Why Is Hair A Transplant Not The Answer For Most Everyone?

[hanginginthewire]

Forgive me if this is a stupid question but I keep coming back to it. Someone had a thread the other day that perhaps the reason R&D is so slow moving in hair loss is because between finasteride, minoxidil, and transplants, we already effectively have the "cure."

And yet that idea seems so far removed from the agony so many of us are in. Sometimes I see before/afters that make it seem like a transplant is a no brainer but other times I see Wayne Rooney type results that make it seem pointless and a waste of money. I'm not a total noob and I know limited donor, shock loss, scarring, perhaps money, are all issues but again I don't understand where the cut off is. If you are willing to have, say, three procedures over the course of your life could you be virtually guaranteed full coverage? Is there a place on the Norwood scale that dooms you to low density and wispy coverage, no matter what?

I see someone who looks bald as f*** to me - say AJ Maclean from the Backstreet Boys- (http://m.eonline.com/news/405250/ba...hair-transplant-see-the-before-and-after-pics) who seemed to go from Norwood 4 or 5 to maybe a solid Norwood 2 in one procedure. But other times I see really pathetic results on guys, even from top doctors...

Again I apologize for questions that are probably common knowledge to most of you but if you have any insight into it please chime in. Is money the biggest issue? Can a very dense donor area overcome advanced Norwood status? Is "framing the face" worth it to most of you even if you have to accept midscalp or crown thinness/bald spots. Who are the people (or are there such people) that transplantation just won't give a satisfactory result to? Assuming that they are willing to pay $$ and even have multiple procedures?

 

[follicle2001]

I think that, as far as hair transplant is concerned, framing the face is extremely important. It is the angle people see you at when they talk to you. This is why many people with advanced hair loss leave the crown alone or have minimal grafts placed into it as it affects the framing the least.

I do think that hair transplant is a good answer for many people, but you really have to be a good candidate from a medical, financial, and EMOTIONAL perspective. A hair transplant is a big undertaking and you have to be willing to risk a bad outcome to undertake it.

 

[Roberto_72]

Unfortunately hair transplant is not the answer for these reasons:

- before undergoing a hair transplant, the recession must have stabilized. This is because you don't want new bald areas after you underwent an operation. So if you are 18 and your baldness is advancing, no hair transplant.
- your "donor area" must not be thinning in its turn. There are people who have very thin hair at the back of their hair and next to no doctor would transplant them because the harvest of strands to transplant would be too low
- if you are a NW6 and the conformation of your head is such that the bald top is very large, you won't obtain decent density even if your donor area is not so bad


Hair transplants will be the solution when hair multiplication is a reality. As of now, they can be the solution only for a portion of the balding people.

 

[hairblues]

Unfortunately hair transplant is not the answer for these reasons:

- before undergoing a hair transplant, the recession must have stabilized. This is because you don't want new bald areas after you underwent an operation. So if you are 18 and your baldness is advancing, no hair transplant.
- your "donor area" must not be thinning in its turn. There are people who have very thin hair at the back of their hair and next to no doctor would transplant them because the harvest of strands to transplant would be too low
- if you are a NW6 and the conformation of your head is such that the bald top is very large, you won't obtain decent density even if your donor area is not so bad


Hair transplants will be the solution when hair multiplication is a reality. As of now, they can be the solution only for a portion of the balding people.

i was looking at your regimen..do you use the cytoproterone acetate topically or orally?

 

[Roberto_72]

i was looking at your regimen..do you use the cytoproterone acetate topically or orally?

Topically, solved in minoxidil. The sides of CA for a man are pretty invasive (chemical castration).

 

[hanginginthewire]

@shookwun thoughts on the OP?

 

[dralex]

Forgive me if this is a stupid question but I keep coming back to it. Someone had a thread the other day that perhaps the reason R&D is so slow moving in hair loss is because between finasteride, minoxidil, and transplants, we already effectively have the "cure."

And yet that idea seems so far removed from the agony so many of us are in. Sometimes I see before/afters that make it seem like a transplant is a no brainer but other times I see Wayne Rooney type results that make it seem pointless and a waste of money. I'm not a total noob and I know limited donor, shock loss, scarring, perhaps money, are all issues but again I don't understand where the cut off is. If you are willing to have, say, three procedures over the course of your life could you be virtually guaranteed full coverage? Is there a place on the Norwood scale that dooms you to low density and wispy coverage, no matter what?

I see someone who looks bald as f*** to me - say AJ Maclean from the Backstreet Boys- (http://m.eonline.com/news/405250/ba...hair-transplant-see-the-before-and-after-pics) who seemed to go from Norwood 4 or 5 to maybe a solid Norwood 2 in one procedure. But other times I see really pathetic results on guys, even from top doctors...

Again I apologize for questions that are probably common knowledge to most of you but if you have any insight into it please chime in. Is money the biggest issue? Can a very dense donor area overcome advanced Norwood status? Is "framing the face" worth it to most of you even if you have to accept midscalp or crown thinness/bald spots. Who are the people (or are there such people) that transplantation just won't give a satisfactory result to? Assuming that they are willing to pay $$ and even have multiple procedures?

Hair transplant wouldn't work for me. Although I would say I am only at around a NW3 (little more maybe), I would not respond well to a transplant. Finasteride is not stopping my hair loss, and am still losing at a pretty fast rate. Also I am losing hair in the donor areas, so a transplant would be essentially pointless for me, and a huge waste of money. In order for a transplant to be effective you need to stabilize your current hair loss situation, and can't be losing hair in the areas that hair is taken from.

 

[That Guy]

I still think I'm going to get one, but (especially now that we know RepliCel's tech works) I'm not as 100% for it like I was before and I'm not high Norwood.

• In general, current transplants look like *** unless you're low Norwood, have real good donor and a lot of money. When I say they look like ***, I mean that unless they can frame your face and restore temples, usually they just give you the same sh*t hairline you have now only denser and slightly lower. Shookwun is the perfect example of a transplant done right, IMO, but even he's needed multiple to get there.

• If you're high Norwood, you will not have enough grafts for any worthwhile coverage; you'll still be obviously balding only less so. To each his/her own, but I roll my eyes at high NWs who got a transplant so they can buzz their head...because if they grew it out it would look terrible — total waste of money IMO

• They're risky procedures given shockloss and what not.

• Post-op you will look like an ugly pincushion for quiet some time.

To be honest, and this will infuriate many to be sure, I honestly think that a good hairpiece augmented with a transplant is a cosmetically superior, affordable option in a great many of cases. The road to that path obviously sucks, though.

 

[JeanLucBB]

I agree with the sentiment that as far as the hairloss market is concerned, we have a "cure". The big 3 have a success rate of 95% or above and for those who fail on it, there's always dutasteride, spironolactone and topical dutas/finasteride/spironolactone. The side effect rate for all of these including dutasteride is lower than 5% and in terms of stabilisation when you put these together you get a success rate close to 100%. FUT to the maximum extent and FUE beyond that can take the vast majority of norwood 5/6/7s back to a great looking norwood 3 and in many cases a norwood 2. I have seen norwood 6s get back a teenage hairline with light crown coverage and after throwing in some concealer they look like they never balded to begin with. The amount of people without the donor area to achieve an effective face framing but conservative transplant result like this in those younger than 45 is again negligible, diffuse unpatterned baldness affecting the donor zone effects 2-5% of the balding population. Norwood 7s are also the vast minority.

So 95% of people respond to possible treatments used in combination, and 5% of the balding population don't have enough donor for even a subtle but face framing transplant with good overall coverage with FUT. That's such a tiny piece of the pie that from the perspective of big pharma, it isn't really a big deal. Kind of sick of people saying anti androgen pills aren't a real "cure" because they have potential of sides and transplants aren't a cure because they are expensive. When most people say we don't have a cure, what they REALLY mean is that we don't have a magical cure pill that costs $5 with no sides that is a once off. For most people, transplants ARE the solution, they just don't have the bank account for multiple sessions of FUT and subsequent FUE with high end doctors.

Sorry cheapskates, when your wonder pill or hair cloning pill finally arrives (and they probably won't for 50 years) they will still cost you the price of a car and we'll still have people complaining about lack of a "cure" because they can't afford it or are scared that it will miraculously make their c*** shrink.

 

[JeanLucBB]

I still think I'm going to get one, but (especially now that we know RepliCel's tech works) I'm not as 100% for it like I was before and I'm not high Norwood.

• In general, current transplants look like *** unless you're low Norwood, have real good donor and a lot of money. When I say they look like ***, I mean that unless they can frame your face and restore temples, usually they just give you the same sh*t hairline you have now only denser and slightly lower. Shookwun is the perfect example of a transplant done right, IMO, but even he's needed multiple to get there.

• If you're high Norwood, you will not have enough grafts for any worthwhile coverage; you'll still be obviously balding only less so. To each his/her own, but I roll my eyes at high NWs who got a transplant so they can buzz their head...because if they grew it out it would look terrible — total waste of money IMO

• They're risky procedures given shockloss and what not.

• Post-op you will look like an ugly pincushion for quiet some time.

To be honest, and this will infuriate many to be sure, I honestly think that a good hairpiece augmented with a transplant is a cosmetically superior, affordable option in a great many of cases. The road to that path obviously sucks, though.

Also lmfao at the idea that anyone here is going to be able to afford RepliCel upon release. If RepliCel is more effective than a transplant, there will be more demand for it than a hair transplant, and therefore it is going to cost a lot more than a hair transplant. Some people need to learn basic economics before they swoon for RepliCel. When RepliCel comes on the market and it costs forty grand is everyone still going to be so happy about it?

Also the results I've seen for RepliCel only suggest up to a 20% increase in haircount, which is still not "cure" territory by any means.

 

[That Guy]

Also lmfao at the idea that anyone here is going to be able to afford RepliCel upon release. If RepliCel is more effective than a transplant, there will be more demand for it than a hair transplant, and therefore it is going to cost a lot more than a hair transplant. Some people need to learn basic economics before they swoon for RepliCel. When RepliCel comes on the market and it costs forty grand is everyone still going to be so happy about it?

Also the results I've seen for RepliCel only suggest up to a 20% increase in haircount, which is still not "cure" territory by any means.

and you need to learn to actually research things before babbling about it like a holier than thou shitbag.

Fact is you have no idea how much RepliCel will cost, the CEO has stated in the past that they could offer the treatment for as low as 1,000. Doubt they will be that low, but it is obvious given that it provides seemingly indefinite maintenance (but not substantial regrowth) and the company previously felt it would be inexpensive compared to transplants, it is likely to still be cheaper than many transplants. You should also consider resources, supply and demand. The treatment is quite simple to administer and requires only 1 proprietary device along with tech most labs and clinics already have. If they charged even 1k, it will be a multi-billion dollar business quickly as there would be a literally endless supply of patients and you can treat dozens in a day.

Bioprinting hair and multiplication like Tsuji's will be expensive because they are resource intensive and will rely on cutting-edge technologies and automation designed specifically for the purpose.

People spend insane money on transplants and you think that 40k would be out of the question for dermal sheath injections or next-gen hair transplants? Here's a charming info-graphic:

Nearly 50% of those surveyed said they would spend their life savings to get their hair back and if the people on the internet are any benchmark, that's probably true.

Lastly, price is ultimately not relevant; scientific progress that presents better options is. IDGAF if hair multiplication costs 40k I simply care that it will exist, drop in price over the years and I will use what options are available to me in the meantime.

 

[JeanLucBB]

and you need to learn to actually research things before babbling about it like a holier than thou shitbag.

Fact is you have no idea how much RepliCel will cost, the CEO has stated in the past that they could offer the treatment for as low as 1,000. Doubt they will be that low, but it is obvious given that it provides seemingly indefinite maintenance (but not substantial regrowth) and the company previously felt it would be inexpensive compared to transplants, it is likely to still be cheaper than many transplants. You should also consider resources, supply and demand. The treatment is quite simple to administer and requires only 1 proprietary device along with tech most labs and clinics already have. If they charged even 1k, it will be a multi-billion dollar business quickly as there would be a literally endless supply of patients and you can treat dozens in a day.

Bioprinting hair and multiplication like Tsuji's will be expensive because they are resource intensive and will rely on cutting-edge technologies and automation designed specifically for the purpose.

People spend insane money on transplants and you think that 40k would be out of the question for dermal sheath injections or next-gen hair transplants? Here's a charming info-graphic:

Nearly 50% of those surveyed said they would spend their life savings to get their hair back and if the people on the internet are any benchmark, that's probably true.

Lastly, price is ultimately not relevant; scientific progress that presents better options is. IDGAF if hair multiplication costs 40k I simply care that it will exist, drop in price over the years and I will use what options are available to me in the meantime.

It's safe to say you're incredibly naive in this regard then, and completely economically illiterate. If it is only effective as a maintenance treatment, then I question how it is even worth $1000 first of all first of all, or how they'll create substantial demand in the short term. And of course the CEO is tooting his horn prior to release regarding a relatively low price, if he said it would be 50 grand how much attention do you think the product would get to help aid a successful release? When they say $1000 currently, that creates demand and interest, which by release will have allowed them to raise it substantially

You can get a years supply of finasteride with generic proscar for less than $50 a year which maintains hair for about 85% of users and regrows for about 20%. That's leaves a small target market you're appealing to first of all, and second you're dealing with the fact they want to milk the most out of their patents and RnD. Do you really think they'll charge LESS than PRP which most think does absolutely nothing, with a newly patented treatment? Use your head. What you're saying makes no sense whatsover, and their results are less than stellar.

If your stats were true, there wouldn't be so many on forums asking for and expecting a cheaper cure in the future. 9/10 men's largest worry is baldness? If you believe that statistic, you are incredibly naive.

Have fun with living in dreamland with future POTENTIAL cures and believing that you'll be able to afford them and they'll effective, people in the real world will continue to use the options already available, which work for 95% of users that can afford them.

 

[Dsport]

Right, getting the face framed is enough for some guys, just finish the front and leave maybe a large bald spot back.

The problem is: some guys starting hair transplant early, and lost their donor and didnt get density

Some hair transplants dont work

Some guys have thin blonde hairs than dont cover

ETC

I think that, as far as hair transplant is concerned, framing the face is extremely important. It is the angle people see you at when they talk to you. This is why many people with advanced hair loss leave the crown alone or have minimal grafts placed into it as it affects the framing the least.

I do think that hair transplant is a good answer for many people, but you really have to be a good candidate from a medical, financial, and EMOTIONAL perspective. A hair transplant is a big undertaking and you have to be willing to risk a bad outcome to undertake it.