Non-Balding 20 Year Old Wants to Thicken Top of Head

[louispoker1]

hi,

 

i am a young male - 20 years old with very fine hair. I am not balding but would like to thicken up my hair a bit. Would it be possible to take hair from the back of my head and transplant that to the sides/top?

 

Many thanks,

 

Louis

[mahhong]

Hi Louis,

 

In short -probably not unfortunately. At very least not at so young an age. The problem is that nobody can foresee if you will bald or not in the future, and so a good doctor will be very unlikely to agree to transplant hair to a non-balding area at 20, as by the time you are 25 or 30 you may be experiencing MPB and the procedure may have been a major mistake.

 

Generally speaking HTs for non-balding people are relatively rare anyway. Usually they are for special circumstances; burns victims that want to fill in bald patches, congenital deformities that can be cosmetically improved using HTs etc. Maybe when you get to your 30s a doctor would in principle more seriously consider your request (if there was still zero evidence of balding), but I think in honesty you'd still have a hard time finding a good doctor to do a procedure for this reason.

 

If you are worried about how fine your hair is (I assume you are concerned your scalp is showing) have you ever tried or considered concealers such as toppik/nanogen/dermmatch etc.? They can be applied to your existing hair and consist of tiny fibres that can cosmetically "bulk up" your hair a bit. They're relatively cheap and very safe/usable so these might be, overall, a better option for you?

 

Best of luck for the future!

[louispoker1]

thanks very much for your reply. really useful. a hair transplant is a pretty drastic measure, i'll admit and i'm not that keen on it to be honest. the issue with toppik is that it really is a very short term solution. I swim a lot and I assume it would come off in the water. In addition, I am against the idea of wearing hairpieces etc and this would essentially just be an extension of that, no?

 

have you heard anything about hair growth supplements - biotin, for example? are there any other options?

 

thanks in advance. really appreciate it!

 

Louis

[Sean]

hi,

 

i am a young male - 20 years old with very fine hair. I am not balding but would like to thicken up my hair a bit. Would it be possible to take hair from the back of my head and transplant that to the sides/top?

 

Many thanks,

 

Louis

 

 

If you aren't balding, you have no need to get a transplant. May not be worth the hassle and you don't know if it will work well. If you have thinning hairs, you can take stuff to maybe thicken em up a bit. Have you tried biotin or msm? Even a lean diet consisting of high protein will help. In any case you can try Rogaine/Propecia after speaking with a doctor. They are known to thicken existing hairs.

 

But i'd definitely experiment with thickening shampoos such as Nioxin to see if they work for you. They might give you that fuller look in those areas. Give it a shot. You might want to check out Nioxin system 1 and then 2 later if need be. good luck

[finaxz]

I can confirm to you that Dermatch does not come off that easily with water alone , one needs to shampoo it out , neither does it have this color changing problem that Toppik does . Toppik is a great product with its limitations , its faster and easier to apply and doesnt have this risk of showing up but It cant be used with water , it will wear off . Its a different thing that Dermatch may show up as a black patch depending on how your hair looks into water . Have Dermatch until you reach around the pool and before you jump in , wear you swimming cap , simple .. Hope it helps . The problems you are dealing with right now are very minor compared to the problems you may have to end up dealing with after a transplant . So with that knowledge I request you to try to find happiness in the present situation . These products are very affordable and I suggest to you to try experimenting with them .

Edited October 31, 2011 by finaxz

[mattj]

One thing I want to add to the comments others have made is that regardless of your age and any risk factors related to that, there is the issue of whether a transplant is even possible. You are unhappy with the density of your hair but if you truly don't have any thinning due to male pattern balding then the density is likely to still be quite high. If hair is above a certain density it becomes very risky to attempt to add grafts to the area. There is a real danger of damaging the existing (native) hairs causing them to be lost and leaving a patient with no more hair (or perhaps even less) than they started with.

 

Regarding supplements/treatments. If you aren't experiencing hairloss then unfortunately there is nothing available that would result in an increase in hair above what is naturally growing.

 

I wish there was something positive to say to help you but there isn't. It might be worth making use of the products others have mentioned which can enhance the appearance of hair density. The concealer products can have a dramatic effect and you could choose to use them just for special occasions.

[mahhong]

What mattj says is very true regarding complications of an HT.

 

As far as biotin is concerned, a lot of people have commented that it makes their hair feel stronger and healthier and seems to make it grow faster and somehow "better", so it might be worth a try given the ease you can pick it up. I do not imagine it will actually do a huge amount to cosmetically change your hair so I wouldn't expect drastic results from it, but if you want to give it a go I wouldn't see why not. I'm not sure what sort of doses are recommended but you can find more information by searching on these forums. Again, it's something of a long shot, but couldn't hurt!

 

Aside from that there's really not much you can do unfortunately. If you wanted you could always post some pictures of your hair up on here; there's no obligation of course but it might just help to see what you are talking about and see what you feel the problem is. Quite often people worry about things and, when they post them up on here, it's actually nowhere near as bad as it seems to them! There's definitely no point considering minoxidil or finasteride unless you were actually diagnosed with MPB and I think you're definitely right not to consider a transplant.

[RCWest]

I too give thumbs up to starting Biotin and MSM. Also see a good dermatologist or HT surgeon to check for any miniaturization. You can lose up to 40-50% of your hair before it really shows, and a HT doctor can catch it early and start you on Finasteride. You may not think you are losing your hair, as some people don't recede in the hairline they just thin diffusely.

[louispoker1]

Hi guys,

 

Thanks for all the advice. I am definitely not thinning. I've always had fine hair. I'm going to try biotin and see if it makes a difference. I'll let you know the results!

 

So, just to confirm, I should try biotin and then perhaps MSM. They do seem fairly cheap.

 

Thanks again,

 

Louis