3 Types of Patients That Should NOT Have A Hair Transplant

[Melvin- Admin]

For me the top three types of individuals that shouldn't have a hair transplant are patients with unrealistic expectations, patients with unstable hair loss and "bargain" shoppers. What are your guys top 3? I'd love to hear the communities thoughts on this.

 

3 Types of Patients That Should NOT Have A Hair Transplant

[Phillyman1996]

if a 19 year old was a full on noorwood 7. Do you think it would be ok to do a hair transplant on him? Since he has no more hair to lose. And he has very coarse dense donor hair.

[Melvin- Admin]

49 minutes ago, Phillyman1996 said:

if a 19 year old was a full on noorwood 7. Do you think it would be ok to do a hair transplant on him? Since he has no more hair to lose. And he has very coarse dense donor hair.

No definitely not, because a norwood 7 at 19 years old almost always have some thinning in the donor area. At that age, the permanent zone is impossible to know. If the donor thins, not only will he be bald, but he’ll be scarred too.

[txtransplant]

The guys with some level of dysphoric disorder. They come in two sub-types. The older guy who thinks he needs the hairline of a 16 year old. They end up looking silly even with a rare home run. Usually though they end up looking unnatural and thinned because of the large areas . Large, flat youthful hairlines are not really ever thin as they tend to pull back in the temples and have miniaturization naturally. These poor patients could have had a great looking an age appropriate Norwood 2 look. Instead they look like balding lab rats with awkward heads of semi-hair.  The second type are the younger guys who already have good hairlines and then find a surgeon to lower it beyond natural looking.  Not only does it take away from the patient's looks, but  a nightmare they are setting themselves up for in the future! Any surgeon who does the second type of transplant is greedy in my book and values money far more than patient care.  A HT isn't a surgical route to a new hairstyle. It's to take a bald guy and make him have some presentable hair. Reconstructive surgery on someone with zero problems is unethical.  But I see a lot of these guys with dysphoric tendencies here.  And if you read their threads you will also find that they tend to be disappointed as well as letting it take up too much of their life obsessing over their hairlines. It's the same insanity that drives some women to get way oversized lips. People loose the ability to see what looks normal when they obsess on that one part.  ''

 

In simple terms, natural hairlines on men who aren't teenagers are not flat across the front. One semi exception is people of African heritage tend to have straighter hairlines and stronger temple points. Though I would argue that even on them...it looks silly on a 40y old. If I could steal photos online, I would show you HT cases where the guy had a nice mature hairline and femininized his looks with an overly flat hairline and wound up looking worse for it. So two things to remember. If you are over 30 and think a hairline that would look appropriate on a 14y old is your goal you have this issue.  The lowering guys.....the distance between the very bottom of the nose to the middle of the eyebrows......that measurement is the distance a hairline should be above the middle of your eyebrows. HINT: unless you have a very weird face shape this is as low as the tip of your hairline should be. If you think it looks better more than a few MM lower than that, you probably have dysphoric disorder on some level. 

Edited February 22, 2019 by txtransplant

[Melvin- Admin]

Yea, I agree. I’ve always wondered why some are obsessed with having no forehead. It’s not appealing at all. 

[Fozzie]

6 hours ago, txtransplant said:

The guys with some level of dysphoric disorder. They come in two sub-types. The older guy who thinks he needs the hairline of a 16 year old. They end up looking silly even with a rare home run. Usually though they end up looking unnatural and thinned because of the large areas . Large, flat youthful hairlines are not really ever thin as they tend to pull back in the temples and have miniaturization naturally. These poor patients could have had a great looking an age appropriate Norwood 2 look. Instead they look like balding lab rats with awkward heads of semi-hair.  The second type are the younger guys who already have good hairlines and then find a surgeon to lower it beyond natural looking.  Not only does it take away from the patient's looks, but  a nightmare they are setting themselves up for in the future! Any surgeon who does the second type of transplant is greedy in my book and values money far more than patient care.  A HT isn't a surgical route to a new hairstyle. It's to take a bald guy and make him have some presentable hair. Reconstructive surgery on someone with zero problems is unethical.  But I see a lot of these guys with dysphoric tendencies here.  And if you read their threads you will also find that they tend to be disappointed as well as letting it take up too much of their life obsessing over their hairlines. It's the same insanity that drives some women to get way oversized lips. People loose the ability to see what looks normal when they obsess on that one part.  

Good post. Seem to be coming across a worryingly increasing number of cases where it seems younger patients with minimal hair loss are getting a procedure to try and pull of an ideal look in their minds or a certain hairstyle . For me, this is somewhat going beyond the realms of hair restoration and is almost 'hair modification' and must admit these type of procedures make me uncomfortable, especially when they are overly aggressive. I agree surgeons/clinics should maybe be pushing back on these type of candidates for their own good imo.

[Mick50]

In my opinion given the vagaries of a having a hair transplant someone should only opt for one if there is a  reel need . Some people would say no-one  needs a hair transplant and it's just vanity etc of course there is always a vanity aspect, but for a lot of guys losing their hair can be insidious and over time eat into their confidence and have a detrimental effect on their life and hold them back in all sorts of situations ,I was one of those guys,  now I am happy as a pig in the proverbial ,  for me the breaking point was when I developed the full horse-show pattern which I reached in my mid -forties . Hair transplants shouldn't be for a 23 year old who wants to take better instagram photos.. that kind of patient will never be happy anyway ..and any reputable clinic should think seriously about offering hair transplant surgery to them .

Just to add the second best scenario after obviously not losing ones hair is to accept it and move on with your life as millions of guys do. ..I have a friend  who is 35 and i would say a NW 4-5 and  and has great donor ..but he wouldn't have a hair transplant if you paid him ...he is married ..a good job   etc   he is a lucky man ...

Edited February 22, 2019 by Mick50

[Melvin- Admin]

Yea everyone is different. I tried the shaved head thing wasn’t for me, but if guys are happy shaving. I say power to them. Yes, hair transplants in my opinion are a last resort. Not an opportunity for perfection.

[txtransplant]

5 hours ago, Mick50 said:

In my opinion given the vagaries of a having a hair transplant someone should only opt for one if there is a  reel need . Some people would say no-one  needs a hair transplant and it's just vanity etc of course there is always a vanity aspect, but for a lot of guys losing their hair can be insidious and over time eat into their confidence and have a detrimental effect on their life and hold them back in all sorts of situations ,I was one of those guys,  now I am happy as a pig in the proverbial ,  for me the breaking point was when I developed the full horse-show pattern which I reached in my mid -forties . Hair transplants shouldn't be for a 23 year old who wants to take better instagram photos.. that kind of patient will never be happy anyway ..and any reputable clinic should think seriously about offering hair transplant surgery to them .

Just to add the second best scenario after obviously not losing ones hair is to accept it and move on with your life as millions of guys do. ..I have a friend  who is 35 and i would say a NW 4-5 and  and has great donor ..but he wouldn't have a hair transplant if you paid him ...he is married ..a good job   etc   he is a lucky man ...

Absolute lesson there. I never thought I could pull off the buzzed look. Clung to some comb over. But a few weeks before my 3500 FUT I buzzed it off. I am lucky that I have a few close and attractive female friends who I could ask honestly. All three said the buzzed was a lot better. In my own brain, my creative combing was better because it was not bald. (NW5) But it looked a bit like a comb over and that screams lack of confidence. And that my friends, is a much less attractive thing to people than balding. Actually most of these woman (late 30's early 40's) said they could care less about a guys hair. But trying to hard was a huge turn off.   True, I hated looking at myself and seeing my bald head. But I knew in my heart to everyone else it was probably better and my honest friends confirmed it. I think if I were still married I would have just shaved it off and not thought much more about it. But being single kind of made me have to consider my overall looks. And now that the HT is done, it for sure is an improvement over either the comb over or buzzed. But I think a lot of guys never give it a try to get used to it.  And I think happily married guys are easier with it.  I think it is no coincidence that it seems the majority of guys here are single or just dating someone. I think when you are worried in your life about attracting mates looks matter more. And there are no shortage of guys here with confidence issues holding them back as well. For some, HT us a lifeline.  I think in some careers a youthful hairline is as asset as well. But that's way off topic. 

Edited February 22, 2019 by txtransplant

[Bill - Seemiller]

I think one of the biggest problems is when doctors decide to perform hair transplant surgery on patients who clearly have unrealistic expectations.    I know surgeons want to try and help everybody and some don’t want to turn patients down because of the money, but the reality is, in most cases, performing hair transplantation on someone with unrealistic expectations often comes back to bite them.    No matter how good the results turned out, these patients are often not happy and badmouth their surgeon all over the discussion forum, making it look like the doctor did something horribly wrong to them. But the reality is, they were already informed that they can’t achieve what they wanted and despite the fact that they made an informed decision, deep down they must’ve thought that it was  possible.  Then, in their despair, they demand a full refund and even use this discussion forum or others in an attempt to blackmail them into providing that refund.

 Now, while I do think surgeons should be a bit more selective and screen patients a bit more, patients do need to take responsibility and be accountable for their decisions. If they decide to proceed with surgery despite what they’ve been told is possible, then they  really need to adjust their expectations so that they are happy. And if  I don’t adjust her expectations, they’re going to be unhappy but it’s not anybody else’s fault but their own. 

Those are some of my thoughts based on the above. 

Bill

[Al - Moderator]

On 2/21/2019 at 9:38 PM, Phillyman1996 said:

if a 19 year old was a full on noorwood 7. Do you think it would be ok to do a hair transplant on him? Since he has no more hair to lose. And he has very coarse dense donor hair.

As a NW 7 with a few relatives who were NW 7 I can tell you that as long as you have some hair somewhere on your head, there is still hair to lose 😟

With that said, 19 is extremely young because I would want to use a large mix of body hair, but body hair is still developing on someone that age. However I do not have a problem with someone at age 22 or 23 and NW 7 having a hair transplant as long as they understand what the limits are and making sure they have absolutely ruled out just shaving their head as an option. If that is the case then I would say use as much beard and chest hair as possible. It would be a high hairline, somewhat low density in the front half, very light in the upper crown, and slightly more density in the lower crown as you don't want to appear as if your bald crown is in the back of your head rather than towards the top. I would try to get a mix of about 4000 beard and chest grafts and 2000 to 3000 head grafts.

 

Edited February 23, 2019 by BeHappy

[Phillyman1996]

2 hours ago, BeHappy said:

As a NW 7 with a few relatives who were NW 7 I can tell you that as long as you have some hair somewhere on your head, there is still hair to lose 😟

With that said, 19 is extremely young because I would want to use a large mix of body hair, but body hair is still developing on someone that age. However I do not have a problem with someone at age 22 or 23 and NW 7 having a hair transplant as long as they understand what the limits are and making sure they have absolutely ruled out just shaving their head as an option. If that is the case then I would say use as much beard and chest hair as possible. It would be a high hairline, somewhat low density in the front half, very light in the upper crown, and slightly more density in the lower crown as you don't want to appear as if your bald crown is in the back of your head rather than towards the top. I would try to get a mix of about 4000 beard and chest grafts and 2000 to 3000 head grafts.

 

Man i would hate to use my beard hair for a hair transplant lol. I love my beard. Ive seen some guys who are almost a noorwood 7 in their early 20s.

[Melvin- Admin]

11 hours ago, Phillyman1996 said:

Man i would hate to use my beard hair for a hair transplant lol. I love my beard. Ive seen some guys who are almost a noorwood 7 in their early 20s.

Not me lol. I got beard to spare. I wouldn’t mind thinning it out if it meant putting more hair on top.  Mind almost connects to my body lol. The issue is how will it look, I’ve yet to see good examples, but eugenix clinic I believe will be presenting more examples.

[Phillyman1996]

1 minute ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Not me lol. I got beard to spare. I wouldn’t mind thinning it out if it meant putting more hair on top.  Mind almost connects to my body lol. The issue is how will it look, I’ve yet to see good examples, but eugenix clinic I believe will be presenting more examples.

Great beard man crazy how most peoples beard get better with age headhair gets worse lol