I am scheduled for an FUE hair transplant next month
Posted April 18, 2010 3:42 PM

Question:
I am scheduled for an FUE hair transplant next month.  I have heard that I may be advised to shave my head prior to the surgery.  Is this true?

Answer:
Yes, in order to do FUE hair transplantation surgery properly and to minimize the follicular damage in the donor area, it is recommended that the donor area be completely shaved as low as possible, only leaving stubble to determine the angle and direction of the hair. There have recently been some doctors who have tried the procedure keeping a longer length to the hair and I believe we are still waiting for the results of these types of procedures to determine if this is a viable option in FUE hair transplantation procedures.

Posted by Dr. Charles

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I am a 27 year old woman with naturally thin but not necessarily additional thinning hair
Posted April 17, 2010 1:04 PM

Question:
I am a 27-year-old woman with naturally thin but not necessarily additional thinning hair.  What are my options in terms of restoring the thickness of my hair?

Answer:
In patients who have always had very thin hair, especially if the hairs themselves are very fine, there is not a lot you can do regarding hair transplantation surgery to increase the thickness of the hair. In these cases, you can possibly try non-invasive techniques such as PRP therapy and/or low-level laser therapy first to determine if that in itself will increase the circulation to the scalp and improve the patient's quality of hair and possibly make it so the patient does not even require hair transplantation surgery. In these patients, hair transplantation surgery is generally a last resort in trying to increase the thickness of the hair.

Posted by Dr. Charles

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I am a 48 year-old woman looking to change the texture of my hair
Posted April 16, 2010 4:07 PM

Question:
I am a 48-year-old woman looking to change the texture of my hair.  Would getting a laser hair removal and then a hair transplant succeed in making my curly hair straighter?

Answer:
No, this would not be a good idea to change the texture of someone's hair by trying to do complete laser hair removal on the scalp and then having a hair transplant. It is recommended that if you want to change the texture of your hair you have some type of non-surgical procedure done on the scalp such as hair straightening or weaving or curling the hair with other instruments to change the texture of the hair itself. Hair transplantation in general is not used to alter the patient's hair texture.  It is generally only used to increase the amount of hair in a particular area that is thinning or balding.

Posted by Dr. Charles

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I am a 42 year old female, very unhappy with my recent hair loss
Posted April 15, 2010 2:51 PM

Question:
I am a 42-year-old female, very unhappy with my recent hair loss.  Is there any way that a doctor can predict for me how much more hair I will lose before I make the decision about getting a hair transplant?

Answer:
Unfortunately, there is no specific test that can be done on a patient to determine how far a patients hair loss will progress before it stops. We do like to take a detailed family history from both sides of the family to determine if they are closely following another family member's hair loss pattern.  However, in most cases, the patient has some type of mixed genetics from both parents and to determine or predict an exact hair loss pattern is virtually impossible. In many cases when we consider doing a hair transplantation surgery on a patient who is young and experiencing hair loss but most likely will continue to experience additional hair loss, we treat that patient as if they are going to lose most of the hair on their head and progress to what we call a stage VII on the Norwood Scale of Hair Loss. By approaching a patient in this manner, we make sure that we stay conservative and will have enough donor hair to continue doing more hair transplants if more hair loss occurs in the future for this patient.

Posted by Dr. Charles

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I am a 33 year old man and have been loosing hair substantially over the past year
Posted April 14, 2010 12:10 PM

Question:
I am a 33-year-old man and have been loosing hair substantially over the past year.  Am I immediately a candidate for a hair transplant or should I wait longer to see whether this could be a phase before doing the surgery?

Answer:
I think that the first step in a patient who has noticed a significant amount of recent hair loss is to see a specialist regarding hair restoration and immediately consider taking either some over-the-counter product such as Rogaine or prescription medication such as Propecia to at the very least try and slow down the hair loss. It would also be wise to take a very detailed family history from this patient to determine if this is, in fact, genetic hair loss or some type of medical abnormality that is causing the hair loss.

A patient does not need to wait until they are no longer losing hair before they proceed with a hair restoration procedure.  However, it does need to be determined whether or not their hair loss is genetic. Those who have hair loss from a non-genetic cause should generally have whatever is causing the hair loss treated prior to even considering hair transplantation surgery.

Posted by Dr. Charles

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I am a 67 year-old man without much hair anywhere on my body
Posted April 13, 2010 10:23 AM

Question:
I am a 67-year-old man without much hair anywhere on my body and I am wondering how do you determine where my donor site will be?

Answer:
Patients who have significant hair loss over the entire scalp have a condition called  Alopecia Totalis which is complete loss of the hair on the scalp.  Patients who have hair loss on their entire scalp and body are generally diagnosed with a condition called  Alopecia Universalis. In both of these cases, these patients are generally not good candidates for hair transplantation procedures because of the fact that they do not have adequate donor hair to be transplanted. The only way to determine if you fall into one of these two categories is to be seen by a hair restoration specialist and at that point a diagnosis can be made and it can be determined whether or not you are a good candidate for hair transplantation surgery.

Posted by Dr. Charles

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I am a 66 year-old woman and all I know about hair transplantation due
Posted April 12, 2010 8:42 AM

Question:
I am a 66-year-old woman and all I know about hair transplantation due to having heard from some friend is that it is very painful.  How true is this?

Answer:
The only pain associated with hair transplantation surgery during the procedure is at the very beginning of the procedure when the local anesthetic needs to be applied to both the hairline area and in the donor area.  This can be done slowly but generally takes between 5 and 15 minutes to completely anesthetize the entire scalp. The pain associated with hair transplantation surgery post operatively is generally only in the donor area.  I tell my patients that they will most likely have some tenderness, especially when you touch the donor area physically for a period of two to five days following the surgery.  However, some patients do experience prolonged discomfort or pain in the donor area but in most cases, at some point, all the pain and discomfort does subside. We do supply an adequate amount of prescription pain medication for all patients to treat the immediate post-operative discomfort in the donor area.

Posted by Dr. Charles

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I am a 22 year-old man diagnosed with Andogenetic Alopecia
Posted April 11, 2010 9:37 AM

Question:
I am a 22-year-old man diagnosed with Andogenetic Alopecia.  If I get a hair transplant done can I trust that my results will last?  Given my diagnosis, am I too young for the procedure?

Answer:
Any patient who has genetic alopecia is potentially a candidate for hair transplantation surgery.  The exact age when it is appropriate really depends on the amount of hair loss, the patient's family history of hair loss, and what the patient's expectations are. I certainly feel that patients who are 22 years of age and are considering hair transplantation should proceed very cautiously and conservatively.  Because of the fact that there are so many years remaining where the patient could continue to lose more hair in a genetic pattern, it is wise to reserve as much of the donor area as possible in case more hair is needed for other areas. I have performed hair transplantation surgery on patients as young as 18 and 19 years of age, however these were done very conservatively with the patient fully understanding that they will most likely need several procedures if their hair loss continues.

Posted by Dr. Charles

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Can you explain how donor hair is removed with the FUE method
Posted April 10, 2010 11:41 AM

Question:
Can you explain how donor hair is removed with the FUE method.  Is it via strip of hair or some other way?

Answer:
FUE hair transplantation surgery is performed using a single circular punch-type instrument that is used to circle the follicular unit graft and carefully excise that graft on an individual basis.  This is in contrast to the strip method in which  a single scalpel is used to remove an elliptical-shaped piece of hair-bearing skin from the donor area and the area is then sutured or stapled.

Posted by Dr. Charles

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What is forehead reduction surgery for women and how is it performed?
Posted April 09, 2010 1:08 PM

Question:
What is forehead reduction surgery for women and how is it performed?

Answer:
Forehead reduction surgery for women is the same as forehead reduction surgery for men although it is more common to see this procedure performed in a female. The procedure is performed by properly anesthetizing the entire frontal scalp and forehead area and carefully removing an area of skin adjacent to the hairline and advancing the forehead superiorly and placing sutures within the hear bearing area so that the resulting scar will be undetectable.

Posted by Dr. Charles

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