I was told not I'm not currently a good candidate for hair transplant.
When will I be a suitable candidate?
I consulted a hair transplant surgeon and was told not I'm not a candidate - I have
gaps of thinning hair rather than bald spots and the incisions would risk damaging the
existing follicles.
I'm currently taking finasteride for 2 months now.
When will I be a suitable candidate for the procedure?
Is it possible to transplant hair to the thinning areas?
Should I consult another surgeon?
I do not have any hair loss at the temples or front.
Thank you for your question!
You submitted a photo and in your question you stated that you had gone for consultation
and you are advised that you are not a good hair transplant candidate.
You’re on finasteride for a couple of months and you want to get some guidance.
Well, I’m actually pleased to know that someone you saw decided that you weren’t
a good candidate for transplantation and it requires a little bit of understanding as
to why you are not a good candidate.
First let’s understand what’s a hair transplant.
A hair transplant is the strategic movement or little transplantation of hairs from the
area at the back of the scalp which we refer to as genetically resistant area or donor
area.
Now this is a narrow space and it is limited.
When you look at a male who has advanced hair loss where they just have the horseshoe kind
of pattern, that hair is permanent.
It’s not going to fall out and the scientific idea is that, since it’s permanent, those
hairs can be cut out and then placed in another area strategically.
Now, when we look at the space at the back of the scalp and this area we refer to as
the crown, the surface area of the crown is fairly large and it is very common men to
come in and say, “I want to cover the bald spot.”
But the problem is, is the amount of area to cover requires a large number of grafts
and unfortunately, the donor area is fairly limited.
The next reason that you have to understand that your hair is thinning but you may not
have bald areas.
Which means that if you were to look at your scalp in the microscope, there’s a good
chance that there’s a lot of existing hair and that it would be not to your benefit to
place grafts and literally destroy those viable hair follicles.
I think that this strategy that your doctor may have suggested was finasteride was to
see if the finasteride can reverse the hair thinning.
Let’s understand finasteride for a moment.
Finasteride is a drug that is taken once a day, it is one milligram and it is used to
inhibit an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase. 5-alpha reductase converts testosterone to
dihydrotestosterone.
Now this dihydrotestosterone can cause susceptible hair follicles to think and eventually disappear.
So many men particularly with crown hair loss will respond to finasteride so I think that
you are in the right track.
Unfortunately, at this time, a lot of men don’t want to take finasteride especially
in their 20s and 30s because when their doing research, they’re seeing concerns about
long term sexual side-effects.
In fact, so many people come to us for one of our unique treatments called Hair Regeneration
which I’ll discuss in a moment because they don’t want to take finasteride and they’re
having progressive hair loss.
The understanding now that might help you is a concept that we have been in a leadership
position with and this is the method which we call Hair Regeneration.
It was discovered several years ago after the introduction of material called extracellular
matrix and this is derived from pig bladder that helps wound healing using adult stem
cells which means your own body’s stem cells to heal by duplication of tissue that is native
to a given area where the extracellular matrix is applied.
So when it’s applied to muscle, you are able to regenerate muscle.
We apply it to skin, we regenerate skin.
Although hair is an organ, you can’t regenerate or duplicate hairs or clone hairs which has
been the holy grail of hair restoration, we can restore the cells and signals necessary
for hair growth.
Now this something that we have developed a formulation, a method and delivery system.
And we do these injections several times a week for people who come to us from all over
the world and this might be an option that you can investigate.
What is unique is that it is a onetime treatment.
Once you have this treatment, the hair that’s thinning will come back thicker.
Well the results can be from a few months to 18 months.
We used to say about a year but we have learned that there are times, a category of people
which we call slow growers and they take a little bit longer but we have seen tremendous
benefit over the course of 18 months.
With Male pattern hair loss, we’re approaching a hundred percent success rate defined by
significant improvement that people can see and appreciate with before and after pictures
and we routinely do microscopy.
In fact in our practice, we follow these patients very closely.
We follow them at 1 month, 3 months and intervals of 3 months all the way to 18 months.
So Hair Regeneration is probably something you probably have never heard of in the storm
and mess of hair loss solutions on the web many of which are completely fake where people
are offering supplements and gimmicks.
It is actually hard to find this particular treatment but now that you have learned about,
you can investigate this method as an option for you and find a provider who can perform
this for you.
So, I think that you’re on the right track and you’re fortunate to meet a doctor who
wasn’t ready to do a hair transplant.
And I think that the trial of finasteride is worth considering.
See how you do with it and learn more about Hair Regeneration is also an option to help
you stop your hair loss and restore hairs that may or may not to be responding to finasteride.
So I know this is new information that you have not heard about but I hope that you are
able to benefit from this.
I wish you the best of luck, I hope that was helpful and thank you for your question!