Advice for a younger hair sufferer...

[hopefullyhairy]

Hi guys

 

Well, when I was about 18 people would joke, like 'You're going bald', and other ill-judged remarks. You see, when I was still 18, I had wild hair, and it was my pride. I had no reason to believe I would ever lose my hair, there is no history of hair loss in my family. Alas, it's happening. Now 21, my hairline has made the dreaded 'M', and the crown is balding. I have reached the point at which I am no longer willing to sacrifice my life, so of course, I am looking for the right surgeon, the right technique, and what my expectations should be. 3 years, and my self-esteem is destroyed. I can only look in the mirror in darkened rooms, so I can delude myself into thinking I still have a full head of hair, and it is unthinkable I'll allow a picture of myself to be taken.

 

My life really is devastated. I was brimming with confidence, perhaps even arrogant, and now I am so insecure that should someone even mention my hair, whatever comment they made will reverberate in my mind for the full day. I understand that many feel people my age shouldn't even be considering a hair transplant, that they should wait until they are older and their condition has progressed into a more predictable paradigm, and so is thus more manageable for the surgeon, but I've lost three years of my life, and I refuse to live in incubation until my youth is gone. It's not that I want to make the choice to have a procedure which could very well fail, and require me in ten years to spend yet another ?5-6000 I don't have repeating the procedure- it's that I have no choice. It's that the choice is between a life of constant misery, unable to interact socially with anyone because I'm crippled by paralysing self-consciousness or a procedure that might just give me my youth back.

 

I'm a law student, and I can't afford to doubt myself. I need to be confident in my appearance and my ability to project an image I want to. I don't want to be the guy that always says 'You know, I really can't go out this weekend, guys, sorry, it's just, uh, I have work I need to do', I need this procedure, and it's a crying shame that it isn't available on the NHS. An instant cure for my depression.

 

That's just a little background I feel I should provide before posing my questions. I feel it's important one understands quite how disaffected I've become as a result of this condition, although I doubt very little that this is at all different to how many of you, too, feel.

 

1) I'd like to ask, with consideration to how life-chaning this has been for me, whether you believe it is wise, or advisable, to pursue an operation at this point?

 

2) Due to financial constraints, being a student, it'll be a long time before I have enough money to pay for the procedure, so I ask, do you believe the strip method (as it is the cheaper option) is good enough?

 

3) Can I expect, if I press the surgeon in this direction, for him to restore my hairline into a low position? I ask this because I know it is generally advised that the hairline be maintained higher, in case of future hair loss. But as I'm sure you all know, the younger the patient, the more demanding they tend to be, as their teen hair is very fresh in their mind. I am no exception to this rule.

 

4) Do you recommend any surgeon or clinic for which I should be saving?

 

5) Finally, with such varying before and after pictures, can you all give me an idea of what to expect? Should I expect to have a near fully-restored head of hair, near that of someone my age without this condition, or will I always be noticeably thin on top?

 

Thanks guys, in advance.

Edited March 21, 2012 by hopefullyhairy

[RCWest]

My friend, I know your pain!! My hair was great until I hit senior year in high school. Things starting going bad pretty quick. I had my first of four hair transplant procedures between 22-23. This was back between 1992-94, when hair transplantation surgery was a luck of the draw and they were using mini and micrografts. You are at a PERFECT age to use the drug Finasteride. It works excellent in younger patients. If you are fairly lucky it will regrow hair.

 

You, unlike myself whom was uneducated at the time the internet was basically nonexistent, are lucky to have this very website. Almost noone on here would recommend transplantation at your age. Try Finasteride for a year and see what happens. When you are in your later 20's or when your final hairloss pattern is established, then consider a hair transplant. Best of luck to you, and you can message me if you want.

[hopefullyhairy]

Hi RCWest, thanks for replying! You know, I had considered Finasteride, but upon examination of the side-effects, namely permanent sexual dysfunction, I'm somewhat weary (although some could say this is a side-effect of baldness anyway!). Had it been merely temporary sexual dysfunction, or sexual dysfunction as long as the drug was taken, I could deal with that. It's just the fact that there are reports that, in fact, for the unlucky few, the sexual dysfunction is irreversible.

[RCWest]

Hopefullyhairly, are you more concerned about having hair or side effects right now? I know when my hair was falling out, it in itself caused erectile dysfunction LOL!

 

I completely understand your concerns, but the chance of erectile dysfunction is barely 2% with Finasteride. If it IS a problem, then there is Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis to help.

 

I take Finasteride, and the MUCH stronger drug Avodart, and I have ZERO problems in bed. And I am 41 years old. YOU have MUCH better odds with Finasteride than I do! Good luck to you!

[Spanker]

Yeah, I take finasteride and do not have any side effects. I have some doubt as to the validity of the permenant side effects. So some people develop e.d. that were taking finasteride? How many people develop e.d. that are not taking finasteride.

 

I started taking Fin when I was 31 (i think). Do I blame fin for wrinkles that I am getting? Grey hair? A little weight gain? Eyes going bad?

 

If you are serious about keeping your hair, you should really consider it. If not, as young as you are, you will probably be chasing your tail getting transplants.

[Spanker]

Also, I would not at all expect a reputable doctor to lower your hairline, or even put any in your crown. ESPECIALLY if you refuse medication.

 

At 21, the MOST I you could hope for from a honest and reputable physician is to reinforce your frontal 3rd, and they may consider you too yound gor that.

 

Honestly, right now, Finasteride and Minoxidil are your best options.

 

Get on youtube and look at HT's, that will give you a better idea of what to expect then just seeing pics. You probably should not expect to ever have a "full" head of hair, but HT's can produce a nice head of hair.

 

Sorry to bust your bubble. Baswed on your questions, you should do much more research before having an operation. Good luck our there.

 

P.S. Be really careful who you chose. There are a bunch of quacks out there that will do anything you pay them to do, but it really is not in your best interest long term and you will end up looking really wierd, which is way worse than bald.

[jmghair]

There are alot of people who will tell you that you are too young. I first started considering a transplant at 21 but just recently finally was able to get it at 27. I can say that I could have gotten it 3-4 years earlier but I now have a clear picture of what my future hair loss will be. The important thing is to take all the factors into consideration and be informed. For example, in regards to the hairline there are limitations having to do with bone structure with how low you can go and still look natural. Lowering the entire hairline will also take alot of grafts then say just filling in the temples. It depends on your current level of loss. Hop on meds and save a little longer. It will help in the long run.

[Truehair]

Hi. This is not much use I guess but our company in the UK can give people a full head of hair using our new system. Sadly it's not available in the USA. We tried to deal with a company in Florida but they proved impossible to work with. If you're ever in London drop us an email. And if you're an honest Hair Salon in the USA who genuinley cares about hair loss sufferers (I am one) Please contact us. I don't want to get into trouble so I'll wait and see if the site adminstrator will let us tell you guys who we are. But after reading some of the posts I can see we're needed in America.

[mahhong]

Hi guys

 

Well, when I was about 18 people would joke, like 'You're going bald', and other ill-judged remarks. You see, when I was still 18, I had wild hair, and it was my pride. I had no reason to believe I would ever lose my hair, there is no history of hair loss in my family. Alas, it's happening. Now 21, my hairline has made the dreaded 'M', and the crown is balding. I have reached the point at which I am no longer willing to sacrifice my life, so of course, I am looking for the right surgeon, the right technique, and what my expectations should be. 3 years, and my self-esteem is destroyed. I can only look in the mirror in darkened rooms, so I can delude myself into thinking I still have a full head of hair, and it is unthinkable I'll allow a picture of myself to be taken.

 

My life really is devastated. I was brimming with confidence, perhaps even arrogant, and now I am so insecure that should someone even mention my hair, whatever comment they made will reverberate in my mind for the full day. I understand that many feel people my age shouldn't even be considering a hair transplant, that they should wait until they are older and their condition has progressed into a more predictable paradigm, and so is thus more manageable for the surgeon, but I've lost three years of my life, and I refuse to live in incubation until my youth is gone. It's not that I want to make the choice to have a procedure which could very well fail, and require me in ten years to spend yet another ?5-6000 I don't have repeating the procedure- it's that I have no choice. It's that the choice is between a life of constant misery, unable to interact socially with anyone because I'm crippled by paralysing self-consciousness or a procedure that might just give me my youth back.

 

I'm a law student, and I can't afford to doubt myself. I need to be confident in my appearance and my ability to project an image I want to. I don't want to be the guy that always says 'You know, I really can't go out this weekend, guys, sorry, it's just, uh, I have work I need to do', I need this procedure, and it's a crying shame that it isn't available on the NHS. An instant cure for my depression.

 

That's just a little background I feel I should provide before posing my questions. I feel it's important one understands quite how disaffected I've become as a result of this condition, although I doubt very little that this is at all different to how many of you, too, feel.

 

1) I'd like to ask, with consideration to how life-chaning this has been for me, whether you believe it is wise, or advisable, to pursue an operation at this point?

 

2) Due to financial constraints, being a student, it'll be a long time before I have enough money to pay for the procedure, so I ask, do you believe the strip method (as it is the cheaper option) is good enough?

 

3) Can I expect, if I press the surgeon in this direction, for him to restore my hairline into a low position? I ask this because I know it is generally advised that the hairline be maintained higher, in case of future hair loss. But as I'm sure you all know, the younger the patient, the more demanding they tend to be, as their teen hair is very fresh in their mind. I am no exception to this rule.

 

4) Do you recommend any surgeon or clinic for which I should be saving?

 

5) Finally, with such varying before and after pictures, can you all give me an idea of what to expect? Should I expect to have a near fully-restored head of hair, near that of someone my age without this condition, or will I always be noticeably thin on top?

 

Thanks guys, in advance.

 

Sorry to hear about your hairloss; you're not alone here though!

 

There are some things you need to know and think about before making any real decisions. The first of them is the frank reality that, at 21, you're very likely too young for a reputable surgeon to be willing to give you a transplant. You could in theory have many more years of balding ahead of you unfortunately and that makes transplanting hair risky.

 

Far and away your best bet at the moment is medication; finasteride and minoxidil are the two proven medications. Go to the doctor, discuss your problems and concerns, and they will almost definitely prescribe you these (they are not free, unfortunately, but don't have to be terribly expensive either). In young people these medications can halt, slow down and even reverse some hairloss for years, perhaps even decades.

 

I'm sure you already know this so I'm sorry if I am telling you stuff you understand, but the problem with transplants is supply and demand. You will only have a certain amount of donor hair to use for transplants but the amount of balding could be minor or could be quite severe. Hair transplants are unfortunately not about replacing all the hair you've lost; even in the best cases of good donor/mild balding doctors will only look to put about 60/70% of your hair back (this would give you a full looking head of hair, however). Most men, though, don't have the luxury of minimal balding/great donor and so have to settle for impressive but lesser results; perhaps only 30-50% of their hair back, or just a frontal hairline restoration and no/minimal crown work.

 

Because there is only limited donor hair you can see why low, juvenile hairlines are a problem. The lower the hairline, the more bald area to cover, and the fewer grafts/cm2 you can hope for. A good doctor will design a hairline that will look natural but also produce a good density, in other words compromising between what you want and what you have to do it with.

 

A hair transplant won't give you all your hair back and possibly not even half of it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to look thin and obvious. With medication you can keep much of your hair and perhaps get a transplant a few years down the line that can beef up your hairline and that should let you have a good head of hair for a while. If you need another transplant further down the line that's usually possible to add additional density or touch up thinning areas but, as always, you will never have enough hair to replace all the hair you lose - so you can't have unlimited transplants even if it was financially possible.

 

So, to summarise, you're probably too young to have a transplant and medication is your best choice for halting/slowing hairloss and perhaps regaining some hair back.Finasteride can in some cases cause sexual dysfunction (it did for me unfortunately) but the stories about it being "irreversible" are much more contentious. There is no scientific evidence that this is true and even though that doesn't necessarily mean its not true, the fact is millions of men take finasteride and only a tiny handful claim long-term negative effects; none of which have been scientifically verified to my knowledge. I tried finasteride twice, had sexual problems both time, stopped taking it and within a week or two felt OK again and I think most men who had problems with finasteride would echo my experience.

 

A HT won't give you all your hair back no matter how many you have or how much you spend, unfortunately. Some men have such severe balding a HT is not advisable for them, but most men are candidates for a HT these days as long as they understand what a HT can achieve for them. In other words, you have to be realistic and understand the limitations before a good doctor will perform surgery. That means, in the vast majority of cases, no juvenile/low hairlines, a realistic expectation of density and design and a plan that is achievable without being risky. The last thing you want is to get talked into doing some super-dense hair transplant and carry on balding and have no further donor left to deal with it!

 

But the results can be very good, even in some extreme cases of balding. Check the journals on here; a lot of guys have gone from bald to having really good heads of hair again. By really good I don't mean "completely dense" unfortunately, but in 90% of the circumstances the average Joe would never know.

 

If you can accept what a HT can do for you and you can get on the medication then you stand a good chance of being suitable candidate in the future. The best thing to do is see a hair restoration surgeon now to plan; they can help analyse your balding pattern, your donor, your concerns, your goals, and devise a realistic plan with you for now and the future. Any of the doctors recommended on this site are world class and represent about the best choices you can make.

 

One final thing; don't go to anybody who promises you full restoration, or super low hairlines, or secret techniques to make your hairloss disappear. They're cowboys and they will prey on your desire to have a full head of hair again. We've all been tempted by those guys but some have made the mistake of going with these butchers and they end up with clumps of hair and further balding and scars everywhere. I'm not saying this to frighten you but just to warn you; you want a full head of hair and anybody promising you that will sound very sweet indeed. But the frank truth is that it's not possible to do that, so go with the guys that tell you the facts and that come highly recommended.

 

Best of luck with your hair restoration journey! Browsing this site will be a source of inspiration! There are many amazing stories and amazing transformations and as long as you do the research and plan responsibly, there might be no reason why you couldn't be one of the success stories as well!

[Truehair]

I had a kind mail from Bill from the site telling me that I could say the name of our company (even though we're in the UK) But I’ve decided not to. And he asked me not to post adverts or links so of course I won't do that either. But we have a unique new hair system - it's not a toupee or a wig - but it's an artificial skin with implanted hair. It's German bio-engineered and I'm wearing one such system right now. To be honest the drugs are dubious in my personal opinion and don't give you lots of hair (if you're lucky you get a thin fuzzy covering) And surgery has very mixed results and is costly and in many cases painful. So we came up with our solution. It costs around ?3,000 pounds per year and is non-invasive, non-chemical and of course gives you a perfect head of styled hair. We then change it in 2 hours every 7 weeks. I only wanted to post after a friend told me about this forum and I read some of the terrible things here. We have a few such sites in the UK with their own horror stories! At some point if we are allowed I'll tell any of you who visit London where we are and invite you to pop in and see us for a cup of tea and a chat. But I felt moved to let folk know that not all companies are crooks. And some companies care very much about how people feel.

[hdude46]

It sounds like you don't have realistic expectations of what a HT can do (and at your age no way you should be thinking about surgery). You're balding will progress and my guess is significantly, especially if you don't get on meds. This is not a quick fix now or for in 10 years where yo say you will spend another 10K to fix it again. You need to have a consultation with a reputable doctor (smg, hasson and wong etc) and educate yourself on what you are getting into and what realistically can be achieved. If you're balding in the crown at 21 that is NOT a good sign. A HT does NOT restore you a full head of hair and your dreams about being demanding and having a low hairline you can pretty much kiss away. Balding is PROGRESSIVE and if you think its bad now just wait to see what you look like in 10 years. Its not going to magically stop. I'm sorry but you are nowhere near ready for surgery both physically or emotionally.

 

Get on propecia and rogaine then revisit your situation after you turn 25.

Edited March 25, 2012 by hdude46

[hopefullyhairy]

Hi guys,

 

Sorry I didn't return to post, but it's often easier to shove your head in the sand, and that's the approach I took. I did however read your posts, and because of them I decided to err on the side of caution and not pursue a hair transplant. I didn't, however, begin medication - and yes, my hair loss has continued. But even now, I'm still too wary to consider medication. I think I'd only really give it a chance after a consultation with a doctor.

 

An update on my hair loss, but first a little context. Something that always confused me when I was checking pictures of other fellows' balding was that they very much fit the Norwood scale, and all the responders seemed to share an understanding. I never could. My hair loss was never like either the Norwood diagrams or the other sufferers'. After a while and a lot more research, it became apparent to me that I suffer from diffuse thinning. Thankfully only on top. Diffuse thinning itself is bad enough (with the increased risk of shock loss if you do end up getting a hair transplant), had the donor area been affected as well, I'd feel extremely distraught (I sympathise for any sufferers reading this). If anyone has any advise for those sufferers, please feel free to post here, because there really isn't that much discussion about diffuse thinning out there.

 

Now I just want to throw this out there, but don't take it as scientific, and I fully accept it's just anecdotal. Several months ago, I started a simple multi vitamin (Centrum) and stopped smoking. Four months later the hair dresser, unbidden and unaware of my trauma about my hair (hair cuts are always the worst points of my year), mentioned that my hair had 'thickened up a lot', and to be honest, I had thought so, too, but just presumed it was that false hope we all no doubt have.

 

Anyway, thinking all was well, I started smoking again and relegated the vitamin regime to infrequent. Since then, it really seems as if my diffuse thinning has went into overdrive. Hence my return. I should say I also completely stopped drinking alcohol during that time, but it seems the less likely causation because I drink a lot less than I smoke, which is every day. Again, this isn't scientific and is entirely anecdotal, but I do wonder if diffuse thinning in particular may indeed have an environmental factor at play (unusually, I have no history of MPB on either side of my family which in itself isn't indicative of anything but it's worth a thought). I'm also not suggesting if I stop smoking it'll all grow back, or that it did all grow back last time, but for any other sufferers, I'm about 90% confident there was a very, very big difference when I stopped smoking and started taking vitamins (can't say which helped, if either, because I started and stopped them at the same time). I've stopped smoking again and I'll be sure to update you.

 

Anyway, back to my current state. I was reading back my original post, and oh how naive it seems now. I had the audacity to hope for a low hair line, but now I'd just be happy with the hair line I hated when I left that post. Just to clarify: although my hair loss has followed the pattern of diffuse thinning since way back when I was seventeenish (interestingly, just a few months after I started smoking), when I was about 20, 21, my temples and crown started thinning somewhat.

 

I don't feel desperate anymore, as the tone of my original comment may have rightly communicated. I've had time, I've thought about it, I've began to accept it. Which is the healthy way to deal with it, right? Well maybe it is, but it's not much fun. I've basically been on vacation from my own life for about 2 years now. Anyway, the time has allowed me to manage my expectations, and I'm happy to accept whatever the doctor whom I eventually choose recommends.

 

This leaves me at a new cross-roads now. I had, after thorough research, settled on Dr. de Reys in Belgium. He's affordable and he's extremely good. I wonder if any of you could share your opinions on him.

 

However, after realising my problem would be a tiny bit more complicated, due to the risk of shock loss in HT patients with diffuse thinning, I checked around a bit more and came across Dr. Scott Alexander, who seems to have somewhat of a focus on diffuse thinning patients. He's done some extraordinary work. Again, if any of you have opinions, I'd be extremely grateful.

 

Finally, in general, and specifically for diffuse thinners, FUE or FUT?