Patients from India often write asking about hair loss and recommendation of number of grafts he needs.

I am loosing hair from my crown portion of my head. I am in New Delhi (India) and one of the doctors at New Delhi advised me 1000 hair not grafts. How much area will 1000 hair cover?

There is a tendency for doctors in some geographic areas to prey on people losing hair. Your question supplies little information, but I will take liberties and assume that you’re a young man desperate over his hair loss. Based on the many, many emails I receive daily it seems that in India hair loss implies some lack of manliness and if you’re balding will not be able to find a bride. These young men will try anything offered and if they have the money, there are doctors who will offer hair transplants to anyone because they make money doing it. We see the same phenomenon in western societies.

If a balding person is ignorant, naive, has money to burn, and wants a quick fix, then the first solution for some doctors is to push for a hair transplant. That is not right, not moral, and makes the unfortunate individual into a victim, many times leaving him deformed in some way. Simply put, not everyone is a candidate for surgery.

While I have written posts like this from time to time over the years, I felt that it needed to be restated. This blog is written as our attempt to educate the public so that when anyone searches Google, low and behold, we come up. We try to make this blog easy to read and direct. I hope that we accomplish this.

To answer the question posed, yes 1000 grafts would produce detectable hair but the degree of cosmetic benefit or how much it would cover is highly variable with the type of hair loss, hair to skin contrast, hair length, etc. You need a second opinion from someone who can examine you. A one line question with a number will not address your problem.