How Many Grafts Do I Need to Cover Bald Areas?
I started losing my hair at 17.
I'm 25 now and I'm tired of shaving my hair.
I would really like to be able to comb my hair and be able to get a proper military
haircut.
In the 5 years I've been in the military, not once have I been able to get a proper
cut.
Thank you
Thank you for your question!
You stated in your question that you started losing hair at age 17 and you're now 25 years
old.
You shaved your head and you wish to be able to get a transplant to a point where you can
have military cut and be able to comb your hair.
with that, you submitted very good photos that show clearly the degree of your hairloss.
Unfortunately, the realities of hair restoration surgery limits the actual number of hair you
would get to meet your objective.
When you start noticing your hairloss, it is established that more than 50% of your
hair has already been lost.
There is a general understanding that when you have the most hair you have, let's say,
in your early teens, it's about a hundred thousand hairs.
When you start losing hair, you have already have.
So you're about fifty thousand.
So we're looking at tens of thousands that we have to replace in order to get the density
to allow a relatively short military style haircut.
The problem is that the donor area, the area that is still present and will present your
whole life, is limited to several thousand hairs.
Although lots of surgeon can offer all kind of numerical manipulations that they can deliver
X number of grafts and all that, your end point or desired result is not likely to be
achieved based on the degree of the advanced nature of your hairloss.
You can look up on something called the Norwood classification of hair loss, the more hairs
lost, the higher number it is.
So when you look at someone like yourself, you would fall the late numbers like the Norwood
6 or even 7 classification.
The point is, there is a lot of bald scalp that you have to cover.
If you are keeping your hair longer, this would be a different conversation because
then we could potentially strategically place hairs in a way where you can be able to comb
hair and allow some length of hair to cover the scalp.
But this specific desire for a military haircut which is very short, you not only think about
the hair that is being covered but where the hair is being harvested from.
The hair is harvested from the back so whether you do a strip method or follicular hair extractions,
when the hair is cut very short, it will always show scars.
It's a running myth right now that follicular unit hair extractions are scarless.
That's not true.
Follicular unit hair extractions actually create more scars and potentially create a
wide area of diffuse dots with just one session.
You go for a second session, now you get dots that are connecting.
That can be very apparent when you wear your hair short.
Unfortunately, you are too far advanced for a technology that we developed called hair
regeneration where we have been successful to treat people who are younger who are losing
hair at younger age.
We are able to help them with that injection to thicken hair.
ironically, I would say that you are probably better off not pursing any type of surgical
procedure to try to get your desired result if you are limited to the type of haircut
that you are need to have to be in the military.
This might change if you decide to go back to civilian life and you can make decisions
at that point of transplantation and how long your hair has to be in order to make enough
grafts placements in a way that looks natural.
As you get older, society basically accepts a certain amount of hairloss as normal for
men.
So it's a rule of decades.
In your 20s only 20% have hair loss and I think that is clearly one of the factors you
are dealing with.
You are surrounded by people with your age and 80% of them have thick hair.
But as you go to your 30s, 40s and 50s, that number goes 30%, 40%, 50%.
So at that point, you may decide if you want to do something of the shaved look is your
look and certainly many men are able to carry that off and live with that.
So I think that I would hold off from considering any transplantation and just stay tune to
what develops in the next several years.
I hope that was helpful and thank you for your question!