I Want To Get a Hair Transplant of 500 Grafts, But Everyone Seems To Want To Oversell Me!

I have thin hair on the top and require only about 400-500 grafts to thicken it up to my satisfaction. The problem is every hair transplant center I have had a consultation with say they don’t do anything less than a $4000 dollar procedure. Is there anywhere I can get what I want? It seems everyone wants to oversell me! – John
- – - – - – - – - -

Hi John
Thank you for your question.
You feel that you need “only about 400-500 grafts to thicken your hair up to your satisfaction.”
Assuming that you are talking about follicular units, this number of grafts would equal approximately 900-1100 hairs. To put this in perspective, this amount of hair is approximately 1% of the total amount of hair that you had on your head when you were a teenager.  If these grafts were transplanted at a density of 50 FUs per square cm they would only cover 20 square cm which is equivalent to a circle with a diameter of 5 cm or 2 inches. If they were transplanted at a lower density of 25 FUs per square cm they would cover 40 square cm which is equivalent to a circle with a diameter of 7.2 cm or 2.8 inches.

It is important to know what your goals are as far as hair transplantation is concerned & to know what you are getting for your hard-earned money. Expectations must be realistic & people may claim that they’ll be satisfied with lower densities or lower areas of coverage, only to find that after their hair has grown in they are not happy. At the consultation, ask to see photos of patients with “full density” & lesser densities in order to get an idea of what is appropriate for your own situation. Remember that male pattern baldness progressive and that you will likely need more sessions in the future, so this has to be accounted for in your budgeting process.

Mark McKenzie, MD
Member, International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons
Member, American Hair Loss Association

Mark McKenzie, MD Dr. Mark McKenzie graduated from the University of Edinburgh Medical School in 1985 and became licensed to practice medicine in Canada in 1986. While researching hair loss in the early 1990s, he became aware of the significant advances that were taking place in the field of hair restoration surgery, and he obtained training in Toronto and Boston in these new techniques, launching his own hair transplantation career in 1994. Since then he has performed hair restoration surgery in Toronto, London and Ottawa, Ontario as well as being invited by the Professor of Dermatology at Memorial University, to perform hair restoration surgery on his patients in St. John’s, Newfoundland. He has been a member of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery since 1995 and was won the “Best Presented Clinical Case Award” in the Poster Presentation section at their Annual Conference in San Francisco in 1999. Dr. McKenzie has demonstrated his techniques to plastic surgery residents from the University of Western Ontario & has lectured internationally to physicians on the subject of hair transplantation. Dr. McKenzie was delighted to be invited by Dr. David Seager to “take over the reins” of the Seager Hair Transplant Centre in 2006, and is dedicated to maintaining the same standard of excellence that patients have come to expect of the Seager Hair Transplant Centre. Dr. McKenzie is a member of the International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons and recommended by the American Hair Loss Association. Visit Dr. McKenzie's Website: www.seagerhairtransplant.com

Copyright 2011 International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons