Why are HTs not so good for diffuse thinning?

[Stanth]

Hi,

I've been told a few times that HTs are not as effective on diffuse thinning areas... is this because you are likely to continue to lose the rest of the hair from the recipient area in the near future, so the new transplants will look thin, or is it because the transplant procedure can damage some of the existing hairs?

Wondering whether to go down the HT route and managing to find many reasons to stall on this.

Cheers

Stanth9

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

When transplanting into diffuse areas of thinning there is a good chance that the stress of the new grafts being placed all around the thinning weak hair will cause them to shed. This could certainly make the result look less impressive as well. Do you have diffuse thinning also in the donor area? If that is the case then it would not make much sense to transplant hairs from one thin area to another.

[Stanth]

Hi Glenn, thanks for the reply.

My hair has never been really thick, but it's only thinning on the top, so there is a fairly noticeable hoseshoe shape appearing at the back and along the top of the temples is thinning rather than receding. I'm wondering whether to see how it goes in a year or two to see how thin it gets because I'm sure there must be a cut-off point at which diffuse thinning just becomes baldness!

Would the potential stress shed be temporary, permanent or a mixture, with some of the hairs being too thin to come back and some being strong enough to make a comeback? As it's on the crown If I could get to the point where I don't try to avoid bright overhead lights near the bathroom mirror then that would be enough for me. I know the result is never going to look like my hair did when I was a teenager, so I'm fairly realistic.

Stanth

[gillenator]

stanth,

Some of the hair comes back and some does not. The much thinner more diffused hair is on its way out and the trauma (shock) may be the final event to shut that hair down.

It's usually the more robust hair that comes back, meaning the hair that still has some meaningful hair shaft diameter (caliber) left to it. There is no real precise way to predict what will grow back and what will not.

But generally speaking, the patients that have good donor hair will begin bringing that hair to the thinning areas because they know that it is a matter of time when the diffused hair will no longer produce visual coverage. And many of them do this approach in several smaller sessions to hold the level of overall trauma down. This is the approach that many females with diffused thinning take.

Possibly mail some hair samples to Dr. Charles taken from various points in the donor region (occipital zone) and then several from the thinning areas. Under a scope, comparisons to hair shaft diameter can be made from those samples. My suggestion would be to follow the direction and advice from Dr. Charles.

The bottom line is that if the hair in the donor zone is thinning, it can be lost in the future and believe that is the larger point that Dr. Charles may be making.

Not that I am speaking for Dr. Charles, just some past observations in other individuals with diffused thinning. Are you taking any hairloss meds like finasteride?

Best wishes to you!

[Stanth]

Hi Gillenator,

Thanks for the reply. That's roughly what I thought, so as long as the donor hair isn't thinning too much then in itself it's not a reason not to have a HT, just something to be aware of and think about smaller sessions.

I'm trying for kids and my body tends to react badly to some meds (IBS - even vitamin supplements seem to set it off) so I'm not on any meds at the moment.

Taking samples from the thinning areas won't be a problem!

Thanks

Stanth

[gillenator]

You're welcome Stanth. It would be advisable to continue monitoring hair shaft diameter in one's donor zone especially if the donor zone appears weaker or if the men in one's family history has apparent donor zone thinning.