I had a hair transplant about two years ago from a well known hair loss clinic here in Chicago. I am very disappointed in the results and was wondering if you do repair work on women. I an 29 years old and had 400 hair grafts placed in a thin area of my hair line. My hair seemed to have gotten worse after the hair transplant. Can this be fixed?
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Repair work traditionally refers to a surgical procedure that is designed to improve, remove or camouflage the adverse effects of a poorly performed surgical hair restoration. Common problems requiring attention during a repair procedure include detectable plugs or minigrafts, asymmetric hairlines, and visible scars. Your letter seems to imply that you have had one or a combination of the following: 1) poor graft growth; 2) not enough grafts to satisfy your density needs; or 3) damage to the residual native hair follicles.

The fact that your hair density has deteriorated may be related to progression of your hair loss process, or it may have arisen from shock loss secondary to the transplant procedure itself. Read the Story

I’ve been reading a lot about megasessions online, and I am wondering if this is really the best way to have a hair transplant and is it safe? – Sean
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I would define a megasession as a transplant of 2000 or more follicular units. I think most hair transplant surgeons would agree that such a session is perfectly safe as long as you are dealing with an experienced clinic. I would consider the following as potential risks if you have a megasession with an inexperienced clinic. First, it is possible that if the grafts are out of the body and not inserted in a reasonable amount of time, you could experience less growth. Second, if the surgeon attempts to obtain large number of grafts by excising too wide of a strip, you would be at increased risk for a wide scar in the donor area. Third, when larger numbers of grafts are transplanted, there is sometimes a tendency to create too low of a hairline or to fill in the vertex. While working in these areas is not always a problem, it is important to remember that male pattern balding does tend to be progressive over a man’s lifetime. If the transplant is not designed correctly, it is pssible for a low hairline or a transplanted vertex to come back and haunt the patient if he becomes significantly more bald. Fortunately, these problems are greatly minimized with a little homework. Read the Story

Hello, I was wondering if you could help me. I am withholding my name for the time being. On August 8, 2007 I went for a consultation for a hair transplant at MHR. At this consultation the consultant drew a new hairline on my head with magic marker ( I have the picture from consultation ) and told me how many grafts I would need for my transplant. He planned out a surgery for my entire head. I agreed to the surgery.

This was changed by the doctor on the day of surgery (August 31, 2007) to just the front of my head. I have since learned from various sources that having the consultant make a surgical plan or even draw on my head with magic marker is Illegal and unethical, that the surgeon doing the hair transplant has to do the planning with the patient pre surgery.

I am very unhappy about my surgery. I have a rim of hair that circles my head which is my new hairline and very little to no density behind it. I have been told by doctors that at best, I have maybe 500 grafts in head. I paid over 8 thousand dollars fro 2,226 grafts. I feel like I have been disfigured. Read the Story

I recently read an article and a guy was losing his hair after an illness, and he asked if his insurance would cover him to get a hair transplant. I don’t think insurance covered him, but my case is different. I’ve been to all types of doctors and I have a incurable disease called scalp psoriasis, and its giving me a very very very dry and itchy scalp. I’m sure my scalp is damaged from all the itching and it is very nasty under my hair so I most likely will be bald one day. Is there any way insurance would cover me to
get a hair transplant to cover my incurable scalp disease? Thanks, Jason
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Psoriasis can cause thick scaly plaques in the scalp, however it does not cause hair loss. Typically itching the scalp does not cause hair loss, unless you are very, very aggressive. Read the Story

I’ve been researching hair transplantation online and I’ve become very confused. It seems that a lot of doctors have developed their own techniques and claim they are unique. I’m reading about FUE, FUT, FIT, BHT, follicular unit grafting, follicular unit coupling, megasessions, dense packing, lunch time FUE and the list seems to go on. Is there one gold standard for hair transplantation? – Markus
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Dear Markus,

Funny you should ask!

This is an excellent question so thank you for taking the time to write. For a very long time, few surgeons specialized in hair transplantation, and those surgeons worked to refine the techniques for naturalness, aesthetic appeal, obtaining grafts, decreasing scar formation, etc. Often, surgeons would come up with similar techniques and name it themselves – hence the proliferation of multiple monikers for essentially the same thing. Now that the internet has provided a nationwide (and, indeed, worldwide) forum for this procedure, all the different names get tossed in the same pot of information – and it is up to the consumer to sift through it! This is no easy task, and even I sometimes have trouble keeping track. Read the Story

I’ve noticed that there are a plethora of reasons why a woman would not qualify for a hair transplant, and I am interested in learning what would disqualify a man to receive this procedure?
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There are several factors that must be considered in determining a man’s eligibility for a hair restoration procedure:

1) Age: This is not a “disqualifying” factor but one which may determine delaying the transplant in the young patient. In the early 20s, a man may just be beginning to develop his hair loss pattern. Transplanting permanently growing hairs in a setting where the surrounding hair is being progressively lost can lead to an unnatural appearance, as the donor supply is always finite. This consideration underscores the importance of medical therapy (Propecia/Minoxidil) to stabilize male pattern baldness in the young patient. Determining eligibility all the basis of age is a decision that is made individually for each patient, depending on psychological maturity, understanding short term and long term consequences of the procedure, family history of baldness, present hair loss pattern, etc. Read the Story

What is the minimum number of grafts needed for a hair transplant to make a good cosmetic difference? I think I am a Norwood III, would 1800 hair transplant grafts be enough?
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The minimum number of grafts necessary to make a significant difference will obviously vary from patient to patient. There are 3 primary factors to consider. First is the caliber (diameter, thickness) of each individual hair shaft in your donor area. It goes without saying that the greater the caliber of an individual’s hair, the greater the resultant density will appear after the transplant grows in. However, it frequently surprises people how much of a difference this can make. If you compare the diameter of an individual hair in someone who has very fine flyaway type hair to someone with coarse hair, you can quickly understand why the person with the coarse hair might have a results that look 4 times or more denser. The second consideration has to do with the amount of curl of the hair. When curly hair grows in after a transplant, it has the tendency to look much denser than straight hair. Read the Story

Is there a minimum age requirement to receive a hair transplant? Are there cases where it would be appropriate to transplant an 18 or 19 year old?
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When someone finds out that they are balding, either because they notice it when they look in the mirror, or a spouse, friend or barber comments on their thinning hair, it never comes as good news. However, when the person in question is in their teens or early twenties, the news can be devastating. It is a time of life when the priorities are making your way in life, dating, getting an education or a job, and hair loss can, in some cases lead to social isolation & a feeling of being less able to compete for these goals. Sociological studies performed in Europe have actually shown a bias against hiring balding men in favour of equally-qualified non-balding job applicants.

It is not unusual for a young man in this situation to go rushing in to see a hair transplant doctor desiring a hair transplant to “fix the problem” so that he can get on with his life. His peers all have a full head of hair without receding in the temples and a youthfully low hairline, so naturally he wants the same. His father, uncle or grandfather may be bald & in his mind’s eye, that is what he sees in his future, so he wants to avoid looking like that at all costs. Read the Story

I am wondering how to care for my hair after a hair transplant, what should and shouldn’t I be doing?
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In general, you can do pretty much everything you did before you were transplanted. Most practices, including ours, encourage the patient to shampoo and clean the hair and scalp the next day, preferably under our supervision at the office. Approximately half of our patients take us up on this service. If your shower is a fairly strong one, then I advise having a washcloth over the hair as you wash it. Or you can simply use a small pan with a handle and pour water over your head with that and not let the shower directly hit the grafts. Most fine-spray showers are not going to harm the grafts at all. The most important thing with those first few shampoos is to not let a comb or brush bristles scrape across one of the small scabs at the ends of the grafts. This could dislodge one of them. The grafts are remarkably stable in their new homes. The “blood glue” of the plasma, the factors in plasma and blood that encourage things to clot and stick together, helps stabilize that graft in the narrow recipient site. As long as the depth of the site is the same as the length of the graft, then there is sufficient room for the graft to be under the skin, with its epidermis (skin) layer at or just above that of the surrounding skin. Read the Story

What’s the best way to camouflage a scar left behind from a scalp reduction that I had in 2001? I am currently wearing Dermatch to cover the area, but the hair parts like the “red sea” on top around the scar so the makeup does not look so good. I would like to fill in the area with hair but I am not sure if a hair transplant will grow into scar tissue. Thank you.
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Hair will grow in the scar but, as you allude to, the problem is often the abnormal hair direction rather than the scar itself.  Besides adding hair to the scar, if one transplants hair adjacent to the scar, so that it lies over the scarred area, the visual affect of the “Red Sea” effect can be lessened.  Read the Story