Should I Get a Hair Transplant?
I've been facing the issue of hair loss since 18 years old.
I'm now 21 and was just wondering if I should get a hair transplant.
I will provide the pictures of my hair loss progression over one year.
I'm guessing I'm somewhere between norwood 4-4.5.
Thank you for your question!
You asked if you should get hair transplant and you've submitted some very good pictures
from age 18 and now age 21 about your progress with your hair loss.
So I'm going to talk to you about a few basic considerations when someone comes to me about
hair loss.
First understanding what is causing your hair loss.
Well it is called male pattern hair loss or male pattern baldness or MBP and when people
suffer from this there is a strong genetic pattern that can be seen in very variable
instances in families history so myths suggest that maternal uncle being responsible for
hair loss but its just myths it can happen in families but age of onset can be fairly
consistent so your fortune suffer from a very aggressive form of hair loss.
You know there is something called rule of decades that's known in our industry and that
is when you're in your 20's 20% of your contemporary males will have your hair loss and when you
hit your 40's and 50's it's more like 50% of your contemporaries.
So what's the underlying cause?
Well it's the a genetic cause where something called Dihydrotestosterone or DHT starts attacking
the hair follicles now the Dihydrotestosterone was always there but there is something that
changes in the hair follicles that results in a sudden weakness to the effect of Dihydrotestosterone
and what Dihydrotestosterone or DHT does is literally chokes the hair follicles until
it gets smaller and smaller we refer to that as miniaturization.
So a significant progress in the field of hair loss occurred about 1997 with the introduction
of the drug called Finasteride.
Now Finasteride is an oral medication that blocks Dihydrotestosterone or DHT and it reduces
considerably and when people most men statistically will respond to taking Finasteride.
Unfortunately there has been a lot of concern about long term sexual side effects and that
is still being figured out.
However there is some real concerns such that a lot of people who come to me all over the
world are looking Finasteride on the internet and deciding they don't wanna take it anymore
they don't even wanna try it and they rather not do it and then so it gives us limited
options in terms of medical choices.
There is Minoxidil which has been around probably since the 80's and it is a topical treatment
and unfortunately for a lot of men who start having this pattern hair loss at a younger
age, it tends to be not that effective.
And so you are in situation where you wanna naturally have hair and you're asking should
you have a transplant.
Well many years ago it was standard in our industry not treat people with transplantation
who are very young because of a couple of reasons.
One was the being realistic about what the appearance would be after the transplant.
Unfortunately when you have 80% of your contemporaries have full thick hair even with the transplant
you can't get the same level of result.
Second is the ongoing progression.
You can transplant one hair but if you are losing two to three hairs, then it's like
taking two steps forward and two steps back.
So it is better if you take medical therapy and then come back to us where you are in
a more mature state to be able to make a decision to what is more appropriate or age-appropriate.
You know, when you hit your 40's 50's or later, it's okay for a lot of men to have hair just
right in the middle and it breaks off in the bald scalp and they look fine.
But when you're young, that's not acceptable.
Well, I'm going to educate you about something that I've been doing in the past couple of
years using a material called Extracellular Matrix.
Now in recent history, back in 2011, there was a study published that demonstrated that
men who had baldness or loss of hair have a certain stem cell that does not appear to
continue to work.
It's a type of cell called a progenitor cell and it's a very important part in the protection
of the hair follicle.
So you can think about DHT as an army storming the castle and you can think of progenitor
cells as a wall around the castle.
So if the wall is broken down, even with low level of DHT, you can still loose hair because
the same effect happens, the hair gets chocked.
So a few years ago, the concept of using extracellular matrix was first introduced as a byproduct
of using it for wound healing.
And that's what extracellular matrix is really used for.
So what I did for the past 2 years is I worked out and developed a combination of extracellular
matrix, platelet-rich plasma and vitamin D that when placed in a very specific way under
the skin at the level of skin called the dermis and also do other treatments in combination.
And one time, I've been able to successfully reverse that thinning process of hairs.
Now it doesn't mean that I can bring back hairs that have been completely lost.
I can't do that.
Those are areas that have to be transplanted if you want to see hairs grow in that area.
But the injection has been a huge game changer in helping people particularly young people
who are suffering from male pattern hair loss.
So, this is something that most people have not heard of.
Patients come to me from all over the world and the same time many people in just in our
local area in Long Island and Manhattan have not heard about his treatment.
So, this is something that I would consider.
If you were to come to my office, this is something that I would first recommend is
treat the hair loss at the cellular lever using something that activates your adult
stem cells using this FDA-cleared device called Extracellular Matrix combined with Platelet-rich
plasma which drawn from your own blood which has some of your growth factors.
If you've done your research, you've learned that people use PRP for hair loss on its own.
In my experienced, PRP is not enough but in combination with extracellular matrix, I have
been able to develop a very consistent result both for men and women in our practice.
Without even doing a hair transplant, let's say your hair, and let's do that kind of treatment.
Now in deciding whether or not to do a hair transplant, I wait about a year after I do
the injections.
After that's done, we sit down and we discuss what you want and we make a decision about
hair transplant based on a couple of factors.
One is your donor hair density, how much hair you have in the back and per square centimeter.
The more hairs per centimeter, the more we can transplant.
It's like having more money in the bank.
Looking at hair thickness and quality, it takes more fine hairs to cover areas that
can be covered by one thick hair.
And of course, looking at area of coverage desired.
You see, unfortunately, when people start noticing hair loss, already they've lost 50%
of their hair.
So you can't restore everything from a limited area.
So you have to spend the money in the bank very carefully and strategically.
A lot of actors know this very well.
They know that their face is in camera, so they build up their frontal hairline and add
some volume in the center and it looks very nice and natural.
When you think about it, life is right here in front of you.
So you can consider doing things where instead of focusing in the back, you focus on the
front.
But we're getting right ahead of ourselves.
Right now, I want to introduce to you about this regenerative medicine and what we're
called Hair Regeneration using Extracellular Matrix and Platelet-rich plasma as a way to
halt and reverse a lot of your thinning hair.
In fact, many of our patients, they have responded so well it's as if we've done two hair transplants
and we haven't done a single surgical procedure.
And what I also point out that the hairs come out is so close together because that's the
way nature created it that it's never possible to do the same job with a surgery.
So interestingly, as a surgeon, I'm doing a lot of injections to people who have hair
loss considerable more than the surgical hair transplantation.
So I know that was new for you and I hope you learned something and thank you for your
question.