Lateral Humps Why They’re Important

[Melvin- Admin]

No one ever discusses the importance of the lateral hump, but they are the bridge that keep the donor from the transplanted area intact, without them you’ll be left with an island of hair. It’s important Norwood 6s maintain some donor supply, in case the lateral hump ever degrades. Also, you should have a surgeon check your lateral humps for miniaturization. 
 

It’s sort of like the temporal peaks that meet the hairline.

heres an example of how it looks when

it deteriorated with a transplant 

 

[ciaus]

Interesting, haven't heard that area referred to with a particular name, but yea its kinda like the crown-halo effect, but on the sides of the head.

 

Poor guy, some frontline battles won but the war lost! This is every man's worse endgame nightmare starting down the HT path. Wonder if he was taking any meds too or if he just did HTs.

 

23 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

 

 

[Doron Harati]

Maintaining the donor area is one of the most important aspects, some young guys with NW2 - 3, go for a cheap FUE procedure through a black market clinic and the technicians crop 4000 grafts for 1500-2000 job, huge waste for nothing.

So on my 2nd procedure\repair HT, most of the grafts were taken from the sides of my head.

Edited September 11, 2020 by Doron Harati

[ciaus]

Got me thinking about that recent trump/biden better hair poll topic, the thinking there was that the side temple gap towards the top was from a juri flap procedure.

 

 

[Melvin- Admin]

20 minutes ago, ciaus said:

Interesting, haven't heard that area referred to with a particular name, but yea its kinda like the crown-halo effect, but on the sides of the head.

 

Poor guy, some frontline battles won but the war lost! This is every man's worse endgame nightmare starting down the HT path. Wonder if he was taking any meds too or if he just did HTs.

 

 

Luckily for him he had it repaired by Dr. Cooley. I don’t believe he was on finasteride, but some Norwood 7s are so sensitive to DHT that finasteride does little to stop hair loss, at least thats what @BeHappy said. 

 

 

Not perfect, but a big improvement

[ciaus]

Yea that's much better, glad to know he didn't give up.

[Al - Moderator]

If you think you are saving enough grafts for the future I can tell you that if you had a lot of transplanted hair placed on top then it will take a LOT of grafts to cover the lateral humps because if you only add a small amount it will still be thinner than the mid scalp and will still make you look like you have a balding ring around your head. You have to add enough to at least get somewhat close to matching the front and mid scalp to make it look natural. You also won't be able to comb it to the side unless you add a large number of grafts because you won't be able to make a part with thin hair and whatever amount you do comb over the top won't be much to cover anyway if your top/mid scalp is thin. This is coming from personal experience from someone who is going through this.

 

[Al - Moderator]

Good news on myself though...Yesterday I had a family member ask if my hair was growing back in. I hadn't told any of them I was going for more hair transplants, so it was nice to hear someone was noticing an improvement without them ever knowing I was doing something.

 

[Melvin- Admin]

1 hour ago, BeHappy said:

Good news on myself though...Yesterday I had a family member ask if my hair was growing back in. I hadn't told any of them I was going for more hair transplants, so it was nice to hear someone was noticing an improvement without them ever knowing I was doing something.

 

When do you think you’ll be done with repairs? Is there a goal in mind.

[Doron Harati]

2 hours ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Luckily for him he had it repaired by Dr. Cooley. I don’t believe he was on finasteride, but some Norwood 7s are so sensitive to DHT that finasteride does little to stop hair loss, at least thats what @BeHappy said. 

 

 

Not perfect, but a big improvement

Dr. Umar in L.A doing great repairs with NW7 that have depletion on donor, I'll check more about Dr. Cooley

[LonelyGraft]

2 hours ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Luckily for him he had it repaired by Dr. Cooley. I don’t believe he was on finasteride, but some Norwood 7s are so sensitive to DHT that finasteride does little to stop hair loss, at least thats what @BeHappy said. 

 

 

Not perfect, but a big improvement

Do we know this patients age? He looks fairly young

[Melvin- Admin]

1 hour ago, LonelyGraft said:

Do we know this patients age? He looks fairly young

In his 40's, not that young.

[aaron1234]

Reasons to stay on Fin: 1) Help fight against the widening of a bald crown.  2) Maintain donor hair quality.  3) Keep those lateral humps!  The more native hair you can keep the better. 

[Harry2]

On 9/11/2020 at 5:53 PM, Melvin- Moderator said:

No one ever discusses the importance of the lateral hump, but they are the bridge that keep the donor from the transplanted area intact, without them you’ll be left with an island of hair. It’s important Norwood 6s maintain some donor supply, in case the lateral hump ever degrades. Also, you should have a surgeon check your lateral humps for miniaturization. 
 

It’s sort of like the temporal peaks that meet the hairline.

heres an example of how it looks when

it deteriorated with a transplant 

 

@Melvin- Moderator, do you know how long it has been between the HT to this kind of result (without those lateral humps)?

[GoliGoliGoli]

I think the guy in the pics would've looked better saving his money and just shaving the hairs off the recipient area. 

[Mahesh42]

So better not to go push for aggressive hairline, leave it to HT surgeon to  access areas , which might go bald in future and do the required implants accordingly, so you have enough donors to fill in later 

[Rafael Manelli]

That is a good example of the difference between NW6 and 7. In a 6, those lateral/parietal humps are often used as fue donor. If they'd been used that way for this man, those grafts would have fallen out as he receded into a class 7. This is why the FUT donor zone is safer than the FUE one. 

The brutal thing about a class 7 is its the only class where not only does the recipient area increase, as it does with every class, but the donor zone actually gets smaller. 

Those humps would be some of the easiest hairs to save since they're in the 2nd more DHT resistant area. 

Nevertheless, the man in the OP is a great example of a nw7 with sturdy donor, ended up getting a good result. Do you know how many grafts he had in his first and second procedures?

[Al - Moderator]

3 hours ago, Rafael Manelli said:

That is a good example of the difference between NW6 and 7. In a 6, those lateral/parietal humps are often used as fue donor. If they'd been used that way for this man, those grafts would have fallen out as he receded into a class 7. This is why the FUT donor zone is safer than the FUE one. 

 

Yep. This is why I'm still a fan of FUT. I've said before that FUE is great for the short term, but FUT is better for the long term because with FUE grafts are taken from a much larger area that has a high chance of thinning or even balding completely while FUT, if done right, is taken from the safest area, so it's less likely to be thinning out later and will last much longer than FUE.

 

3 hours ago, Rafael Manelli said:

The brutal thing about a class 7 is its the only class where not only does the recipient area increase, as it does with every class, but the donor zone actually gets smaller. 

 

Believe me I know this first hand. I'm trying so hard to get some decent amount of hair on top and make a difference, but I just keep ending up needing to chase the expanding area and getting very little meaningful improvement. It's very depressing. This is also why I'm not a fan of telling everyone that you're having a hair transplant. I've seen what happens when you have several HTs and still look like you haven't had any because all you've done is replace hair still being lost. Yes it's much better than where it would be, but that's not what people see. They don't see where you would be if you didn't do anything.

 

[Rafael Manelli]

33 minutes ago, BeHappy said:

 

Yep. This is why I'm still a fan of FUT. I've said before that FUE is great for the short term, but FUT is better for the long term because with FUE grafts are taken from a much larger area that has a high chance of thinning or even balding completely while FUT, if done right, is taken from the safest area, so it's less likely to be thinning out later and will last much longer than FUE.

 

 

Believe me I know this first hand. I'm trying so hard to get some decent amount of hair on top and make a difference, but I just keep ending up needing to chase the expanding area and getting very little meaningful improvement. It's very depressing. This is also why I'm not a fan of telling everyone that you're having a hair transplant. I've seen what happens when you have several HTs and still look like you haven't had any because all you've done is replace hair still being lost. Yes it's much better than where it would be, but that's not what people see. They don't see where you would be if you didn't do anything.

 

FUE on the edge of the donor is risky because those hairs could thin if the area goes to nw7, but they'd thin anyway. Then the question is would you rather risk them thinning in the back or thinning after you transplant them? It becomes a question of money rather than donor, really, as its the same amount of hair and the same amount of thinning either way. I just think mentally it may feel more depressing if it is transplanted before thinning, because it's like you got your hopes up for nothing. But you may still get some good years out of it, and with meds you may get to keep it. Hell, you might keep it even without meds. Most people do. But if you're headed for class 7 and go for FUE you have to be in the mindset that every hair in the 6 zone is a potential casualty and they're all worth protecting with meds. 

Strip is great but at the end of the day it can only harvest maybe a third of the donor. That's maybe an inch or 1.5 inches of the nw7 area, measured top to bottom. After that, you might as well use FUE.

And BHT. and some smoke and mirrors, concealer, smp...

[shadowcast]

9 hours ago, BeHappy said:

Believe me I know this first hand. I'm trying so hard to get some decent amount of hair on top and make a difference, but I just keep ending up needing to chase the expanding area and getting very little meaningful improvement.

Are you on medication?

[Gatsby]

Having lateral humps can be the difference for many Norwood 7’s to being a candidate or not for surgery. 

[mr_peanutbutter]

wow

[Rafael Manelli]

11 hours ago, Gatsby said:

Having lateral humps can be the difference for many Norwood 7’s to being a candidate or not for surgery. 

If you have humps can you be a nw7? Wouldn't that make you NW6? 

[Gatsby]

1 minute ago, Rafael Manelli said:

If you have humps can you be a nw7? Wouldn't that make you NW6? 

No. Though low parietal humps are associated with being considered Norwood 7. It also involves having a very low dipping crown, a large crown and a large head with generally retrograde alopecia above the ears and at the nape of the neck. If you look at my pre op pics over a year ago I have good parietal humps but a huge crown (and a big head) and a really poor donor.

[Rafael Manelli]

Just now, Gatsby said:

No. Though low parietal humps are associated with being considered Norwood 7. It also involves having a very low dipping crown, a large crown and a large head with generally retrograde alopecia above the ears and at the nape of the neck. If you look at my pre op pics over a year ago I have good parietal humps but a huge crown (and a big head) and a really poor donor.

Yeah I tend to think the two things that differentiate a 6 and a 7 age are the height of the sides (including parietal humps) and the back of the crown. How much it dips.

Some 7s are better candidates than some 6s depending on the donor. You got really lucky with Eugenix.