Are Hair Transplants worth it ?

If you are losing your hair and going bald in your youth and considering hair transplant, read this very carefully before you move forward.

In my opinion, a man should never think of going for hair transplant (unless his career is dependent mainly on his looks) But hey, that’s just my opinion.

If you are considering one, I want to give you best possible information to decide whether you should go for it or not. If your answer is “YES”, I want to tell you how you can choose the right clinic to carry out the Surgery.

Once you know pros and cons, you would be in the best possible position to decide whether you should undergo this procedure or not.

What I am going to tell you is based on my own research. I am not a medical professional or dermatologist so even after reading it, do your own due diligence.

This may be a tough read if you are losing your hair and starting to explore hair restoration because I am going to try to talk you out of seeking the Hair transplant solutions that you are anxiously researching, in favor of alternative solutions and you may not want to hear that.

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1. The final appearance may not look natural. The results can be worse than the natural balding process. The fact that there are so many unflattering names to describe some of the results of hair transplantation should raise some doubts in your mind.

Of course we can put hair on your head!”, the physician will say.

a. But will it be natural looking?

b. Will it be dense enough to be called hair, or will it just be considered less-thinning-than-it-was-before-but-still-thinning hair?

c. Is your baldness so disturbing to you that you are willing to risk looking worse?

Courtesy : Balding Blog

No matter how undesirable baldness may be, it is still natural , a bad hair transplant is not.

In many cases, you can stop your hair loss and reverse balding to some or full extent naturally. The problem is, it’s not an instant fix and it does take time. In some cases, it takes 3-5 years to completely restore your hairline. And still sometimes, despite all your efforts, there is no guarantee that you will completely regrow all your hair.

2. Hair Transplant Surgeons are notorious for depicting the best-case scenario, but poor at informing you of the potential downsides. There are potential complications that can occur with all forms of this surgery from plugs to scalp reduction to flap surgery. Certainly many of these complications are quite rare, others less so. In any case, your task is to identify them and their likelihood before committing to any kind of hair restoration surgery.

Always do your Research first.

3. More than any other branch of health care, cosmetic surgeons are in business first, medicine second. Your interests may be sacrificed for money. For some cosmetic surgeons, the elective & competitive nature of the business may force them to replace the physician’s maxim “First, do no harm …” with “First, get the money … second, get the client’s ass in the surgical suite and therefore committed to the process so that we can be assured of more money in the future … and third, try to do no harm as you make the surgical results the best they can be (even if the best option at the moment is leaving the client alone and doing no”

This trickery is used by used car salesmen to prey on weak people, it’s unethical and still many doctors do it.

4. The number of surgeries, that it will take to achieve the look you want, is unpredictable (if the look you want can even be achieved). Therefore, the cost is unpredictable. The degree of satisfaction that you can expect is unpredictable.

If you speak to a hair transplant physician about a surgical plan for restoring your hair, demand absolute clarification as to what is being guaranteed vs. what is being estimated and get it in writing. You are gambling with your money & your appearance. All successful gamblers know how to play the odds.

Do you know the odds of successful hair transplantation surgery?
Success is not defined by whether the transplanted hair will grow. There is little risk of that not occurring. Success is defined by whether the transplanted hair that grows will be of a quantity, direction, and distribution, all with respect to the remaining natural hair, that is pleasing to the patient and inconspicuous to most people he’ll encounter.

How to know whether it’s a good transplant or not ?
When even other Hair Transplant Surgeon can’t recognize that you have done Hair Restoration Surgery, it’s one of the signs that your hair transplant surgery is done very well.

5. You still have to use Minoxidil and Propecia (Finasteride) While many consider Hair Transplant is the holy grail. Nothing could be further from the truth. To maintain current level of transplanted hair and remaining hair, doctors still prescribe Minoxidil and Propecia. After spending fortune on Hair Transplant, you still have to use pharmaceutical drugs (and sometimes for life)

Reasons to avoid Minoxodil, Propecia, etc.

Your obligation is perpetual. You are bound to it for life. Stop using it and you lose the hair that it had grown or kept from falling out.

Horrible Side Effects

If you are not aware of Propecia Side Effects, watch this video

Watch Propecia Horror Story

Limited location. When it works, it works on the crown, but not the front part of the hairline.

6. It is a permanent, irreversible process, there is always some uncertainty about what you are going to get, and you may not like your options if it doesn’t turn out the way you expect.

What are your contingency plans if the result of your hair transplant surgery is (a) mildly disappointing, or (b) miserably, devastatingly, catastrophically disappointing ?

If you try hairpieces or medications and decide that you don’t like them, you simply stop and let your natural hair loss continue. But if you start hair transplantation and decide you don’t like the process or the initial results, you no longer have that option.

Are you prepared to embrace those lesser solutions if the preferred solution (transplant) turns out to be unsatisfactory?

7. Physician selection is filled with subtle traps. Physician selection is the most important decision for the prospective hair transplant patient.
One issue that doesn’t get discussed often is: should you go with a physician who does this part-time or full-time? At first glance, the obvious answer would seem to be to go with the doctors who do hair transplants full-time. However, there is a trade-off depending on where you are in the process of restoring your hair.

Full-time hair transplant surgeons have the apparent advantage of getting the most practice and they are the most likely to be up-to-date with the technologies in this field. But their disadvantage is that since hair transplantation is their only line of work, they have more incentive to get you into the chair even if you aren’t a good candidate, because they don’t have other income to fall back on if prospects don’t sign up for surgery.

The part-time hair transplant surgeon has the advantage that the diversity of his practice, and therefore the diversity of the medical procedures that generate his income, attenuates his need to get you into hair transplantation. His disadvantage is a possible reduction in technical & artistic skill due to less practice.

It is difficult to find a hair transplant physician who can (or will) give you an honest, independent evaluation of your suitability for the process (i.e., Do you have the appropriate hair type and adequate density & quantity of donor hair for the area of baldness to be covered?).
The dilemma here is that the only surgeons who are knowledgeable enough to offer a qualified opinion are ones who do hair transplant surgery, and they may have an ulterior motive to get you signed up for their services.

Consider that, these days, virtually all consultations with hair transplant doctors are free. Then consider how many things you’ve received in your life that cost nothing and were of real value. Very few, right ?

My suggestion: Among the physicians that you are considering for your surgery, pick one that you think is good, but for one reason or another you’re not likely to select for the actual surgery (i.e., too expensive). Arrange a consult with that surgeon, but make it clear that you insist on paying for the consult, with the explicit understanding that this doctor is not a candidate to perform any of your possible surgery.

The idea here is to remove that doctors’ motivation to sell you the sugar-coated version of hair transplantation. It is better to pay something upfront for the possibility of at least one honest professional opinion, instead of just paying nothing upfront to hear a lot of optimistic sales pitches.

8. Your expectations, influenced by your recent history, are unrealistic. You probably have a mental image of yourself from the last few years when you had a full(er) head of hair. Consciously or subconsciously, that image is still your expectation of what any hair restoration should achieve. Unfortunately, hair transplants aren’t going to give it to you.

You probably haven’t lost enough to know your final amount and location of hair loss. As stated before, success in hair transplantation is defined by whether the transplanted hair that grows will be of a quantity, direction, and distribution, all with respect to the remaining natural hair, to be pleasing to the patient and inconspicuous to others.

If you don’t know your final hair loss pattern, then you don’t know two critical parameters: (a) the boundary line and density of your true, permanent donor hair, and (b) the area of baldness that you’re ultimately trying to cover. Premature commencement of hair transplant work can result in ….

a. The hair that is moved is misplaced in relation to the final baldness pattern.

b. The hair restoration process may extend over years or even decades, seemingly with no end in sight. Surely you’d feel frustrated if your home was in a constant state of renovation. Would you feel differently about your head?

c. Anxiety over the contrast between transplanted areas and new bald/receding areas, and how & when to fill these in with the least amount of disturbance to your appearance

Transplant work done at a young age is risky and mistakes may be difficult or impossible to correct in the future. Unfortunately, you can’t accurately determine your hair loss pattern.

9. If you are in your 20’s, a big part of your motivation for restoring your hair may be women. Your attitudes about them will change a lot as you mature. Unless you are an actor, media professional or some celebrity, chances are that your main motivation for considering hair restoration at this point in your life is social (i.e., to attract women), rather than professional.

Typically, men in their 20’s have a heightened interest in women of exceptional physical beauty. Your perception is that she expects the same level of attractiveness in the men she will want to be with. Hence, your interest in eliminating your baldness.

When you are in your 30’s and beyond, you will have a better appreciation of a balance between appearance and personality in women. You will realize that many of the bombshells that appealed to you in your 20’s, regardless of their physical assets, may not be the women of substance with whom you will want to have real relationships.

The kind of woman you’ll be attracted to as you mature will gladly accept your hair loss in exchange for the intelligence, humor, personality, and sensitivity that you can bring to a relationship (this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take efforts to restore your hair, it’s personal choice)

10. If you don’t address underlying reasons for your hair loss (it’s not always DHT), you will continue to lose transplanted hairs no matter what you do.

The real solution will come from addressing the root cause and not by addressing the symptoms.

While talking with several hair loss sufferers I have realized few things, many of them are plagued with faulty food habits, systemic infections, mineral deficiencies, root canals etc which is aggravating their hair loss. They blindly assume that everything is caused by genetic predisposition and somehow Propecia and Minoxidil is going to solve their problem.

I know, when I was having hair loss, I tried to address the symptoms for a long time but when I understood the real reasons behind my hair loss, I started taking action to naturally resolve those conditions. Not only, I started resolving those conditions, I stopped my hair loss, got rid of dandruff, started regrowing hair naturally and as a side effect, my energy levels, metabolism, digestion improved radically. also got rid of several systemic infections.

If you want to know the probable root cause, check out Hair Regrowth Blueprint

Hair loss is not your problem but your feelings of insecurity surrounding it. Your problem is Psychological (somewhat Physical) and you are not alone.

Do you have any other choice ?

a. If you are a male, shave your head completely. At first, you will feel uncomfortable. Some people will laugh at you and some people will start asking you questions.
No, you won’t look like Van Diesel. (Not even close) but you will still look good and you can embrace your look.

b. Do nothing, let your hair thin especially if you know it’s genetic balding (or choose option 1 if you are losing your hair in patches)

c. The other choice is you can start using natural ways to stop hair loss and make an effort to regrow your hair naturally (identify root cause of your hair loss)

What’s the worst can happen ?
You will still lose your hair and eventually you can decide to shave your head.

What’s the good can happen ?
You can halt/stop your hair loss and maintain it.

What’s the best can happen ?
You won’t only stop your hair loss and you will start regrowing your hair naturally. I haven’t completely re-grown all the lost hair.

That’s what I did. I stopped my hair loss and started re-growing my hair.

Here are some of my photos

I have a friend who is 1 year younger to me has lost a lot of his hair in his front (but almost no hair on his back, he doesn’t have typical MPB)

But do you know when he visited Dermatologist, what she did to him. She put him on Minoxidil and Finasteride. It helped him for a while but side effects were horrible. Nausea, Headache, More flaking, Problem in getting erection, lack of sexual desire. Maybe you can relate.

Do you when what happened when he stopped everything ?

He lost all his hairs in 3-4 months.

Then one day, by fate or dumb luck, his Dermatologist came to know that his scalp was the main culprit. Too late, after the enough damage was already done.

She even told him later that even hair transplant won’t help him because he will lose all those hair eventually. After spending a fortune on his hair loss in last 3 years, his condition is much worse compared to his hair condition 3 years back.

Horrible Hair Transplants

 

And still if you want to go for Hair Transplant (even after reading this) Consider this

1) As I mentioned earlier, pay a qualified doctor to examine your scalp to see which procedure is suitable for you (if you even need a hair transplant) Don’t prefer one process over another because the other one is cheaper. Each process has its own Pros and Cons. Take your time to go through them before you think of undergoing any procedure.

There are some procedures which will hurt your chances of having enough donor hair available for future procedures.

ACell vs FUT vs FUE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhZ4Ppnu66A

2) Do not consider going to a “chain” or franchise operation (I am not going to name any names here) In fact, avoid any operation that employs more than one or two surgeons. These larger outfits tend to focus more on volume and profit margin than they do on quality. They are not all “chop shops” of course, but there are too many horror stories about such larger operations, and it seems that you’re better off avoiding any medium to large sized operations altogether.

You want to go with an individual hair transplant specialist who has earned national respect for his work and is totally 100% focused on doing the best possible hair transplant work he/she can do for a small number of clients. You want to see lots of pictures of their work, and talk to some of their former patients (in person if at all possible, to verify the photos are true to life). What you should be buying into here is the skill and expertise of this surgeon, and you should take that very very seriously.

Going with a company or doctor based on price or convenience is a horrible idea that could easily end up ruining your life.

3) Many hair transplant surgeon’s before/after pictures are embellished, using specific lighting and tricky camera angles.

A quality surgeon doing quality work does not need fake pictures. Quality work speaks for itself.
4) You may require several procedures, depending on the extent of your hair loss and your goals. A surgeon can only achieve a certain density of hair in a single procedure. Setting realistic expectations for a procedure is a huge key to achieving ‘success’. Keep this in mind.

If you want to know how I stopped my hair loss, got rid of scalp conditions and started regrowing my hair naturally. I have developed “Hair Regrowth Blueprint” a step by step system which will help you to naturally stop hair loss, resolve scalp conditions and start regrowing hair.

Check Hair Regrowth Blueprint Now

Take Baldness Risk Factor Quiz Now

5 thoughts on “Are Hair Transplants worth it ?”

  1. Pingback: How to Reverse Male Pattern Baldness Naturally ? :: Regrow Your Hair Naturally

  2. hi im suffering frm hair loss nw im 24yr in
    my head all patches are easily visible plz
    help me to recover my hair back …

  3. Hi Sukrut, I’ve done 2 hair transplant and that’s exactly what you explained. Bad results. But what is done is done. Do you think your program will work anyway? I mean, if there’s some hair transplanted, how could other hairs grows, will it make them fall and take their place?
    Of course my first aim is to definitely stop hair loss (even if I can’t notice it, I don’t see lots of hair on my pillow, less than 20/30 hairs lost in the shower which is suppose to be normal), but with a strong will of hair regrowth.
    Thank you.

    1. Yes, there are 2 people I have helped who had gone through Hair Transplant. One of them after seeing improvement, took some unknown advertised supplement and reversed all of his progress. He didn’t consult me with that.

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