Picking an HT doc based on age and Norwood scale

[chrisis]

I had a thought today about something important to consider when picking a doctor for your hair transplant.

I think age, desired outcome and extent of hair loss are hugely important.

As I'm 28 and my hair loss is relatively minor, I think I need to pick a surgeon who has evidence of working with younger guys. Some doctors seem to excel at this more than others, e.g. Dr Feller and Dr Rahal. There are other excellent doctors who only have examples of restoring a more "mature" hairline in older guys and guys further up on the Norwood scale.

Any thoughts on this?

Which doc would you personally recommend for a younger guy/lower on Norwood scale?

And which would you recommend for an older guy/further up on Norwood scale?

[Still-Researching]

There are many parameters you need to take into account when choosing your Doctor.

Agree that some docs are better for young hairlines, due to their significant experiences with younger patients and their hair line design, but also due to their capabilities - not all docs can do real dense packing i.e 60+ grafts per sq cm.

When you are making your short list - guess first thing you need to decide is between the type of surgery i.e FUT (Strip) or FUE as this way you quickly automatically select/deselect groups of doctors - make sure only to consider IAHRS or maybe a handful more based on top notch online fora credentials for years - and live show cases.

Then contact several of them and let them help you to consider your needs of grafts/size of HT, hairline design, dense packing/graft placement, tool punch size, expected transection rate, number of sessions, costs/exchange rates, down time, potential use of Acell, your donor situation and family history, aftercare service, chemistry of you and doc etc

The names you stated is a good start. If you are looking at FUE (seems so) then also have a look at Feller, Shapiro, Feriduni (my personal choice) and Bisanga (not IAHRS, but good track list)...

Good luck and keep researching.

[Tracy C]

Which doc would you personally recommend for a younger guy/lower on Norwood scale?

Many ethical doctors will not perform a hair transplant on younger men lower down the norwood scale. If a young male patient is a MW2 and he wants to be a NW1, he may have a pretty hard time finding an ethical doctor who will do the surgery for him. Of course he could find an unethical doctor who will do it - but that opens the door very wide for a very bad outcome and/or long term dissatisfaction.

[chrisis]

Thanks Still-Researching! Great tips there. I'll write them down. Any particular reason why you prefer Dr Feriduni?

Tracy C, yeah I would imagine some cases where a HT isn't necessary or is a risky move. It's a good measure of a doc if he/she will refuse a patient for selfless reasons.

[Still-Researching]

Thanks Still-Researching! Great tips there. I'll write them down. Any particular reason why you prefer Dr Feriduni?

Only a handful of doctors can do a 2500 FUE HT in one session or 2 sessions back to back. This combined with previous hairline designs, personality of the doc, FUE punch size of 0.90 mm for low risk of scarring, use of Acell, dense packing skills, previous track record of HTs - made me choose Feriduni in the end.

As I do not have a grown out result (only 1 month postop) I cannot say if the choice was right, but I believe it is, so far so good... but without a final top grown out result, I cannot give any full personal recommendation - yet.

My final short list was Rahal and Feriduni, and I could have gone either way... but ended up choosing Feriduni.

[morelocks]

Only a handful of doctors can do a 2500 FUE HT in one session or 2 sessions back to back. This combined with previous hairline designs, personality of the doc, FUE punch size of 0.90 mm for low risk of scarring, use of Acell, dense packing skills, previous track record of HTs - made me choose Feriduni in the end.

As I do not have a grown out result (only 1 month postop) I cannot say if the choice was right, but I believe it is, so far so good... but without a final top grown out result, I cannot give any full personal recommendation - yet.

My final short list was Rahal and Feriduni, and I could have gone either way... but ended up choosing Feriduni.

Never heard of this doc but I respect your honest feedback so far, too many people on these forums recommend a doc which they havnt even seen the full outcome of.

Please keep us posted and goodluck especially over the next 2 months where things may look a little worse but then should start looking so much better at month 4

Iv had 4 fues btw so I'm talking from experience