Do You Wait Until the Area is Completely Bald to Transplant Into?

Hi,

You recently said that you shouldn’t transplant into an area in preparation for future loss. However quite a few before and after photo’s I see on your website, have patients with some degree of hair already on the area to be transplanted, i.e: not totally bald. DO you have to wait until the area is completely free of hair? How do you know how much hair will be lost as many people I see that are balding have lost say 75% density of their hair in the classic MPB area’s even when they are older, and it is likely no more will be lost. Is there a way to tell from your miniturisation tests what approximate percentage of density will be lost from certain areas or is it a case of time will tell?

I am 25 and have been on Propecia for around 13 months with pretty average results in the frontal third, but the back two thirds of my head seem to be thinning much slower. As far as I can tell I am eventually heading towards a Va. Although I am at an early stage. The frontal third of my hair is thinning much faster and I would say is down to about 40% original density.

Assuming I came into you and got a miniturisation done and you said I had approx 7000 grafts that could be taken, and I was a suitable candidate etc, could you place say 1500/2000 grafts in the frontal third and leave the rest till the future, even if the frontal third still had around 25-30% original density? (I would wait for another year or two and it was more noticable) I would be happy to have a thicker front third and a thinner back and use dermatch to cover that up.

Thanks, I know it’s vague but am just unsure about how long you have to wait and to what degree of density loss you have to wait before you can get a transplant!

Best regards

It seem that you’re basically asking me to give you a consultation and recommendation without seeing you. Everybody is different! I do not wait until someone goes bald to transplant them, but that means that I must be able to understand the patient well, measure the quality and the quantity of the hair in the donor area, estimate where the hair loss is going, etc.

Some patients are not happy with mild thinning and recession and decide to have a hair transplant. Some patients accept some thinning and stay with Propecia (finasteride 1mg) and never have hair transplants. You don’t have to be bald to have a hair transplant, as you can tell from the hundreds of before and after pictures on our website — Patient Photo Galleries.

So without knowing much about your particular needs, the answers are eluding me.