Hi, I'm a 38-year-old male located in the Washington, D.C. area, and I have a few questions and concerns related to hair replacement surgery.
1) Which surgeons do you recommend in my area?
I really don't know how to find good surgeons, and so I simply typed "best hair surgeons near me" into Google and a hair clinic called Natural Transplants was the highest rated by far.
Here's their website:
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I called a couple of years ago, and a doctor named David Kurzman got back to me and told me that he was a patient advisor. He asked me to take a few pictures of my scalp - which I did. He then had me do a free virtual consultation with Dr. Kevin Blumenthal - who would be the actual surgeon doing my transplant. They were very polite and helpful, and at the end of the conservation they gave me a quote of $10,000.
Here's his profile:
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Is he good surgeon? And is that a fair price?
Ultimately, we both agreed that it would be a good idea to delay the surgery since I was also in the process of getting double jaw surgery - which is a very serious operation. They wanted me to focus on taking care of that first and then get back in contact with them after I was healed. Getting double jaw surgery took much longer than expected due to Covid, my insurance taking forever to give pre-approval, and waiting for space in an operating room. But I finally got the surgery about 2 months ago and I now feel well enough to get a hair transplant.
2) One of my other complications related to getting hair transplant surgery is that I have a chronic skin condition on the back of my scalp called gram-negative folliculitis. Basically, I've been suffering from chronic bumps and sores on the back of my scalp for over 15 years. And my previous dermatologist overprescribed me antibiotics - which made my skin conditions even worse. He had me taking oral antibiotics like Tetracycline, Doxycycline, and Minocycline every single day for over 10 years. He also had me apply a topical antibiotic called Clindamycin to my face and scalp every single day for over 10 years. And that caused me to develop antibiotic resistant super bacteria on the back of my scalp. After going to several different dermatologists looking for answers, I finally learned that I'd have to take low-dose Accutane for the rest of my life since that's the only solution that works. And that created all sorts of issues for me since you're not supposed to do any sort of procedure to your skin while on Accutane because it can give you really nasty permanent scars. You have to stop taking Accutane for a full 6 months before doing any sort of procedure to your skin. And even though both my oral surgeons and my dermatologist told me that Accutane wouldn't affect internal surgeries like double jaw surgery, I still stopped taking Accutane 1 month prior to my double jaw surgery just to make extra sure that it wouldn't affect my surgery and recovery in any way. And so I stopped taking Accutane back on December 24th, 2022 - which was a little over 3 months ago. And I'm now trying to schedule hair replacement surgery in about 3 months from now because then it will be 6 months since I last took Accutane.
My questions related to this are A) is it safe to get hair replacement surgery with my skin condition? I'm worried that transferring hair from the screwed up lower part of my rear scalp to the front of my scalp will just spread my skin condition to the rest of my head. In my own mind I've reasoned that it will hopefully be safe because Accutane has been effective at controlling my gram-negative folliculitis on the back of my scalp. And so if the surgery does cause it to spread to the front of my scalp, then hopefully Accutane will keep it in remission once I get back on that medication. And B) do you think that my on-again off-again use of Accutane will somehow affect my results, even if I take a long break both before and after my transplant?
3) Do you have to take oral medications like Finasteride and Minoxidil in order for your hair transplant to be successful long-term? I tried taking oral Finasteride back in 2017 for hair loss, and I had severe sexual side effects after only 5 weeks of use. At first my sex drive was through the roof for the first 4 weeks of being on Finasteride, but then I woke up one morning about 5 weeks into taking it with almost zero blood flow to my penis. My penis shrunk to less than half its normal size and was cold to the touch. I couldn't get an erection to save my life. And my testicles shrunk too and tucked close into my body as if I just jumped into ice water. This lasted for an entire year and gradually got better over the next 5 years. I went to several different urologists, and nobody had any answers. Most of them had never even heard of this happening before. Only 1 urologist did, but he didn't have any solutions. And so they all just basically gave me prescriptions for generic Viagra and Cialis and sent me on my way. And so there's no way in hell that I'm ever taking Finasteride again. But I heard that oral Minoxidil worked pretty well, and my dermatologist gave me a prescription for it. I got it filled, but I haven't taken it yet because I don't know if you're supposed to take it or not if you're getting a hair transplant. And so what do you guys recommend when it comes to oral Minoxidil? Should I take it before my transplant? Should I wait? Is it necessary to take for the rest of my life in order to have good results with my transplant surgery long-term?
I know this was really long, and so I just want to thank anyone who actually took the time to read it all and give me some helpful advice.