Body hair options.......

[michael barry]

Hi guys,
Over at hairsite.com there are quite a few threads devoted to body hair transplants. Some of the pictures are quite encouraging. Ive now seen two mature body hair to head transplants that look pretty darn good considering the state of male pattern baldness the guys had beforehand. Body hair also has successfully been implanted into transplant zip scars, enabeling guys to buzz their hair short if they want (this to me is the most economical way to get a transplant without noticeable scarring----having one regular follicular unit procedure the standard way with ONE nice linear scar in the donor area, later to be filled in FUE-style with just a small amount of hairs to disguise the very thin scar......you really woulnt be able to tell a guy ever had anything done).

The circumrence of BH seems to stay a tad smaller than scalp hair, however based on the results Ive seen, believe it or not this seems to be ideal for frontal work as your frontal hairs are rarely as large as the donor area hairs anyway. The docs performing body hair-to head hair implants are Jones in Toronto, Cole at his various offices in America, Umar in California, and an apparently very nice Dr. in India named Poswal who guys at hairsite call Dr. A. Dr. Woods also does body hair, but I have to be honest.....I hear his fees are rather high. He is in Australia.

I feel like body hair could provide "insurance" for a guy concerned about further loss later. It would help the transplant industry assure patients that they WILL indeed have enough hair for reasonable coverage all over their heads. Docs can do great jobs on hairlines with follicular units nowadays and only a really LOUSY pracitioner would give you "plugginess" of the transplants of a decade ago. The innovation of precise surgical instruments (much at Dr. A's designs) allow docs to retrieve body hair much more quickly than just a couple of years back. Its not as feasible as an FUE, but we are talking about folks who dont have enough donor area hair for an FUE or dont want to take TOO many hairs out of the donor area so it looks unnaturally thin.

One of my qualms about body hair initially was "yeah, but DHT grows body hair, and if I stay on propecia, it wont grow long on my scalp or widen circumferentially". Ive been educated that several male hormones make body hair grow and that the body hair you have on you body growing now despite the propecia, will still grow on you head, and its a good idea to keep taking it to save the head hair from further DHT. The threads on hairsite are positive about BH transplants for the most part as the pictures trickling in after about a year of growth are encouraging. The hair usually seems to take on characteristics of head hair after 12-24 months. If things keep going well, I think it could be a big step for this industry to the extent that practitioners could honestly assure patients that "You wont run out of donor hair, and can have reasonable thickness for a mature man".

These are ideas for guys to reasearch and look and see however, Im not telling anybody to "go get one" by any means, but it is encouraging for the business (especially for those of us with a quite a bit of body hair).

I

 

[scientist]

body hair

imo hair multiplication will always be 2-3 years away from reality, but bht is becoming reality now, so for someone like me who is going to be a nw7 and already used up my donor, it's my only option.

s

 

[michael barry]

Scientist,
I understand that Dr. Jones is 10 bucks a BHT graft and Cole is 12. Umar out in California is $5 and Dr. A in India is $5.

Being that body hair grafts usually only contain 1-2 hairs........even at 5 bucks a pop, if a guy averaged 1.5 hairs per body hair moved at $10 a graft....1500 hairs would cost $10,000. Im pretty impressed with the pics, but I must admit that knowing the price kind a' makes this a rich guys option only IMO. A similar FUE strip procedure entail (at an average of 3 hairs per graft and a cost of $5 per graft would give 6000 hairs for the same money). Thats about 4 times the bang for the buck.

I have to post that for anyone following the thread concerning costs before they jump and get a procedure without knowing what it will entail. They look pretty darn good (pics are on hairsite), but guys need to know it does indeed cost serious money due to labor-intensiveness of the procedure.


Scientist, Im getting kind of pessimistic on hair multiplication being here at the 2009 date that has been stated by Washenik myself. First we heard "early 00's", then 2005, then 2007.......now 2009 (Washenik himself). If I had to venture a "wild eyed"guess........2012, and only in New York, LA, Chicago, possibly Houston or Atlanta. Bet it will cost about $10K too and I imagine one will have to implant bio-degradable tissue scaffolds that will scar like traditional plants'. I also imagine about every three or four years the patient will have to come back in for gene-therapy based booster shots. What do you think, I know you've read a ton on it?

 

[scientist]

right, i guess i'm lucky that daddy covered my expenses. it cost $28000 for 8046 body hair grafts, plus $1200 for a round trip ticket nashville-new delhi, and i paid $315 for my 1st night hotel, then moved the next day to a nice place across the street from the clinic and paid $550 for the remaining 9 nights, these expenses included food, i didn't do anything but walk back and forth from the clinic to my room.

s

 

[hairwegoagain]

Wow, they are putting body hair on your head these days? Like from legs/chest/other places? Sounds extreme, and a bit nasty.... but OK.

That's a pricey routine for sure....New Delhi? Out. You are going to a great school though. Lots of great memories. Rand still bland?

 

[whiskey]

Dr Cole is the one with the results.

Umar is a novice and has left one of his patients terribly scarred. Search for the story of "Lucky man" on HLH forums. (hairlosshelp). Umar's conduct in dealing with his patient has been disgusting. I wouldn't touch him with a bargepole - for $5 or for free.

 

[scientist]

cole did 10000 bht on caronhead (i think), i would be interested to see anything on how he is doing, thanks

s

 

[michael barry]

Scientist,
Dr. A seems (by his net persona) a genuinely nice man interested in helping advanced norwood level patients get a head of hair. Im anxious to see that pic on his website of the 8 month guy in about 16 more months. Its interesting from a scientific point of view to see just how much local hormones determine about hair.

By the way......everybody's got a prediction on cloning/or gene therapy (now that Gho's and Bazan's HM seem to have been a bust)...do you have a prognostication/educated guesses on a timetable?



Whiskey, thats sad about Umar. There is a guy on hairsite who just got a lot of bodyhair work with Umar and it does look good........maybe he's getting better with the body hair? I can imagine how hard body hair is to work with. Im guessing that the docs might combine grafts to make 3's and 4's like the old micro grafts used to be. That should be alright up to that number for density purposes. I was thinking of body hair primarly for a patient who gets standard FUE/or strip work for the hairline, behind that area on the top in future surgeries as to not have an unnatrually thin back.



Im also wondering how many stateside docs are intersested in doing body hair work in the future. I noticed Cole charges 10 bucks a graft for a standard FUE and only 12 per body hair graft. I know the standard FUE proboably averages a good 3 hairs and the body hair proboably averages about 1.3 or so, but thats still indicative to me that its doable in a professionals hands. We have SO much more body hair than head hair anyway. If all of it grew at once (only 20-25% is usually in anagaen phase) we'd look like apes. Its truly the only HM available now IMO.

 

[scientist]

it's hard to predict, i've read a lot of optimistic things back in the late nineties, i just don't want to wait, proving that hm is safe might take long, and bht is a form of hm that's available now, i think a lot of people are concerned with results as a marker of success, when i was deciding where to go i compared techniques, and i think dr a has a couple tricks that make bht attractive without the concerns of donor scarring or low yield, i remember we wondered if it might become common in the states and neither of us thought it would, it is not cost effective, even dr a would make more money doing only strips and he could book his entire schedule that way, but he's more interested in helping the patient, unless there is significant patient demand for it in the US the current docs will be happy to keep the status quo.

s

 

[michael barry]

Scientist,
If a few of you pioneering guys go from NW4+ to NW2's with nice thickness using ONLY body hairs.....the demand for it (there are alot of rich bald men) will go way up. I'd think it would only take a good 10 circulated photos of happy BHT patients with really good results without denuding any donor hair to get many men asking local docs about it and keeping Cole and Jones snowed under with work for many more clinics/docs to do it. A surgical assisant (or 2) could be trained to extract hairs for the Doctor to place (much like many regular strip FU's are placed now) and make it much more viable.

If the first generation of mature 2 year pics (a good 10-20 of em perhaps) come in......in my opinion the demand could create the supply. Multiple "harvesters" extracting the hairs could expediate the procedure along with the surgical insturments that Dr A is inventing. At the very least,,,,,,,zip scars could be filled with BHT's with no further scarring to donor areas. Docs should be more open minded....if the results are good, it could really be a mother lode for the business, especially if graft prices come down to equal the FUE prices. Why denude your donor area till its a must?

 

[scientist]

agreed, just streamline the business

s

 

[Heliboy1]

Michael,
As a first time reader on the site I will say that I respect your post alot. I have been dealing with hairloss for 18 years - 12 of those years having work done (although with few options back then most of the procedures were useless). My body hair transplants in my opinion have been successful to this point in achieving my goals . Future procedures will ensure my complete satisfaction in all areas especially scar repair .


Dr Umar - 13,866 BHT grafts (September /November 2005)(April 2006)