Hair Transplant | My 52 Year Old Mom Had A Terrible Hair Transplant

My 52 Year Old Mom Had A Terrible Hair Transplant

My mother had a hair transplant with terrible results. She is 52 years old was was told by her hair transplant surgeon that she was a perfect candidate for the operation. She has lost so much hair I the last year and the transplant looks very unnatural and sparse. She is very depressed to say the least and wishes she never had the hair transplant. Do you think it was the doctors fault that the hair did not take or is it my mother’s age. Can anything be done to rectify the situation. Thank you for your help.

Hello. I’m very sorry to hear you mom is disappointed with her results. I’m going to make the assumption that we are, in fact, dealing with female pattern alopecia in your mom’s case when I answer your question. However, I just want to say, in an effort to be thorough, that you mom should be checked out by a Dermatologist to rule out other causes of alopecia in women. And this might include blood tests and a scalp biopsy as well as a thorough medical history. So assuming your mom is suffering from female pattern alopecia, what could have gone wrong? Or did anything go wrong? I have found that it is quite common for women to have extreme “shock loss” following an initial hair transplant procedure, so I always advise them of this and the fact they are very likely to require an additional procedure or procedures to achieve reasonable cosmetic density.Now since “shock loss”generally affects hair that is destined to fall out anyway, the procedure did not “cause” the hair loss, but it certainly did speed it up. Assuming your mom has sufficient donor hair available an additional procedure or procedures should help your mom achieve reasonable cosmetic density. Soassuming that all the grafts transplanted did grow, my only concern would be that these issues were not discussed in advance in a frank and professional manner. Doctors can’t always tell you what you what to hear, but we can make very sure that we tell you the absolute truth.

Gregory Pistone, MD
Member, International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons

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