I’m 34 yrs. old and I was born with a scar on my head I had surgery and as I grew older it turn into a bald spot and hair never grew. Is there any cure for any type of bald spots?
Surgery would probably be your only solution. There’s no cure for bald spots or hair loss, and if you never had hair in this spot you likely won’t get it to regrow from medication use.
I am a little confused by Wayne Rooney’s hair transplant. He only got the procedure done a couple of months ago and already has what appears to be complete growth. Even immediately afterwards it looked as if he had just a shaved head which I didn’t realise would be the case.
For those unfamiliar, we’ve written about soccer star Wayne Rooney’s hair transplant a few times (see here).
I have had some patients that had their transplanted hair grow out very fast. I might see such growth in 2-3 months if every graft grew out immediately, but this is rare. I’m not Mr. Rooney’s surgeon, so I don’t have the benefit of examining his scalp. From the looks of the couple recent photos I’ve seen, styling and hair color have more to do with his new look than full growth does. I am sure he still has a way to go before complete growth is seen. Generally, it’ll take up to a year to see the final results from a hair transplant.
One of my reasonably bald cousins that I did a hair transplant for had full growth of 2 inch long hair in 4 months… so while every patient would like to see the immediate visual impact from the surgery, it’s the lucky few that see such speedy growth.
Here is a link to the patient photo section of Dr Ziering’s Hair Transplant website. In the UK, Dr Ziering is perhaps the most well known hair transplant surgeon because of his celebrity clients and working with ‘The Hospital Group’; the market leader of cosmetic surgery chains.
One of his patient is a 20 year old man who received 1700 grafts. Normally, hair transplant surgery on someone so young would set my alarm bells ringing. However, because Dr Ziering is well respected and working in partnership with a huge, national company, I trust he made the right decision in transplanting this young man’s hair.
Based on the before and after pictures of this patient, would you have offered him a hair transplant and if not, why not? If it’s hard to tell without seeing the patient in person, could you shed light on circumstances which might mean someone so young could be considered a good candidate?
If it helps contextualise this message, I am 20 years old and was planning on using Propecia and Rogaine until I’m old enough for surgery-but this picture is making me question that decision.
Here’s a direct link to the patient you’re referencing (the description says the patient is 20 years old and the after photo was taken 9 months post) — here.
The before picture does show significant frontal balding worthy of a hair transplant under the right circumstances. The maturity of the patient and his ability to understand a Master Plan for his hair loss is a concern. Many young men might reverse on Propecia and in these pictures, the reversal of all (or a significant part) of his hair loss with drugs alone would certainly reduce the amount of surgery necessary. He might not have even needed surgery, depending on the result after taking the drug. I don’t have any history on this patient, so I don’t know the full course of action that his doctor recommended.
So not knowing anything about the patient besides his age, I would not transplant the top of the scalp where the thinning is obvious, as this area often reverses on Propecia alone. But if I knew this patient and could assess his maturity and financial plans for the future, I might very well have transplanted him, despite his young age. Each case is unique and should be evaluated as such.
Snippet from the article:
The clinic who treated Wayne Rooney when he had his hair transplant have admitted that developing grey hair can be a common short-term side-effect of the procedure. The Manchester United and England star reportedly spent £30,000 to get a full head of hair earlier this year in a bid to cure his baldness.
However, while it appears to have reversed his receding hairline, the footballer’s new thatch appeared to be slightly discoloured when he took to the field for Manchester United this weekend.
Read the rest — Wayne Rooney’s doctors say going grey is common side-effect of his £30,000 hair transplant
Graying often starts on the sides and sometimes the back of the head, so I would not be surprised to see it turn up in the transplanted area before the surrounding hair, because the source hair could often gray sooner. Since his sideburns and the back of the head are also gray, I suspect that the transplant had little to do with the color change.
This man is only 25 years old, so there’s probably some early genetic graying since it’s showing up in the non-transplanted region. Maybe he was dyeing it before the transplant and stopped following his surgery. I really don’t know.
Regarding graying be a common side effect — I have not seen my patients experience this temporary graying after a hair transplant that the doctor in the article talks about. Transplanted hair will grow and gray just like the rest of your hair.
Dear Doctor R.,
I had a FUT procedure of 3,000 grafts 3 months ago, primarily into the vertex area. Three months on, none of the transplanted hair has yet fallen out nor has it noticeably grown past 5mm.Should I understand this as a random event, or should I infer that this represents some indicator of the expected telegen/anagen phase timeline? Thanks & with regards
I would not expect the hair to grow out until 5-7 months have elapsed. Following a hair transplant, your newly transplanted grafts will go through a dormant phase. All you can do at this point is have patience. Some people could see the start of growth after a few months, some take a little longer. A very lucky few will not go through any dormant phase and the hair just starts growing.
Did you ask your surgeon? You should’ve been informed of the wait time prior to undergoing your surgery.
How common is it for a patient to be lacking in donor hair when needing a transplant? I hear a lot about issues of lack of donor hair and I was wondering if the majority of significantly balded patients actually face this problem.
The great majority of men have a good donor supply (I’d guess in the 99% range). The question that needs answering is — how does the supply balance against the needs for the hair based upon the degree of balding?
In men, under 1% have a condition called diffuse unpatterned alopecia (DUPA) where the donor supply and much of the recipient supply is poor, because of medical and/or genetic conditions. Documenting the presence of DUPA is critically important before a hair transplant is done, or the results will be a failure and the donor area becomes scarred.
If two patients with similar hair loss patterns were to get a hair transplant, one with very thick hair, the other with finer hair but greater density, who would come out with the best results, and would the patient with thick hair end up paying less?
This is a great question. The more coarse the hair the greater the fullness, transplanted hair for transplanted hair. People with fine hair usually get the “short end of the stick” since they require more grafts and therefore (as the price per graft is what you pay for) the costs run up.
When a person with a medium hair or greater thickness comes in for frontal hair transplants, these patients often are easily completed in one session… while the person with a fine or ultra-fine hair will often require more procedures to achieve the fullness that they may want.
Hello,
I have a unique situation, that I can’t quite seem to find an answer for. I have had one major hair transplant, and also a few small touch up procedures all from the same doctor.
I have had to go back a few times due to my right hairline being stubborn for good growth. As of right now, I have just a very small area that I am concerned with, that exposes my scalp somewhat.
My issue is that during my touch up procedures with my doctor, I no longer feel that he has the attention to detail for me to trust going back to him to get this very small area. I’m wanting to find a doctor that would be willing to help me out with a very small procedure without having me pay the minimum fee which could be thousands of dollars.
I understand the reasoning behind a minimum fee, but was wondering if there are any doctors out there that would be willing to squeeze me into their schedule, and not necessarily feel like they need to block out an appointment spot out for me.
Any information or direction that you might have would be great
Thanks
When there are small touch-ups to a procedure we did originally, we often reduce the minimum fee requirement. In your case, we would be doing work created by another doctor, so the reduced fees generally do not apply. That being said, sometimes we will reduce the fee if the work is small, even on someone like you (patient of another doctor).
But… what is a “touch-up,” exactly? I don’t really know anything about your case or what you consider to be small refinements. Questions that need to be considered include: How much of our time will it take? How many staff members do I have to commit to your case? How much time in the operating room does the procedure need? These are important to know and the fees should be made on an individual case-by-case basis once we can establish just what needs to be done.
Touch-ups can be done with follicular unit extraction (FUE), but it still requires anesthesia. All of this is costly to us. We often subsidize our former patients for small touch-ups, as they are generally rare requirements put on us.
Can you explain to me what laser-assisted hair transplant surgery is? And why don’t more doctors do this? Advantages/disadvantages?
I read an article on your New Hair site from 1996 – here – that said the lasers weren’t sophisticated enough for this kind of procedure, but that was 15 years ago. What is your opinion now? Thanks
Lasers are wonderful devices, but I would not recommend their use in hair transplant procedures in any manner. When they were used, they produced significant burns adding to complications that rarely occur otherwise.
Snippet from the article:
While it might be too late to shoot a new box cover for the UK version of FIFA 12, Electronic Arts managed to give Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney’s in-game model a quick makeover to reflect his recently transplanted hairline.
Read the rest — EA Sports Pioneers the In-Game Hair Transplant
Wayne Rooney has apparently been candid about his hair transplant, so I guess it is only fitting that the video game character representing him was updated for his new look. I think the new hairline still looks a bit too high (based on the photo in the article), but I would know for sure if we got a picture of his wrinkled forehead when he looks up.
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