Could we be good candidates to HT?

[twobald]

Hey guys, I am new here.

My brother (currently 27 years old) and I (currently 26 years old) are very interested in hair transplant. Here are some photos show current status of our hairs.

Could you please give us some advices about hair transplant surgery. Are we good candidates? Also we both prefer FIT method.

It is me :





and here is my brothers pics:





May a doctor notice us how many micro grafts are needed to cover our bald areas and low hairline?

Thank you

[mattj]

Some doctors post to the forums but it's best to contact the surgeons you're interested in and seek their recommendations. From there you'll know how many grafts you need and the price.

You both have very similar hair characteristics and around the same level of hairloss. Your brother's maybe a little worse. Are either of you using any hairloss treatments currently? How long have you been losing hair for?

Just for your information, micrografts are old technology. You don't want to go to a surgeon who offers micrografts. The best surgeons today use Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT) which involves the transplanting of individual follicular units containing 1-4 hairs each, and these units (or grafts) are prepared under microscope.

[twobald]

Thanks

Thank you mattj,

Currently we don't use any hair loss treatments but my brother was applying minoxidil for over two years in past (2% minoxidil) I think hair loss started for both of us when we were 18.

It wasn't as bad as current state but it just got worse by every passing day.

Could it be too soon to perform a HT surgery?

Regards

[mattj]

It's never a bad idea to wait, but I think most doctors would judge you both to be good candidates.

Your hairloss started very young but hasn't been aggressive and hasn't advanced beyond around a 2-3 on the Norwood scale. It looks like you might have some thinning further back behind your hairline and your brother possibly does too (his hair looks like it has more of a wave to it which can serve to hide thinning).

It would be advisable for you both to see how you respond to Propecia.

[gillenator]

Thank you mattj,

Currently we don't use any hair loss treatments but my brother was applying minoxidil for over two years in past (2% minoxidil) I think hair loss started for both of us when we were 18.

It wasn't as bad as current state but it just got worse by every passing day.

Could it be too soon to perform a HT surgery?

Regards

twobald,

Guys, if your hairloss started at 18, that's almost always an indication of advanced hairloss over your lifetimes. There are some men in your family history that have advanced to class Norwood 7 right?

You really owe it to yourselves to get on finasteride as soon as possible and them monitor it over the next year to see if it greatly stabilizes your hairloss.

If not, the worst thing you could do is to start HT surgery.

[mattj]

twobald,

Guys, if your hairloss started at 18, that's almost always an indication of advanced hairloss over your lifetimes. There are some men in your family history that have advanced to class Norwood 7 right?

You really owe it to yourselves to get on finasteride as soon as possible and them monitor it over the next year to see if it greatly stabilizes your hairloss.

If not, the worst thing you could do is to start HT surgery.

Hi gillenator,
Don't you think that the slow rate of progression goes some way to negate the negative aspect of early onset?

[gillenator]

Hi Matt,

Always nice to read your helpful posts to other hairloss sufferers.

To answer your question, no I do not think that their present slower rate of loss (progression) would negate their ultimate destination. The odds are unfortunately against them. Why? Because genetic dispostions do not waver in an extremely large percent of those situations. Also, we have not seen their crowns and would be helpful to know more about that.

I base this opinion moreso on science but also three decades of observations in men who begin visible signs of MPB prior to age 25. And especially when these very young men start seeing the loss in their teens? Again, a very high percent of them end up as class 6's & 7's and further confirmed by family history.

It is always possible that the family history for these brothers may disclose that no men advance beyond Norwood class 4, but I highly doubt it. We will have to wait to see their reply. And it also appears that these two young men have good hair quality without knowing anything about their donor density. But if it is adequate to meet their individual restoration goals, they have good potential. Again, providing that there are not the upper classes of hairloss in their families.

The thing again though is that when there is that much visible hairloss at 25 years of age or "younger", there is almost always class 7s in the family somewhere.

The variable? Long term efficiency of finasteride.

[twobald]

Crown Pictures!

Thank you both for your replies.

When I asked my brother about Finasteride he confirmed he used to take 1 ml up to 5 ml for over 3 months last year but because of side effects he has stopped taking it. He notices his hairline never lowed again but on someway he has observed a little more hair density on his scalp. He also mentions his scalp hair wont grow longer than three or four centimeters and this situation happens since he was 24 (approximately three years).

We had a visit with a doctor, she noticed us you have a great donor area and you can do HT surgery but you both might wait.

Here are our crowns,




Unfortunately we have men in our family have advanced to Norwood Class 7 (my mother's father and brothers). My father hair loss has advanced to class 5 and he is 55 years old. My father's family is kind of different, there are men with hair loss advanced to class 2, 3 at age of 40 and we have men with hair loss advanced to class 5 at age of 30.

Could it be possible to postpone hair loss by taking Finasteride for rest of life? The big problem we are now facing is receding hairline! Could it be back to lower state without surgery? Is there any hope to future discoveries?

Thank you

[gillenator]

Thank you brothers for your feedback. I thought you might have the class 7's in your history and now I read that MPB is in fact on both sides of the genetic coin.

Finasteride really will not help with your frontal zones. It is more efficient in the midscalp and crown. Ansd thanks for the crown pics on both of you. They look exactly as i thought they would. You are both diffusing in your crowns. This is where Propecia will help tremendously if you both respond well to it.

Now let's say Propecia works indefinitely for your midscalps and crown. In other words, the areas do not get any worse, visibly speaking. You would probably have enough donor to fix your hairlines. But there's no guarantees that finasteride will work throughout your lifetimes. I guess that is a part of the risk that we assume.

If you do choose to use Proscar instead of Propecia because of the lower cost, BE SURE TO NOT take it without cutting it four ways. Do not take 5mg daily! Maybe go back to the doc and she can provide the advice and script.

My final recommendation is to wait and not do surgery UNTIL you know that finasteride has stabilized further loss. If either of you DO NOT respond well to finasteride, then I highly discourage you from starting HT surgery. You need to give Propecia one full year and taken as prescribed to give it a fair evaluation.

I hope this has been of some help and wish you both the very best in your journey...