In today’s video, we’ll take a closer look at the hair transplant journey for a patient who underwent surgery for grade 6 androgenic alopecia. We’ll review his transformation over the last 10 months, discussing the factors that affect the results and the key things you need to know before considering a hair transplant.
But before that….ever wondered why very few clinics don’t show long term results.
When your first counselling does not last more than 12 mins, your results won’t last 12 months either.
Very few doctors will show you the Mirror. The Mirror of rationality.
Half the time your every wish for the hairline, for density will be pandered to without any discussion. It’s like you are drawing your own hairline and laying out your goals.
You feel on Cloud Nine ! Floating on thin air but when the results manifest themselves, reality dawns- and reality can be harsh and punishing- and it was not at all like what you were promised. But then whom do you get in touch with !
This is the predicament many patients face today. Patients who fall for the lure of false promises and unrealistic dreams dreamt.
Many a times a patient with extensive baldness will bring along the picture of a dear film star and say this is the hairline and the density he wishes to achieve. There are times when this can be done over 2 sessions. But then more often this is not possible. Patients ignore that the donor area of their favorite star was far more lush.
So the importance of getting real. The onus is on the doctor to water down the expectations because if this is not done, the patient will be disappointed when the result kicks in after 6 months.
But to expect this from all the clinics that have sprung up which treat hair transplant as a business model rather than medical profession, it is a tall order. Clinics not even refuse impossible cases. They tend to play up and pander to the fantastic imagination of the unresearched patient. That is, unfortunately how most of the surgeries are conducted and end up with disgruntlement and the procedure gets a bad name.
Hence the importance of the cases that I present with a message.
Our patient came to us with grade 6 androgenic alopecia, a severe form of male pattern baldness. This typically means extensive hair loss across the top of the head, with only the scalp donor area spared on the sides and back of the scalp. A thorough consultation was done by me personally to assess his donor area, the extent of his hair loss, and whether his baldness was stable.
When it comes to hair transplant surgery, the first thing to understand is that the results will depend largely on the quality of your donor area. The donor area is the part of your scalp where we harvest hair follicles to transplant into the bald areas. If your donor area is weak or sparse, there are limitations to how many grafts we can take, and the final results might not be as dense as you’d like.
As you can see here, this patient had a strong donor area with dense hair, which allowed us to harvest a sufficient number of grafts to cover the balding areas effectively. He had not much beard hair available. This restricts the graft number and coverage that can be obtained in a single session in such cases with extensive baldness. The quality and density of the scalp donor is crucial because we are working with your own hair—meaning the transplant will look as good as the hair you have and what we can safely harvest.
Another factor is the stability of your baldness. For a successful transplant, we need to make sure your hair loss is not progressing rapidly. Like a forest fire- you wait for it to go off before you start to plant new trees. If your hair loss is still ongoing, we may recommend medications to stabilize the situation before moving forward with surgery. We want to ensure that this procedure will last and you will remain satisfied with it’s naturalness for a longer period of time.
My technique:
- I do all consultations myself.
- I do all surgical steps myself- anesthesia, harvesting and slit making.
- I lay stress on the importance of minimising out of body ischemia time through in vivo preservation of grafts.
- The grafts are meticulously harvested and sorted into single hair, double hair, and multiple hair grafts.
- They are trimmed and loaded into an implanter pen designed my myself.
- Slits are made by me using the Sapphire knife. The slits determine the naturalness and resulting density.
The nurses who have been with me for over 10 years then place the grafts using implanter pens into slits that have already been made. This is a mechanical job and the only job delegated in my clinic. The angle, depth, and direction in which we place each graft cannot be altered since slits have already been made and are not made by the implanter pen as in the case of a Choi implanter.
My clinic stands apart from others in that I do only one case in a day. My entire attention is on the one patient in the clinic for hair transplant for that day.
Once the result sets in, we follow up the client for many years at no extra cost.
To sum up, a hair transplant can offer a significant improvement in your appearance and confidence, but it’s essential to set realistic goals. Understand that your result will be based on the health of your donor area, the number of grafts we can use, and the stability of your hair loss. Follow the aftercare instructions carefully, stay on top of medications, and be patient throughout the process.
