Paying the Price for Hair Plugs from 25 Years Ago (with Photo)

As a young man 25 years ago, he had a hair transplant with the old fashion plugs. After seeing what it looked like (it was partly hidden with some hair at the time), he came to the conclusion that he made a mistake and immediately went to using a wig. Between his wig and a baseball cap, he had hidden his secret. About a year ago, he realized that maybe he could undo his plugs and after a year doing internet research, he came to my office to ask me an important question I’ve heard quite a few times before — “Can you just remove these plugs and make me bald so I can shave my head?”

Remember, this is NOT the standard of care today. Click the photo to enlarge.

To see the deformity, he lifted up his wig, which was tightly held to the scalp with tape. Although he is a Norwood Class 5A pattern with high density in the donor area, he never really wants to do hair transplants again, and just wants to be a normal bald man. This is a common finding in people who lived with the horror of the plug deformities of the old transplant work. Unfortunately, this type of problem is what so many people believe is today’s standard of care. Nothing could be farther from the truth as today’s hair transplants can not be told apart from a normal natural head of hair in a non-balding patient.

We agreed that I would remove each plug one-by-one and sew him up, making him a normal bald man. Removing these plugs may leave some minimal scarring. He wants me to transplant the hair extracted from these plugs and put them into the place they came from, to hide two obvious small neck scars. This should easily be done in one surgical session.