Won’t I Have to Keep Having Hair Transplants Year After Year to Keep Up With the Loss?

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to maintain such a wonderful resource that this website is.

My question is about getting a hair transplant procedure. A recent question posted in this forum concerned a patient that had nine transplant procedures. You advised him that you see no reason that a person should not be completed within 1-2 sessions.

My specific question is this: I have a receding hairline and loss at the crown (typical MPB). Since I will, in all likelihood, continue to bald further what is the point of getting a hair transplant? The transplanted hair, as I understand it, will not be prone to balding, but all the hair around the newly transplanted hair will. I will have to play catch up for the rest of my life, or at least until I run out of donor hair, right? For example: If I have a transplant procedure to fill in my receding hairline, what happens in a few years when it recedes even further and away from the newly transplanted hair? Won’t I have to continue playing catch up and chasing the recession?

Yes, you are right. Please keep in mind that not everyone balds completely. The patterns of hair loss (see below) are end stage patterns in many men. So if you are a Norwood Class 3 balding pattern and that is your genetics, that is where you will end up and once you put the hair back through transplants, you need never worry about ‘catch up’ hair loss. If you are going to be a Norwood Class 6 and you’re transplanted while still in the early stages of your hair loss, you will continue to lose hair (taking drugs like Propecia will slow this down).

Of course, we do not have a crystal ball to tell us what our long term worst case pattern will be, so that is why you need a Master Plan and a great doctor to work out the best and worst case scenario for you as you grow older.