Who makes a good hair transplant candidate?
In our practice, we perform hair transplant
for people whose hair loss has been stabilized. This is important since hair transplant surgery
does not stop hair loss progression. It’s important to understand that hair transplant,
regardless of technique or technology is a procedure limited by your hair loss progression
and the hair you have in your donor area. Unfortunately, marketing of hair transplant
tends to be deceptive about results and the number of transplants needed to obtain these
results. In addition, the results of modern hair transplants referred to as FUEs or follicular
unit extraction transplants are actually more limited than the results of follicular unit
transplants or FUTs also known as the “strip method”. Ironically due to a combination
of factors such as undesirable scars and hair styles becoming shorter, the hair transplant
industry has moved toward performing FUEs. The problem with FUEs is that the area of
harvesting is wider and outside the true permanent zone which means many grafts are at risk for
thinning and balding. In addition, there is in my opinion an unacceptable rate of hair
grafts being transected or being divided above the most important part of the hair graft
which is the root or the hair follicle. Conservatively it has been reported that 30% of grafts can
be transected. To address this limitation, technologies have been developed such as the
robot to reduce this and other technical aspects. This doesn’t change the reality that the
yield or coverage with so called modern hair transplants are being compromised. To address
the limitation of ongoing hair loss progression we offer our male patients the option of taking
finasteride or Propecia which is an oral medication which needs to be take daily. Unfortunately,
this drug has been associated in a small percentage of men to be associated with permanent sexual
dysfunction. This unfortunate event has been addressed in our practice with a new method
of treating hair loss we’ve developed called Hair Regeneration. Briefly, Hair Regeneration
is the application of advanced stem cell based wound healing technology to stop hair loss
and reverse hair thinning. With hundreds of patients who’ve come from around the world
and 3-5 years of data proving the long term benefit of one injection treatment, we have
overcome the frustration people have with hair transplant surgery. Essentially, we’ve
addressed progressive hair thinning and by thickening your existing actively thinning
hair, we’ve actually exceeded the results of any hair transplant surgery. From my perspective,
the best candidate for a hair transplant is someone who desires hair in an area where
there is long standing hair loss after they’ve had their hair loss stabilized and reversed
to their maximal potential.