Category: Hair Transplantation

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I Want to Transplant from My Head to My Chest! – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi Dr. Rassman, I have couple of questions, first questions is, how much does it cost to have hair transplanted from you head to your chest. 3 inches above my umbilical area and down is very hairy,but above that area is completely hairless, it looks like I been shaving. The other question is, does it hurt. Do you have to make an incision or it is done with needles. Will the hair stay forever in that area and will continue to grow. Please respond ASAP I am really serious about having that done. Thank you

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Hair can be transplanted from the head to the chest. We actually do this type of procedure for women that want more pubic hair (usually those who lose their pubic hair with aging). The costs are directly related to the area covered and the number of grafts placed at the site. It would run between 500-1000 grafts to cover the area that you defined. The hair will grow long (like on the scalp), so you may have to cut it. If your hair is coarse, it may not look right, but finer hair should do fine. Pain is minimal (like a typical hair transplant), although it does depend on what you consider painful.

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I Love My Beard, But I Have Two Spots Without Hair! – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Good Day:
I’ve recently grown a beard and I LOVE IT! I have a full beard except for two bald spots which are located (i would say) right where my dimples would be. Are they any over the counter products I can purchase to help fill these in? I apologize if this question was already addressed. I looked to see if it was, but I did not see anything. Thank you!

Congratulations on your new beard! Unless these areas of no-beard-hair are unnaturally large, what you describe is relatively common and reflects genetic differences in the beard hair. I do not know of products that can conceal them successfully without looking “fake”. The definitive treatment is a small hair transplant to the area, which we have done with great success.

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Relaxing African Hair After Hairline Lowering Procedure – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Hello, I am a 30 year old African American female, I have a very high forehead. I am interested in bringing my hairline down surgically, but I perm/relax my hair. What I want to know is, with that type of surgery would I still be able to relax my hair. If so how long after I relax should I wait before I have the procedure done and how long should I wait after the procedure to relax again? Thank You for your time!

Hair can be relaxed prior to a hair transplant procedure. A hair transplant is your own naturally growing hair, just moved from one place to another. You can perm, color, or relax transplanted hair just as you would your normal hair. You should wait about two to four weeks to relax your existing hair after a transplant procedure, but transplanted hairs will most likely not grow in for 6 to 8 months. Hairline lowering procedures for women gives an immediate result; a hair transplant also has a waiting period for the hair to go through its normal cycle before it starts to grow.

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12 Days After Hair Transplant (with Photos) – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I wanted to show some 12 day post-operative photos of a very early Norwood Class 5 patient after one procedure of 1588 grafts. I get a lot of emails from people ask me what they can look like with good post-operative washing, and this is a good example of one such patient that kept the recipient sites clean. While there is still some slightly visible redness, he is less than 2 weeks out of surgery and this should subside soon enough.

Click the photos to enlarge.

After

 

Before

 

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Advice from Someone That Has Had 9 Procedures – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Dr. Rassman,

I’ve had lots of procedures done; I’ll say at least 9 since 1995. I’m 41 now. I know that’s a lot. I’ve had at least 4-5 done at one center, then about another 4 done at a well know hair transplant center here in DC. I’ve even had gaps of up to 4 years between procedures because of money issues. I’ve spent at least over $20,000.00 so far. I was never given a “Master Plan”. Every person only evaluated me, then asked, “How many are you looking to get right now?.” Me being new to transplant never really realized that once you start the process, you should, in my opinion, every year get as many grafts put in as you can afford. Well, I had really bad scarring in the back going across from one side to the other which was corrected a bit. My head of hair is not nearly as full as I would want it. Actually, right now it’s still very thin in spots here and there. Sometimes I’m just so depressed about it. Don’t make the mistake like I did. If you go for transplant procedure, get another job, work part time, anything to get that head full of hair. Too many procedures, cutting, stitching, etc. spells trouble. I know.

One of the groups did a great job of reducing my scarring in the back of my head. I was also told that in a couple of years ago that lab grown hair follicles will be available. Do you agree? I’m at that point where I feel this would be my last and only alternative.

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You have a tragic story. You were not placed on this Earth to give doctors money every year to get hair moved and to manage scars on your head.

The only patients that have had over 4 procedures with me are those that were very, very bald (9,000+ grafts) or very, very obsessive (I fondly call them my ‘hair addicts’). Most people should be completed with 1-2 procedures. Informed consent requires doctors to tell you what is in store for you, what you can reasonably expect a hair transplant will do for you, and when it will be completed. That is the doctor’s moral and legal obligation and the fact that you did not have that happen, means that you must have been victimized from hopping around to different doctors. You should have held your original doctor accountable for finishing what he/she started (in a perfect world of course). I know, unfortunately, that many people who go to doctors that are not responsible or accountable are caught in a difficult position. My suggestion is that you consider going to a doctor who will give you the real scoop as to what, if anything, you can expect going forward. If you need repair work on the scar, that doctor should be able to let you know what is in store for you. As you are on the east coast, may I suggest seeing Dr. Robert Bernstein in New York. He and I literally wrote the book on repairs.

I want to also comment on your hope that soon, hair will be grown in a lab to solve the hair supply problem. I am sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t believe that will happen in any reasonable timeframe to get you the extra hair you may need. Many doctors are promising lab grown hair in a few years, but the ignorance by these doctors seems pervasive on this subject. My opinion is that we will not see lab grown hair for more than a decade from now. So for the readers who are postponing decisions on hair transplants to wait for lab grown hair, you need to ask yourselves if you really want to wait until you are 70 years old to get the more youthful look.

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My Transplanted Hairs Never Grew — The Doctors Want to Redo it For Free – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Hi,i need help please, a few years ago i had the FUE procedure done for 600 hairs with [name omitted] in London, i was happy with the results but after a few months all the transplanted hairs fell out and never grown back.

They have now kindly offered to do the whole procedure again for free but im really unsure if to go through with it again if it doesnt work for a second time. Im not sure why it didnt work and dont want to blame anyone but i remember when the hairs were removed from my head they were then left on a plate while the surgeons went out side for a cigarette.

Could it be possible that this was a bad procedure or would it be more likely to just not work for me as i have read that this procedure dosent work for everyone? I could really do with your help with this please ,kind regards.

I am slightly confused by your question. If you are saying that the hair originally grew and then fell out sometime later, that confuses me. Previouos hair transplants, once they grow, usually last the lifetime of the patient. A good doctor would, I would guess, offer you a repeat procedure if he could not find a cause of the loss of hair transplants that grew.

If you are saying that the hair did not grow, then I would ask – if you were having a heart transplant surgery (instead of a hair transplant), you would not get a second chance. Would you trust the person that caused your heart transplant to fail to redo the procedure (assuming they successfully put in an artificial heart while waiting for another real heart)? I hope that comparison isn’t too far of a reach, but it is the first thing that came to mind.

Hair transplants remove donor hair forever. If it did not grow (FUE or strip) and continues to fail, all you do is lose again. A hair transplant failure, unlike a heart surgery failure, just wastes your limited supply of donor hair — while a heart surgery failure kills you. If the doctor gives you a second surgery for free, what if it fails a second time? Ask your doctor about this. The lesson here is that a doctor who does good work has predicable results.

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Staying on Medication After Hair Transplant – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

“During the hair transplant process units of one, two or three hairs are moved from a donor site at the back of the head to the areas where hair growth is needed. Once transplanted, the follicles are no longer susceptible to hair loss and will naturally continue to grow. So no matter what age you reach, you’ll be reaching it with a full head of great-looking real hair.”

– This is the quote from Hair Club for Men about their microscopic hair transplant…I thought that after a transplant you still need to stay on drugs to keep your hair..but here it says they’re no longer susceptible. Or does it depend on the kind of transplant?

In my opinion, what you quoted is subtly misleading. Although you do get real hair with hair transplantation, you never get the full head of hair that you once had. There is no doubt that hair transplantation works and it can make a bald man look much better, much fuller if he is thinning, but the limitation is that hair transplantation involves moving hairs around and redistributing it from back to front. It does not create any new hair.

The hair that is transplanted will stay for good, except for the rare occasion where there is disease in the follicle (in which case, a hair transplant should not have been performed in the first place). I generally recommend medication (finasteride 1mg) to most of my male patients before and continued after transplantation, so that they do not lose more of their existing (non-transplanted, genetically susceptible to balding) hair.

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Why Would You Be Concerned About Transplanting a 22 Year Old Patient? – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Dr Rassman,

I was reading some of the past blogs and came across an entry in which you mentioned you were disturbed by the patient having a procedure at age 22. What concerned you about having a procedure at this age? I’ve also had a procedure at age 22 and was happy with it however, my hairline has continued to recede over the past few years and I’ve contemplated a 2nd procedure. Would you recommend this?

I generally do not recommend hair transplant surgery on men in their early twenties, because of the following reasons:

  1. They risk accelerating their hair loss due to shock loss.
  2. One does not know how much balding they have in front of them.
  3. The patterns of hair loss may be difficult to identify, which makes building a Master Plan (for long term planning) difficult or impossible.

Of course, if you are already bald (a well defined Norwood Class 3 pattern, for example) this would not be much of a concern. So it is not an absolute rule and every man should be evaluated based upon their maturity, their realistic expectations, and their balding pattern. Your very question supplies part of the answer, as you have had surgery and now notice that you are thinning or receding. Get a good doctor to build that Master Plan I mentioned above, so the best and worst cases of what might happen to you will be clearly defined for your benefit.

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Scalp Pimples Weeks After Hair Transplants – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I had 2200 grafts in the front. About 6 weeks later, I noticed pimples breaking out on my head. I went back to my doctor and he put me on an antibiotic which helped for a week and then when I went off the antibiotic, the pimples came back. What is happening to me? Will this kill off the transplants?

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After a hair transplant, spicules of hair are left behind after the grafts have shed. These spicules of hair can be like a foreign body and cause cystic reactions. This process is usually self-limiting and with warm soaks, will disappear over the next month or so. I believe that every person has these spicules in the recipient area, but only a limited number of patients have these type of reactions. The differential diagnosis is important here, namely distinguishing it from folliculitis, which can endanger the growth of the grafts.

You may have heard about MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), and if this should occur, a culture of these pimples are important to determine the correct treatment modality. There can be iatrogenic (doctor induced) causes where during the placing process the staff ‘piggyback’ one graft on top of another. This is often due to poor quality control processes and if the doctor sees this often, then the doctor may have a problem with his office staff. In less experienced hands, this is an iatrogenic problem so a good solid surgical team with good quality control systems in place will guarantee that this will not happen to you.

If properly treated, these sores will not cause hair loss. Sometimes local drainage with a needle is needed, but usually they will spontaneously drain on their own with frequent warm compresses.

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Age and Hair Transplants – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

At what age will a transplant not work?

I have done hair transplants on children with bad scars and men as young as 89 years old. They really work regardless of age. I perform it with the same basic anesthesia routine, but in children, I often use less systemic drugs if one of the parents comes into the operating room and holds the child’s hand. There is nothing more soothing to a child than the touch of a parent’s warm hand.

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