Preparing for a future hair transplant in the early 20s

[Rutt]

I am 22 and have somewhere between a NW2-3 hairline. no detectable thining anywhere, just receded hairline.

while this might sound bad, i am rather certain that i am following the same balding profile as my maternal grandfather on my mothers side. he was a NW3 by 23, stayed at NW3 until about ~40, then NW4 until about ~60. at the end of his life around 70 or so it accelerated to NW6.

This was all for him without any medicine of any kind. My father has no hair loss. His father is a NW3 at 88!! Essentially only my mother's father has had hairloss.

I have been on finasteride / minoxidil 2x daily / nirozidal for about 3-4 months and i believe i have seen regrowth on the temples. I have experienced no 'sheds', and i am pretty sure that I went from losing ~100 hairs daily to less than 50 shortly after beginning finasteride!

i will have to take some pictures to confirm and make an update.

My question is, what do I have to do to 'prove' to a hair transplant that despite the fact i have hairloss early, i am eligible for a FUE transplant in the temples region? I have seen several people with ~2k graft sessions which produced results that made them look 10 years younger. With the low chance of scarring and fast recovery I see little downside, [apart from price but that is irrelevent to me]

Is this perhaps something I could get a hair miniturization study done, followed by another 6-9 months?


I am well aware of the risks.

Yes, there is a chance there could be small circular scars with FUE in the donor region.

Yes, there is the chance that my balding is more aggressive then i believe. It is also possible for *anyone* to begin balding aggressively for no reason. However I am young and respond well to medication and have no family history of extreme premature hairloss.

Yes, I am aware that I will most likely require one or more extra hair transplant later in life. I am aware of the possibility of the island effect.

I'm also aware of the anti-young-people-getting-hair transplant sentiment. so if you think there is something I overlooked please let me know. I am planning on using finasteride/minoxil at least 7 more months (total of 11) before getting the surgery.

 

[Rutt]

Yeah haha, well that's the nice thing about coming out of college now, lots of money and no bills yet

most of my friends are buying a nice shiny car .. ill get some hair before i move onto that unk:

 

[Rutt]

I work in the finance industry

I'm just glad there's the combination of meds and essentially scar-free surgery available in the 21st century!

 

[Rutt]

The big concern/problem with hair transplant in young people is that if hair continues to thin behind the transplanted hair it will look very bad. This requires additional transplants to replace the thinning areas and worst case there may not be enough donor hair to maintain thickness.

However, this assumes the desired haircut is NOT a buzzcut.

Wouldn't you always have the option of simplying buzzing everything down to a certain point, taking advantage of an "aggressive" hairline that was transplanted and minimizing the noticibilty of thinning on the crown/middle area?

Basically - worst case scenario. NW6/7. What does hair look like if you transplant equally spaced (ignoring the fact density will be small) back to a NW2 and then buzz it?

Im curious because it would seem that .. if there is enough hair to pull that off, you would always have a 'good' option regardless of what happens with your male pattern baldness.

 

[HT55]

~2k grafts is a lot to put into a hairline so I'm guessing you are planning on lowering it which could be a huge mistake.

You seem to know all the risks so I would reccomend not lowering your hairline much if any and by all means STAY AWAY FROM ARMANI as he will drop 3K in your hairline in a second


Look into Ron Shapiro in Mn and Feller in NY for FUE from Dr's who can be trusted.

 

[Rutt]

is there any basis for the "stay away from armani" besides the general belief that lowering hairline is bad?

Will sharpio/feller do FUE into temples?

edit : looks like they will, but are more cautious. i'm alright with that

i.e. http://www.shapiromedical.com/our_patie ... /minor_14/

i could live with the right.

 

[WasBalding]

Rutt,

What you do is really a question of vanity and whether you want to be performing at the 70th or 90th percentile in life.

What you've laid out is a balding pattern that will likely take many years to materialize. I didn't have that problem. I lost most of my hairline in 6 months and was well on my way to being completely bald in 5 years if I didn't get on finasteride. Scalp was itching like hell, I could literally FEEL myself going bald.

You don't have that problem.

That said, if you are on finasteride and have cash and a little time, I'd say go for it. Based on what you've said, you should have plenty of supply to get the result you want and then you can be over it and move on with your life.

If you're like me and won't settle for going through life forced into a middling average existence, then do it. If you don't care as much, then just stick with the meds and live with being a little bit bald.

It's a matter of preference and representing yourself externally who you feel you are inside.

Post pics if you can. We can give more precise feedback then.

 

[HT55]

I would recomend H&W I have heard nothing but great things about them, I can't say the same for Armani. Check out this guys results from H&W- viewtopic.php?f=13&t=63525

H+W don't perform FUE

 

[HT55]

is there any basis for the "stay away from armani" besides the general belief that lowering hairline is bad?

Read this and you can find many more on the HTN site.

How do you feel about a Dr who threatens to sue patients if they post anything bad about his work ?

http://www.hairestorationetwork.com/e ... rsand.html

 

[Rutt]

is there any basis for the "stay away from armani" besides the general belief that lowering hairline is bad?

Read this and you can find many more on the HTN site.

How do you feel about a Dr who threatens to sue patients if they post anything bad about his work ?

http://www.hairestorationetwork.com/e ... rsand.html

wow yeah armani sounds like a crook

 

[HT55]

I would recomend H&W I have heard nothing but great things about them, I can't say the same for Armani. Check out this guys results from H&W- viewtopic.php?f=13&t=63525

H+W don't perform FUE

Yes they do- http://www.hassonandwong.com/images/ima ... ting-1.php

That is not FUE, that is a strip surgery. Like I said it's all they do

 

[Rutt]

yeah i gotta be honest i see little use for strip now-a-days when fue is so much better

 

[HT55]

yeah i gotta be honest i see little use for strip now-a-days when fue is so much better

It has it's good and bad points, Strip still has much better yield and fue actually has much more scarring but it's not as visable in MOST cases

 

[Nene]

yeah i gotta be honest i see little use for strip now-a-days when fue is so much better

It has it's good and bad points, Strip still has much better yield and fue actually has much more scarring but it's not as visable in MOST cases

Is it fair to say that strip makes more efficient use of donor follicles?

 

[HT55]

yeah i gotta be honest i see little use for strip now-a-days when fue is so much better

It has it's good and bad points, Strip still has much better yield and fue actually has much more scarring but it's not as visable in MOST cases

Is it fair to say that strip makes more efficient use of donor follicles?

I believe Shapiro and Feller who do both FUE and Strip say the best way to use donor hair is to do all strip surgeries first until you can't do anymore then do fue.

 

[Rutt]

Heres two quick pics to show my current situation. I took a bunch more for comparison purposes later on, including wet / wet + flash / dry / dry + flash.

With soaking wet hair a little scalp shows through. no real scalp shows through with a pretty bright flash ~1ft away. I feel like that is little, if any thinning hair.

although i feel that's definitely a nw3 at best .. nw2.5 is being opptomistic

 

[HT55]

Heres two quick pics to show my current situation. I took a bunch more for comparison purposes later on, including wet / wet + flash / dry / dry + flash.

With soaking wet hair a little scalp shows through. no real scalp shows through with a pretty bright flash ~1ft away. I feel like that is little, if any thinning hair.

although i feel that's definitely a nw3 at best .. nw2.5 is being opptomistic

That's quite a bit of receding for age 22, do you have a full face pic ( you can black out your face) that would give a better idea of how far you are receding, it also appears you are comibing your hair forward to cover up, can we see it combed back.

Anyway depending on where you place tha hairline you are looking at ~2K grafts which is a lot to use so young. In comparison I have used 2K grafts and I'm 42

 

[Rutt]

wet hair up

side view of hairline with hair pulled back

hair on top when wet

 

[Rutt]

I have to go back and find old photos of myself but taking a quick look i noticed i had same level of temple recession when i was 18 and my overall hair hasn't changed much .. maybe thinned out a little bit. I'm not sure if that's good or bad but it makes me feel that i am following the same path as my grandfather did since that's the same pattern he had (and it seems to coorelate pretty strongly with mothers-father.)

 

[HT55]

wet hair up

side view of hairline with hair pulled back

hair on top when wet

I would guess 2500 FUE as it's yield is a little lower than strip.

Be carefull how low you go with the hairline, I would see Feller or Shapiro


IMO your way to young to use that many grafts but with the hairline in a mature spot maybe they can do 1750 or so.

Also don't go crazy with the family history of male pattern baldness, I know several brothers about the sam e age where one has a full head of hair and the other is bald

Good luck