A Few Questions About Hair Transplant...

[ApproachingNormal]

Can someone tell me do all hair transplants leave scars, do you have to take medication to keep the hair growing after the surgery, is this expensive and finally is there anyone in the Bay Area who is really good and cheap?
I was looking at Bosely and Hair Club For Men but I read some really bad reviews.
Rogain and Propesia did not work for me. I have tried it for a year and had zero results.
Not sure what are my other options.

 

[JeanLucBB]

Can someone tell me do all hair transplants leave scars, do you have to take medication to keep the hair growing after the surgery, is this expensive and finally is there anyone in the Bay Area who is really good and cheap?
I was looking at Bosely and Hair Club For Men but I read some really bad reviews.
Rogain and Propesia did not work for me. I have tried it for a year and had zero results.
Not sure what are my other options.

Do you have photos of your hairloss you can show? Hard to know what to suggest without them. If propecia didn't work, you could definitely try dutasteride, which is effectively a stronger version. Bosely and Hairclub are both disgusting snakes (owned by the same company), and you should stay the hell away. I genuinely don't know how they do such a bad job usually, I feel like with 5 minutes of training I could do a better FUE than the average Bosely surgeon.

Going to a surgeon because of location is stupid first of all, the procedure is too important and quality of surgeon dependent to bother worrying about location. Also when plane tickets across the world are less than $1500 and you're paying over $10000 for a procedure, there is no reason to go local. Find a REAL surgeon, particularly off the IAHRS.

If you are worried about scarring, I would recommend you go for an FUE procedure procedure as it has a lower chance of bad scarring, and in the rare instance (extremely rare with a good surgeon) it can occur it is easy to tattoo fake hairs onto the scars to make them unnoticeable.

 

[ApproachingNormal]

Thanks for your reply.
I just took a couple photos, wow I didn't realize how bad it is. I guess that's the sad apart about getting old.
Do you know of any good surgeons in the San Francisco area? I read a few reviews from Yelp on a couple places lol but I don't trust most of these fake reviews.

 

[ApproachingNormal]

Thanks for your reply.
I just took a couple photos, wow I didn't realize how bad it is. I guess that's the sad apart about getting old.
Do you know of any good surgeons in the San Francisco area? I read a few reviews from Yelp on a couple places lol but I don't trust most of these fake reviews.

Also, I did try Duta for two months (Drs gave a prescription) and I had to stop due to sensitivity in my nipples.

 

[JeanLucBB]

Thanks for your reply.
I just took a couple photos, wow I didn't realize how bad it is. I guess that's the sad apart about getting old.
Do you know of any good surgeons in the San Francisco area? I read a few reviews from Yelp on a couple places lol but I don't trust most of these fake reviews.

Your hairloss is extreme, you cannot focus on surgeons in your area because your case would be difficult. It's a serious medical procedure with risks and quality is dependent on the surgeon. You should get an FUT with one of the of the best at large scale cases like Hasson + Wong or Rahal, both in Canada. Positive reviews don't matter as much as visual results. Most have a very poor aesthetic sense when it comes to their own body.

100% don't get a doctor just because they're in your area. It's a recipe for disaster and you'll waste a lot of money.

 

[ApproachingNormal]

Your hairloss is extreme, you cannot focus on surgeons in your area because your case would be difficult. It's a serious medical procedure with risks and quality is dependent on the surgeon. You should get an FUT with one of the of the best at large scale cases like Hasson + Wong or Rahal, both in Canada. Positive reviews don't matter as much as visual results. Most have a very poor aesthetic sense when it comes to their own body.

100% don't get a doctor just because they're in your area. It's a recipe for disaster and you'll waste a lot of money.

The only thing I worry about with a FUT is the scar. My hair is also thin on the sides so my fear the scar will be visible.
If I go to Canada, is this done once or do I have to keep going back?

 

[JeanLucBB]

The only thing I worry about with a FUT is the scar. My hair is also thin on the sides so my fear the scar will be visible.
If I go to Canada, is this done once or do I have to keep going back?

You will be in a substantially better situation aesthetically after one procedure with focus on the hairline, but to cover the entire area effectively you'd need multiple procedures. The scarring will be minimal with a good doctor, and you can always cover it up very effectively with an SMP procedure which is effectively a tattoo that looks like hair on the off chance you get a bad one.

If you REALLY didn't want to risk the scarring and were fine with potentially running out of available grafts, you could still get an aesthetically satisfactory coverage with FUE which makes the chance close to negligible. Lupanzula and Erdogan are some of the best FUE surgeons and are located in Europe. Your choice really depends on what your expectations are like and how much coverage you want.

Either way, for a good result travelling is a MUST.

 

[Deadman1]

I disagree with Jean. You have too much hairloss for a good result. Hair transplants are really only for people with very minimal hair loss and a a pattern that will not get worse. Just look at the pictures from doctors of patients with your type of hair loss. Yes they can put some hair on the top of your head but it is too high up to make a difference, never dense enough, and just looks bad.

 

[JeanLucBB]

I disagree with Jean. You have too much hairloss for a good result. Hair transplants are really only for people with very minimal hair loss and a a pattern that will not get worse. Just look at the pictures from doctors of patients with your type of hair loss. Yes they can put some hair on the top of your head but it is too high up to make a difference, never dense enough, and just looks bad.

Idiotic and clueless comment. The average person has at least 5000 FUE grafts which would make a huge difference to this guy. Look at some of Civas' results on norwood 5s and 6s with 5000 grafts or less. Substantial improvement. Not to mention you can Use SMP to give the illusion of further coverage even with long hair.

Just because your transplants failed doesn't mean they are useless.

 

[hanginginthewire]

(Sigh) I don't understand how it is that what hair transplants can or cannot achieve is so debated. Can people get coverage or not. Are the pictures doctored? How in the hell are we supposed to navigate through this when we have nothing concrete to go by?

This guy looks bald as hell to me and the result seems decent. Am I being deceived or missing something?


http://www.civashairtransplant.com/civas-hair-transplant-3550-grafts-fue-7-months-post-op/

 

[JeanLucBB]

(Sigh) I don't understand how it is that what hair transplants can or cannot achieve is so debated. Can people get coverage or not. Are the pictures doctored? How in the hell are we supposed to navigate through this when we have nothing concrete to go by?

This guy looks bald as hell to me and the result seems decent. Am I being deceived or missing something?


http://www.civashairtransplant.com/civas-hair-transplant-3550-grafts-fue-7-months-post-op/

You do have something concrete to go by. A norwood 5 posted a Civas 3700 FUE the other day on this forum and achieved full coverage. It's a fact that a good surgeon can fix 95% of hairloss sufferers exclusively through FUE to achieve at the least a norwood 2 with decent but thin coverage. You add SMP to create the illusion of more density, some beard hair and fully utilize the donor area and most can be a fullhead undetectable to the average person.

 

[topcat]

In reality hair transplantation is skin grafting. You are cutting out one long wide piece of skin from the back of your head or you are cutting out thousands of small pieces of skin from the back of your head. You are then cutting openings on the front and/or top of your head to insert those pieces of skin.


Yes there is hair attached to the skin and depending on where the hair is taken from for example if the caliber is too thick and the way it is arranged meaning the direction and angle of each one of those thousands of hairs will determine what it’s all going to look like and these are not the only considerations.


You must then consider that most experiencing hairloss could easily lose 20,000 follicular units long term yet the donor area can supply 5000 for most as a general number and even some of those 5000 grafts could be susceptible to dht which will result in losing them long term. This would bring your coverage initially to 25% long term and possibly 20% or less.


Considering just these issues alone do you honestly believe you can go somewhere cheap and/or local and reduce your risk of being disfigured? The risk of disfigurement is very, very high. Cheap and local is absolutely not an option. Doing nothing is an option but cheap and local...........no, no, no.

The skill of the surgeon, his tools and your physiology among other considerations will determine if your scarring is visible.