NW7 - Not enough donor supply?

[OttawaJay]

I'm considering getting a hair trasplant. Trying to think long term though and am concerned about my donor supply. I'm somewhere between a NW3V and NW4 at 40 years old. Just started Rogaine and Propecia this week to try and preserve what I have. It's an uphill battle though. My dad and uncles are all NW7's at 60+ years old, think Captain Pickard from Star Trek. I presume that's where I'm headed.

 

Doctor said I'd need about 2500 graphs right now and that's not touching my crown. Since my donor area is just "average" density, I won't have enough supply to cover both the receding hairline and crown over the long term. The best LONG TERM realistic outcome I'm looking at is transplanted hair framing my face countering the receding hairline with a persistant bald crown.

 

I have no way of knowing just how big that bald crown will be though. Since I'm realistically going to be completely bald, it all comes down to how much supply I have. My concern is that if I don't have enough donor supply and as such the bald spot ends up too big because there's no enough supply to do more than a thin strip covering the hairline, I'll end up looking ridiculous. 2500 graphs will me make look great now, but what about long term when there's more loss and less supply?

 

So, any thoughts?

[BadBeat]

A good doctor should be able to help you with the planning. If you believe that you're headed for a NW7 and the meds won't keep you at a 3-5, then you have a few options:

 

1. Spread the grafts over your entire head for some coverage but you'll have pretty thin hair. If you're comfortable using concealers this might be the way to go. If you are open to a buzz cut, you can do that as well so it might look like you have decent coverage but chose to buzz. You would have to do FUE and maybe some body hair to do this. There are a few nice cases of this documented in this forum.

 

2. Focus on a solid hairline and do a little in the crown. This will frame your face nicely, but leave you with a bald crown. Some men can pull this look off pretty well and be happy with it.

 

3. Shave it all off and do nothing

 

If I were headed for a NW7, I'd probably look at H & W in Canada. They have had some amazing big cases in the past couple of years.

[aim4hair]

If you are going to be nw7 then i would advice you to stay away from FUT, strip could give great density but if you reach to nw7 no donor area will give you enough coverage so you might want to consider buzzing your hair or at least keeping it very short but you won't be able to do that with a strip scar.

 

You can go for FUE for now and then when you run out of donor supply, you can do BHT, BHT could look natural on crown coverage.

 

Or you might wanna give HST a look, they claim that the grafts taken from the donor srea will grow again and they gurantee a regrowth rate of 85% in the donor, and if this is true, you can use the hair again in the future giving you more donor supply and reducing scars. Of course there is no enough results about this technique and no other doctors validate it yet, but at the same time no one could proove it wrong yet, so you might wanna do your search and see what you think.

 

If you gonna stay on rogaine and propecia forever, i say most likely you will not end up being nw7 though unless if the meds dont work for you at all. So i beleive you are in a good situation.

[OttawaJay]

Concealer is not for me.

 

HST is pretty interesting. I wonder how far away a legit and acception HST option is?

 

Body hair? I'm actually having laser surgery to remove the hair from my back now.

[aim4hair]

Concealer is not for me.

 

HST is pretty interesting. I wonder how far away a legit and acception HST option is?

 

Body hair? I'm actually having laser surgery to remove the hair from my back now.

 

I think now it's been evaluated by a famous FUE doctor in America and he is going to visit dr. Gho soon to verify the claims and if things workout then i think it will come to the states soon.

[aaron1234]

If you are a NW3 or NW4 at 40 years old then there is no guarantee you will end up a NW7 just because your dads & uncles are..... However, better to be prepared for the worst case scenario than not. Give the Fin at least a year and see what is does for you before you jump in the chair.