Category: Hair Transplantation

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I Can’t Believe One of The Results on Your Site is Real – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I’m sorry, but I can’t believe that the following picture on your website is true. There’s no way a class 7 can have so much donor hair and have results like this.

Patient ZU

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It’s absolutely true. This was a patient model of ours for many years, coming to every open house event in my office each month to show off his wonderful result in person for anyone that wanted to take a look. He had above average donor density that allowed for the amount of grafts we were able to get. So yes, there is a way… because this patient is for real. We don’t play tricks with photos of patient results.

His sons followed in dad’s footsteps and they are transplant patients as well. We showed one of the sons here.

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Hair Loss InformationA Month After a Hair Transplant, I Had Major Stress – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

About four weeks after getting a large hair transplant I had a bit of a major shock to my business which caused a good deal of panic. A lot of adrenalin rushes, flight/fright, etc., off and on for a few weeks. Pretty constant. The worst has passed, but I am wondering if these adrenalin surges hurt my new implanted grafts’ growth chances. I know it is a vasoconstrictor, but assume that the grafts were secure and alive after 10 days or so.

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I don’t have a definitive answer, but I would guess that your emotional stress would have no significant impact on your hair transplants particularly since it occurred a month after your surgery. It’s going to be a case of wait and see.

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Hair Loss InformationTransplanting a Non-Balding Person’s Hairline? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Have you ever transplanted grafts along a non balding person’s hairline not to lower, but to thicken the hairline so that they could grow a fuller fringe if they had fairly fine hair?

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In dealing with hairlines, transplanting a normal hairline just to thicken it is not advisable, as the transplant could damage the existing hair. I have fixed defective looking hairlines on male actors and models who need perfect frontal hairlines for their careers, so I have worked to keep their juvenile hairline intact.

For women who have normally high, non-balding hairlines, these can also be addressed with either frontal hair transplants to bring the hairline down or hairline lowering surgery. Many women have these procedures done.

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Hair Loss InformationCould a Hair Transplant Cause Tinnitus? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi Doc,

I suffer from tinnitus due to tension in my neck. I am unable to figure out anything about it besides that when I am nervous or I am slouching for a long time, it comes.

My question is – Is there any swelling in the neck area or behind the ears or in the sinuses from a hair transplant? If so, would there be anyway to avoid it? Have you heard of a transplant causing tinnitus? I’d like to get a transplant but the thought of it worsening my tinnitus makes me nervous!

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I’ve never heard of a hair transplant causing tinnitus. Tinnitus generally has to do with the inner ear problems or even certain brain pathology. I would follow up with a specialist.

With hair transplant surgery, you may have swelling of the neck and ear area. I would follow up and raise these concerns with your doctor before having any surgery.

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2011 ISHRS Meeting Review, Part 2 – Female Hair Loss – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

ISHRS 2011

Note: The annual meeting of hair surgeons was in held in Alaska this past week. The following review is very selective and is biased by the things that were interesting to me and what I (Dr. Rassman) thought could be interesting to the readers.

This is part 2. More to come…

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What is the role of immunity in the development of androgenic alopecia in women?

    In men and women, it was suggested that there is an immune response in genetic hair loss that could either trigger the process or be an early sign that hair loss is about to start. Dr. Neil Sadick of New York has been following female hair loss for years. He showed his results from scalp biopsies of the scalp in women with hair loss. What he saw were findings that were similar to the conditions found in diseases like lupus (an autoimmune disease). He believes that female pattern hair loss is attributable to immune driven inflammation and he believes that this interferes with hair stem cell activity as they enter into the growth phase of the hair cycle.

    The earliest symptoms of many women and some men start with pain and itching of the scalp, a set of symptoms that reflect the inflammatory response that he believes is always present, but often ignored. He raises the issue that if the connection is correct, the scalp may respond to the use of steroids in the earliest phases of the hair loss process.


 
Double trichophytic closures

    Double trichophytic closures were demonstrated in a poster presentation, suggesting that this procedure can “wipe out” scars from FUE in 99% of patients. I personally doubt this claim. This reflects first time surgery patients only, as these patients are at a lower risk for significant scarring.

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Large Donor Area? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Recently, when at the barbers, I was told that the hairline at the back of my head was very low. Like most guys, I’d never put ‘hairline’ and ‘back of head’ together. Now that I have, i’m wondering: does having a low hairline at the back of my head mean I have a larger donor area, and the potential for more grafts if needed?

Thanks

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Are you referring to hair at the nape of the neck? I’m a little confused as to what you mean by a low hairline at the back of the head. Neck hair may appear thick in some men, possibly even as thick as the hair in the true “donor area”. For people who have the narrow band of hair seen on Norwood 7 patients, there may be a limitation of your donor hair. However, you may have a very high density of hair, or your scalp may be very elastic, or your neck hair is very thick.

Neck hair is not considered permanent, as a substantial number of men will lose their neck hairs with age… so no matter how good your neck hair is, this should not be considered part of your donor area.

So there is no universal answer to your question without an actual examination by a physician. In matters of surgical recommendations, I would trust a doctor over a barber.

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Treat a Norwood 7 with Scalp and Body Hair Transplants? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Is it possible to treat a Norwood 7 (not a head full of hair but a decent result) using Hair Transplant + Body Hair Transplant?

Thank you!

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At NHI, we do not recommend body hair transplants (BHT), as the results are highly variable and unpredictable.

We do have patients in our Photo Galleries that were Norwood 7 and had great hair transplant results from using scalp hair, but I must point out to the readers curious about hair restoration that every patient is different and the fullness will never be over the entire scalp. It’s about creating the illusion of a full head of hair by using the available donor hair efficiently. You just need to have a clear understanding of what “decent” result you are expecting.

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I Had My FUE Done Over a Year Ago and It Is Still Not Fully Grown – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi Dr

I went thru my fue 15mths ago. Today i am still feeling some stubbles (transplanted graft) on the recipient area. These stubbles do not seems to be growing. Is there a possibility that newly transplanted graft stays as stubble – do not fall off neither grow out and become healthy hair? Or am i just a slow grower?

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While it is possible, is highly unlikely that you will start finally seeing growth at 15 months. You should have seen most growth at about 6 to 12 months following your surgery.

More importantly, the new hair growth will not appear as coarse stubble (like a beard). It’ll start off fine and grow as the months go by. Sometimes the stubble can be remnants of the original hair grafts that never fell out, but are just stuck in its place. You can test this by having someone find these stubbles and pulling on them with tweezers… or if you can reach it yourself, you can do this yourself. If the stubble is a dead hair shaft (old leftover follicle from 15 months ago), it should slide / slip right out.

The implication of this is that the surgery may have been a failure. Have you talked to your surgeon for a follow-up since your procedure?

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Hair Loss InformationIs Getting Into the Hair Transplant Field a Wise Decision for a Med Student? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Doctor, love the blog, lots of useful information. I was hoping you could give a little career advice. What would you say to the students in medical school interested in getting into the field of hair transplantation? Would this not be a wise decision with companies such as histogen/replicell potentially achieving positive results using non-invasive techniques?

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For a medical student thinking of a specialty to choose, I would not recommend hair transplant surgery. Not because it is not a great field, but mainly because there is no formal hair transplant surgery training or residency that would give you the requisite skills you should have. There is no consistency in the field of hair transplantation. I do believe the community of hair transplant doctors is improving and striving for consistency and it has greatly improved in the last decade. In fact, there is a board certification for hair transplant doctors, but it isn’t recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS).

If you still would like to pursue the hair transplant field, I would pursue a ABMS approved residency program of your interest. First get basic training in some official specialty like dermatology, and then get a fellowship under some well recognized expert in the hair transplant field who will take you under his wing.

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2 Weeks After My Hair Transplant, I See The Grafts Growing – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hello Doctor,
I have undergone HT 2 weeks back with 2 sessions of a total of 5000 grafts done. Till date, I don’t see a single transplanted hair being fallen out. Instead, I see them growing in length. Is this something to be worried?

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I’m wondering why would you worry if you are seeing something positive like growth? You must have had a great donor density to get out 5,000 grafts in two sessions.

In general, most people see what appears to be graft growth in the first 2-3 weeks (it is actually the hair in the graft being pushed out of the scalp). As this is actually the shedding process of the hair which is going into telogen, most of the transplanted hairs will fall out in one month. Either way, follow up with your doctor as he/she can better assess your post operative course and progress.