Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

Com­pas­sion­ate ser­vice cou­pled with in­no­v­a­tive re­search-dri­ven tech­niques equate the se­cret to suc­cess for any or­gan­i­sa­tion, more­so one in the health­care field ad­dress­ing the per­turb­ing chal­lenges of hair loss and skin­care.

With hair loss be­ing an all too re­al chal­lenge among women, yet less talked about, WE de­cid­ed to change that. Na­tion­al Hair Loss Aware­ness Month, ob­served in the month of Au­gust each year, high­lights the need for us to cre­ate more aware­ness, con­ver­sa­tions about op­ti­mal skin­care and the im­pact hair loss can have in our lives.

It’s a mis­con­cep­tion to think that hair loss is pri­mar­i­ly an is­sue for males, as it can af­fect many fe­males and chil­dren too. While men may be more sus­cep­ti­ble to is­sues like male-pat­tern bald­ness and alope­cia, thin­ning hair and alarm­ing lev­els of hair fall in women and chil­dren are al­so caus­es for con­cern these days. There are sev­er­al fac­tors that can af­fect hair loss - hered­i­ty, acute stress, dis­ease, med­ical treat­ments (like chemother­a­py), strong med­ica­tions, di­etary re­stric­tions, groom­ing and styling prac­tices, trau­ma, and even preg­nan­cy.

Pas­sion­ate and pa­tient-cen­tric

Dr Chris­ma Ma­haraj, a grad­u­ate with dis­tinc­tion in Der­ma­tol­ogy from Cardiff Uni­ver­si­ty in the Unit­ed King­dom said: “My dream has al­ways been to cre­ate a der­ma­tol­ogy prac­tice where pa­tients of Trinidad and To­ba­go, even with­in the re­gion, can ac­cess first world in­no­v­a­tive treat­ments in one lo­ca­tion. I’ve been in the field of der­ma­tol­ogy for 13 years and a spe­cial­ist for ten of them. Dur­ing that time I’ve worked at the pub­lic health in­sti­tu­tions, Port-of -Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for ten years and Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for two years and seen a spec­trum of pa­tients.”

Now, to­geth­er with her hus­band Dr Ke­vaun Ra­goo­nanan, a hair trans­plant sur­geon, and oth­er pur­pose dri­ven health care pro­fes­sion­als, she re­cent­ly launched the Val­sayn Der­ma­tol­ogy Clin­ic and Med­ical Spa, a med­ical, sur­gi­cal and aes­thet­ic der­ma­tol­ogy prac­tice, that pro­vides as­sess­ment, di­ag­no­sis and treat­ment of any skin con­di­tion in pa­tients of all ages and eth­nic­i­ties.

“The vi­sion is a pre­mier der­ma­tol­ogy clin­ic pro­vid­ing the lat­est and most in­no­v­a­tive treat­ments for the hair, skin and nails in a spa-like, re­lax­ing en­vi­ron­ment. A space, you leave feel­ing re­ju­ve­nat­ed know­ing your skin­care is op­ti­mised.”

Nov­el stem cell treat­ment

The skin is the largest or­gan of the body and a good in­di­ca­tor of our gen­er­al health.

Dr Ma­haraj em­pha­sised: “Many pa­tients un­der­es­ti­mate the im­por­tance of der­ma­to­log­i­cal care and present lat­er when com­pli­ca­tions arise. Many cas­es stand out, one in par­tic­u­lar a pa­tient who had been mis­di­ag­nosed for years. With a com­pre­hen­sive der­ma­to­log­i­cal re­view and tweaks in her man­age­ment, the pa­tient at­tained the re­lief she seeked af­ter years of back and forth. This is just one ex­am­ple but, di­ag­nos­ing and man­ag­ing com­pli­cat­ed cas­es gives me a spe­cial joy!

“Stay­ing up-to-date is im­por­tant to our team. In 2015, I was the first physi­cian to bring Platelet rich plas­ma (PRP) to Trinidad and To­ba­go for skin re­ju­ve­na­tion and to treat hair loss. I part­nered with a lo­cal dis­trib­u­tor to bring in the FDA ap­proved PRP kits and has since been the ed­u­ca­tor for this com­pa­ny. We have al­so con­duct­ed PRP work­shops in Ja­maica and for the Caribbean Der­ma­tol­ogy As­so­ci­a­tion.

“How­ev­er, re­search showed that while PRP is ben­e­fi­cial in many ways, at times, it may not be as ef­fec­tive for all types of hair loss. With the de­sire of op­ti­mis­ing treat­ment op­tions, we fur­thered our ex­per­tise.

“At the be­gin­ning of last year, both Dr Ra­goo­nanan and I ven­tured to Turkey and Italy to train with two in­ter­na­tion­al board-cer­ti­fied hair trans­plant sur­geons. Our train­ing was quite ex­ten­sive and up­on re­turn­ing, we opened the Hair Restora­tion Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (HRCTT).

“Ex­plor­ing the lat­est in­no­v­a­tive tech­niques, we brought Re­gen­era Ac­ti­va, a nov­el stem cell treat­ment util­is­ing the pa­tient’s own scalp for re­gen­er­a­tion of the hair fol­li­cles as well as hair trans­plan­ta­tion for pa­tients with se­vere hair loss. Since then, we have con­duct­ed mul­ti­ple hair trans­plants. Now, HRCTT is part of the Val­sayn Der­ma­tol­ogy Clin­ic, pro­vid­ing a full-ser­vice hair loss clin­ic. Your hair loss is di­ag­nosed by a der­ma­tol­o­gist with var­i­ous treat­ments avail­able from top­i­cal so­lu­tions all the way to hair trans­plan­ta­tion. All of our prod­ucts and ser­vices pro­vid­ed are strict­ly ev­i­dence based and FDA ap­proved.”

Why does one ex­pe­ri­ence hair loss?

Hair loss, known as alope­cia, is a com­mon dis­or­der af­fect­ing more than 80 mil­lion in US and even more glob­al­ly.

So how do you know if you’re shed­ding more than nor­mal?

“On av­er­age, most peo­ple lose about 100 strands of hair a day. And with new strands grow­ing to take place of the ones lost, most won’t no­tice a dif­fer­ence.

“Many times, hair loss is an in­di­ca­tor that some­thing more se­ri­ous is go­ing on. Hair loss, par­tic­u­lar­ly shed­ding, is just a sign that some­thing has hap­pened to the body. The hair fol­li­cle is one of the three fastest turn­ing over cell lines in your body. Any­thing that af­fects your body and throws it out of bal­ance will af­fect those sys­tems. So shed­ding hair is an in­di­ca­tor that some­thing’s wrong.”

You might start see­ing more hair loss than nor­mal thanks to the fol­low­ing:

• Ge­net­ics.

• Stress.

• Hor­mon­al changes like preg­nan­cy or menopause.

• Cer­tain hair­styles.

• Dam­ag­ing hair­care like perms, bleach­ing or re­lax­ers.

• Med­ica­tions like chemother­a­py.

• Med­ical con­di­tions like thy­roid dis­ease or au­toim­mune con­di­tions.

• Vi­ral in­fec­tions such as COVID-19.

Work­ing with a der­ma­tol­o­gist, you can be­gin iden­ti­fy­ing what might be caus­ing your hair loss. A com­pre­hen­sive re­view will in­clude ques­tions on your gen­er­al health, your med­ica­tions and your fam­i­ly his­to­ry.

“I tell the pa­tients to keep track of events that are un­usu­al for them, for in­stance, a heavy men­stru­al pe­ri­od,” says Dr Ma­haraj. “So when we go back to look for trig­gers, we’ll have some hint at what it could be.”

Skin­care starts from day one

Dr Ma­haraj pas­sion­ate­ly ex­plained: “Good skin­care prac­tices should be­gin from day one! About 25 per cent of my prac­tice in­volves treat­ing the pae­di­atric pop­u­la­tion for var­i­ous skin con­di­tions. Those are my most ful­fill­ing pa­tients to treat. We al­ways have a lit­tle re­ward or toy in the of­fice to en­sure their vis­it is a pleas­ant one and they al­ways come back with a smile for ‘Aun­ty’. See­ing our pae­di­atric pa­tients re­solve their dis­turb­ing skin con­di­tions is in­cred­i­bly grat­i­fy­ing.

“My pa­tients’ grat­i­tude when their symp­toms im­prove or they feel as beau­ti­ful on the out­side as they are on the in­side, is what dri­ves me to do this every day and to al­ways im­prove on our ser­vices.”

Skin care ad­vice for teens

• Keep your skin­care sim­ple!

• A gen­tle cleanser and sun­screen, with at least SPF30 will keep you look­ing like a teen for decades.

• For our ac­ne-prone youth: A sal­i­cylic acid or ben­zoyl per­ox­ide cleanser can help con­trol sim­ple ac­ne.

• See your der­ma­tol­o­gist ear­ly for a pre­scrip­tion skin­care reg­i­men for se­vere cas­es or if these op­tions don’t work for you.

Skin care ad­vice for women as WE age grace­ful­ly

The foun­tain of youth is not as myth­i­cal as you may think!

Dr Ma­haraj’s an­ti-ag­ing pre­scrip­tion:

• A gen­tle cleanser, a good sun­screen (SPF 30 and above), a med­ical grade vi­t­a­min C serum and retinol.

• For my melas­ma prone ladies, SPF 50 and above would be bet­ter, make sure our sun­screen is tint­ed to screen for blue light. (Melas­ma is caused by an in­ter­play of UV/Blue light, hor­mones and ge­net­ics)

• Pre­scrip­tion treat­ments and chem­i­cal peels for melas­ma are of course avail­able if sim­ple mea­sures are not ef­fec­tive.

• As we age, loss of col­la­gen and fa­cial vol­ume can be re­stored with good skin­care and if need be, a touch of botox. Mor­pheus8 Mi­cro needling with Ra­diofre­quen­cy and/or der­mal filler can al­so be con­sid­ered.

To con­nect with the Val­sayn Der­ma­tol­ogy Clin­ic and Med­ical Spa:

IG @val­sayn­der­ma­tol­ogy­clin­ic

Email: val­sayn­der­ma­tol­ogy@gmail.com

Phone: (868) 492-0706