A tale of 2 heads Part 2, average donor hair, Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

[Dr. William Lindsey]

This is part 2 of a 2 part set of threads.

I frequently have to explain to prospective patients that they bring several key issues to the table when it comes to results from hair transplants. In particular, demostrated in these 2 cases, they bring hair styling postop desires and donor hair quality.

Both of the guys in these threads are virtually the same case. Each is about a 28 year old man in good health. Both have significant baldness potential in their families and both say that they realize that this is likely the first of several hair procedures to come. And both underwent a 2500 graft strip case by me uneventfully. Shown in both threads are day of surgery, 1 week, 1 month scar check, and fully grown out pictures. Neither is on meds.

Patient 1 (shown in the companion thread) is an IDEAL hair transplant candidate. He had thick middle eastern donor hair, wears his hair about an inch and a half long which allows for styling of a virtual MOP of frontal hair. Although he left the country for about 16 months after his scar check, he really looks fantastic now but has a family of brothers all in the class 5 range....so I suspect we'll see him again sometime.

Patient 2 (shown here) is also a good candidate who is latino with dense but thinner donor hairs. However he wears a shorter hairstyle which limits his overlapping and styling ((recall that as hair transplant doctors we don't cure anything...we put hair where there isn't hair so that it and its styling can camouflage the effects of hair loss cosmetically)). In this patient I show 11 month pictures in which he is wearing styling gel which in my opinion makes him look much thinner with regards to hair than he really is...and 20 month pictures with more of an unstyled short haircut showing good coverage but almost certainly thinning in non-transplanted regions that may need attention sooner rather than later. Patient 2 his a "friend of the practice" and despite all of our suggestions that he style his hair more advantageously to accentuate his result, his extremely attractive and attentive wife prefers this style and he listens to her. I'm not disagreeing with his choice on that.

Bottom line, I'm putting these 2 threads up as they are really an apples to apples..or oranges..comparison of 2 identical cases differing only in donor quality and styling choices.

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

[voxman]

I am in total agreement with the styling suggestion. The spiked up 2nd guy is doing himself no favors with that see thru do. 1st guy has it all going on.

 

Oh for the day when men were men and hair was long.

[Dr. William Lindsey]

You are correct. BUT, this guy looks unremarkable (which ought to be the goal of HT), is happy, and has a REALLY attractive wife who appears to take good care of him. Hard to beat that trifecta.

 

Dr. L