HT Questions Please Help?

[Mike K]

Hi everybody. I have recently been considering the prospect of a hair transplant. I am 24, between norwood 2 and 3 with thinning at the crown, and there are many norwood 7s in my family so it is likely that this is where I would be heading. I have a few questions:

1. Does my age and family history of baldness immediately make me a poor candidate? I am using treatments (fin, rogaine, nizoral) which have stopped the loss well for the past 19-20 months. I understand that these will not work forever, but when I run out of donor hair couldn't I just use beard, chest, and leg hair? I have a lot of hair in all of these places. I have seen conflicting information on this subject on google. What about SMP once I run out of donor hair? I would wear my hair very short if I had good coverage (or appeared to).

2. I have a tattoo on my left pec. Does this cause any problems with harvesting the grafts from the chest if this was necessary later on? I hope the answer is no, but if it is yes then this may limit my future options. I have not been able to find an answer to this question on google.

3. I currently work a 2 week on/2 week off schedule on an oil rig. Would 13 days (1 of the 14 off to travel) be enough time for me to recover and then wear my hard hat? It is imperative that I wear a hard hat at work and there really is no way around this. I have found conflicting information about recovery time and hat wearing on google as well.

Any advice is appreciated.