College student Russ Jowell’s dream was to have a head of hair again, and as the winner of ABC TV’s “The Great American Dream Vote”, his dream was granted by the New Hair Institute in the form of hair transplantation surgery.
I sat down to speak with him the day after his surgery so he could tell the viewing audience what it’s like to win all that money, the car, and the rest of the amazing prizes. Plus, find out what his hair transplant surgery experience was like and how his life has changed since the show. Look at him and see if you can tell that he had a hair transplant the day before.
This man had the ugly, pluggy hair transplant procedure that was common in the mid 80s. Unfortunately, many, many people think that this is the standard and that if they have a hair transplant, this is what they are going to look like. I spend a great deal of time trying to explain away these types of results, telling prospective patients that today’s standards are so natural that you can not tell them from a person who did not lose their hair. Now with that said, here is a patient that has had some repair work for his old-style hair transplants. Unfortunately, he did not have enough donor hair to fix it the way I would have liked to do it, but what he shows here is much better than what he had when he first came to see me. I asked him if he would talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly and he sat down with me to talk about what it’s like for someone who has this kind of ‘old’ hair transplant work, how difficult it is to fix, and what the limitations are for someone looking to fix a bad job.
It might be 10 months old, but it’s new to me! I just stumbled on this video, and it really put a real smile on my face. It goes to the core of the hair loss innovations. Enjoy.
Thanks alot for this blog site. I had a transplanting surgery of about 600 to 700 gratfs towards the end of April this year.
Now I am a bit worried, I must say that I started seeing new hair growing, but its not as dense as I supposed it would be. I still feel itching tendencies almost daily and sometimes I even get pimples. I have noticed also that some of my hair that was there before the op had fallen gradually, is that normal? I am really getting worried, as against my expectations of getting better, the progress is slow.
Is this common? Thanks
I always tell my patients that you have to wait out a full 8 months before judging the results of a hair transplant. You are now approaching 6 months and should soon be starting to see the effects of the hair transplant. The hair which may have broken through the skin may not have any length to it at 6 months, so do not panic.
Take a look at Steve Hartman’s photos and see his results from month to month. His results at 8 months are wonderful, but at 5 months he only had fuzz in the recipient area.
View the video below to see one man’s example of hair growth that was taken and narrated by him.
Tags: hartman, hairtransplant, hair transplant, results, progress, growth, video
This is the first video of a new showcase of interviews with everyday people (both men and women) about their experiences with thinning hair — whether just noticing random people, family members, or even losing hair themselves. Based on the response I get, more of these style videos will be added to the site. Please feel free to post a comment or email me privately with your thoughts about these.
So please meet Jenny. She’s in her mid-20s, born and raised in Southern California. These are her opinions.
We put together a short video series for this site that showcases a little of the history of the innovations made at the New Hair Institute in the field of hair transplantation. This video does have some potentially graphic images of an FUE procedure (grafts being removed, there is a little bit of blood) — so please be warned if you’ve got a weak stomach.
I’ve recieved a few emails in the past months asking for an update with some of my Extreme Makeover patients. What is always a pleasure for me is the ability to show the results of a hair transplant, not just with the patient and their family, but with strangers at events like our monthly ‘open house’ events, and on websites and TV shows like Extreme Makeover. Just to give a little background for those that are not aware, I was asked to perform hair transplantation surgery for a number of patients on the nationally broadcast series called Extreme Makeover in 2004-2005. One of these patients was musician Marque Strong. He was featured on the NHI website right before his episode aired, but there hadn’t been much to update about until Marque paid us a visit and allowed his meeting with Dr. Rassman to be recorded for the blog. Hear Marque in his own words and see his great new hairline in this video:
For more info on Marque and to see his complete set of before photos, please see his NHI feature.
Meet Patient NG, a man in his 30’s with slightly wavy, black hair. He had 3 procedures at the New Hair Institute totaling 7,470 grafts. The video was shot just days after his 3rd procedure (1833 grafts), so the hair had obviously not grown in yet, but you can hear for yourself just how much having a nice head of hair has changed his life. Please enjoy.
I have white hair. Most of the pictures on your website are of people with dark hair. Are white haired people also candidates for hair transplantation? Are the results of transplants on white hair people as good as darker hair people?
White hair is always better than dark hair for hair transplants. There is a good reason why white is better — it glistens and reflects light. The reflection of the light impedes the eye’s ability to descriminate what it is seeing and the reflection always makes the hair shaft look bigger. I always tell my white or gray haired patients not to dye it black, because they give up the value that the white hair gives in producing a fuller head of hair. That’s the up-side.
For a good example of a patient with white hair, please take a look at Patient OD in the NHI photo gallery. Also, another example is the close up below photo of white hair that glistens by reflecting ambient light. Please click the photo to enlarge and you well see only the dark hairs in focus. The white hairs are almost invisible, yet the light that is reflected shows far more value than even the dark hairs that are so well defined on the close up.
The down side for people with white hair is that it is almost invisible to the eye, even on magnification. To get good yields from the harvesting of white hair, you need to use very high powered microscopes so that you see every hair and do not unintentionally damage it.
Note: This video is of surgical nature and may be too graphic for some viewers.
My brother had a hair transplant with you last summer and I’m seriously considering it myself. I’m still on the fence, but I know that my hair isn’t just going to magically regrow in the front and my brother’s hair is coming in quite nicely. That’s a very positive thing. Anyways I’ve been reading a TON of stuff online (thank you so much for this blog) but I have not read anything about how you cut the hairs out of the donor strip. So I’m just curious to know what is involved with removing the hairs from the strip once the strip is cut from the donor area? Thanks
It is natural to be curious and even nervous if you are considering a hair transplant procedure. The best thing is to come to one of our monthly Open House events to see a live surgery take place (on closed circuit TV with the patient’s blessing) and meet NHI patients in person to see the quality of our work.
If the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words”, then I wonder what a video is worth?
Another great option is to watch this quick, informal video filmed during a hair transplant procedure, shot earlier this week at the New Hair Institute’s Los Angeles office. The video, found below, shows a quick scan of the surgical room, followed by a technician dissecting the grafts from the strip under a microscope. The video is narrated by Dr. Rassman — you can try to count the words, but hopefully, this video speaks more than just a “thousand words”.
Note: This video is of surgical nature and may be too graphic for some viewers.
There’s also more videos available on the NHI Videos page.
