartered in Pleasanton, and manufactures the helmets in the South Bay. They were approved first for women last fall. The company is expecting to get final approval for men in the next few months. Ghazal Gill was an early user who says she had experienced thinning hair.

Ghazal Gill: There was a lot of hair falling out. I’d look at the tub and I’d see hair. You know, that kind of freaked me out. And then, uhm about three… three or four weeks into it, I noticed that there wasn’t any hair falling out.

Carolyn Johnson: Still not certain, according to Dr. Wasserbauer, is whether the lasers will produce significant results in patients experiencing complete baldness or with very little hair left on their scalp. The company says data from trials in both men and women show a consistent increase in both thickness and hair growth. These before-and-after pictures show Sean Ogg’s results, which she says were noticeable after just a few months.

Sean Ogg: My hairdresser even said that she could tell that I was starting to get growing. So, it… it… it works for me.

Carolyn Johnson: Carolyn Johnson, ABC 7 News.

Male Anchor: Interesting. Well, the helmet retails for about $895, which the company says is competitive with the cost of other treatments in the long run.