Dear Dr Rassman,
first of all, many compliments for the work that you are doing, writing blogs, responding to questions using your in-depth knowledge, as well as having unique sensitivity for patients in your responses. Sincerely, such professionals are hard to find anywhere in the world.
This brings me to my issue. I am a 26 year-old male from Eastern Europe. The look/appearance of my hair has always been really important to me. I also appear on stage a lot (I am a musician), so not having to worry about hair appearance too much is of vital importance for my self-confidence. Unfortunately, I was not blessed with very good hair quality. I have some balding pattern on my mother’s side, although my father is not bald. I first noticed that my hairline was receding in high school. It was on the sides on the frontal part, with the right side advancing far more quickly. The hair at the top of the scalp was maybe slighty receding, but not noticably to the general public. So the biggest problem is the frontal part.
At 20 years old, I decided to start using Propecia. I think generally the situation with my hairline has not gotten worse since then, I do not appear bald or anything. The problem is that the hairline of the frontal part is beginning to bother me more and more – a little wind blows and it messes the hair up, or I have to stand in front of the mirror for ages to get the desired look at the frontal part, which is really a tedious drill that I don’t wanna do any longer.
Since this is really an issue that’s been bothering me for 8 or 9 years now, I believe that a procedure to restore the frontal hairline would be the right solution. Preferably, I would very much like to do it at the NHI, since you guys really appear to be professionals and great advisors – the money would be well spent. In my country, we do have some practitioners that do hair transplants, but they all do other forms of cosmetic surgery as well (like nose-jobs etc.). I really don’t want some semi-competent doctor messing with my hair and finally messing it up.
So, my question is the following: since I just started working and my budget is pretty low, I really don’t have to money to travel to LA and to pay for the procedure, unfortunately. It also appears you do not have offices in Europe, which is a pity. But maybe you could give me some advice (names of doctors) near my country ( e.g. Italy, Germany, Hungary) for whom you know that their work is of best quality – I suppose you often meet in different fora, etc. – so that I could undergo the procedure as soon as possible.
I would be extremely grateful for your response.
The Moser Clinic in Austria does work of the quality I do. I have met many doctors from Europe, but have not directly seen their work. That may change in the future. If you want to stay local, just be sure to do a lot of research. Try ISHRS.org as a starting point for finding a doctor in your area.
If you want NHI to do your procedure, we do offer a Standby Fee of $5.00/graft with one of my associates, and I will allow up to 5% of the fee to apply for travel expenses. We also supply one night stay in a local hotel at our cost.
The photos you sent me show corner recession, and I would expect that it would take about 1000 grafts to fill it in with a density equal to 25% of your original density. A second session may be required to get to the ideal 50% of the original hair density, but many people can get away with one session (at 25% of the original density) and look perfectly natural and normal. The key is to not have it look like a hair transplant.
