The Problem with Hair Transplants and a Solution

[hellouser]

Why can't we harvest MORE than the typical 6-8,000 grafts from the donor region? If we need around 12,000 grafts to reach normal prebalding densities and average density of Caucasian hair is 85 grafts/cm2, why can't we take off around 45 grafts/cm2 from the entire donor area and move it all to the top?

If a human head contains about 100,000 hairs, thats 40,000 grafts. If 200cm/2 is the normal bald area of a mans scalp, then this requires about 12,000 grafts for densities that show no visible hair loss, but on average we have 80grafts/cm2, which means prebalding we'd have around 16,000 grafts there... so that means, outside of the 200cm/2 area we have 24,000 grafts to harvest from. So why can't we use up ALL the available hairs and cut it down to HALF the density on back and sides, which gives us, 12,000 grafts.

Since Pilofocus is supposed to be completely scarless and success rates are to be much higher, I expect Pilofocus to be able to achieve this. THOUGHTS?

 

[jksl]

How many cm/2 is the donor area? And where did you get the info that a normal bald area is 200cm/2? Does that balding area include the nape of the neck which is not considered a safe donor region?

 

[hellouser]

How many cm/2 is the donor area?

Hard to say given that everyone's got a different shape head; some people have hamburger heads, others have a brick head. But all that matters is the equation that 40,000 grafts is the typical total on a human head, with 18,000 of them being at the top in the Androgenetic Alopecia area.

And where did you get the info that a normal bald area is 200cm/2?

Measured my own area and looked around online. I'm actually around 190cm/2. Almost all guys at NW6 are at around 200cm/2. NW7 would be higher, but rarely do guys hit that norwood level.

Does that balding area include the nape of the neck which is not considered a safe donor region?

No. The 200cm/2 area ONLY accounts for the top of the scalp, from the crown to the hairline. Nape does not typically suffer from Androgenetic Alopecia/male pattern baldness.

Hell, if you wanted to be even a little more extreme, you could potentially harvest 0.5cm - 1.0cm of ALL the hair from the ear, down to the nape and back up to the other ear, essentially the hairline at the back of the head, thus lifting that hairline a little bit to boost the density of the hair up top. Again, I'd be more than content with this route as well. Measuring this on MY head, its about 35cm in length. If the density is full in this area, we're talking 35 x 80 = 2,800 grafts. That's a HUGE chunk of hair we can use elsewhere.

It seems like Pilofocus COULD essentially cure hair loss IF we were to get a little crafty.

 

[MoHairMoBetta]

Exactly. I would move as much of my donor hair to the top as needed. If this thinned my sides and back? I'll shave it. Some scarring? I'll micropigment it. But that hair on the top, that hairline... that's worth it.

 

[jksl]

Well, to answer your question "Why can't we harvest MORE than the typical 6-8,000 grafts from the donor region?", it's because most surgeons do not consider the nape of the neck as a safe area to harvest any grafts. It's a gamble with that area, as some men (those who will reach really high norwoods or those who will deal with senile hairloss down the line) will have to deal with the transplanted nape hair eventually thinning out. So, basically, it's less than 24,000 to harvest from. With that in mind, maybe it's more like 21000 to harvest from. And then from there, perhaps the surgeons believe that no more than a 1/3 should be harvested to maintain the illusion that there were no hairs plucked from that safe donor area. That leads us to harvesting a typical 7000 grafts.

 

[hellouser]

Well, to answer your question "Why can't we harvest MORE than the typical 6-8,000 grafts from the donor region?", it's because most surgeons do not consider the nape of the neck as a safe area to harvest any grafts. It's a gamble with that area, as some men (those who will reach really high norwoods or those who will deal with senile hairloss down the line) will have to deal with the transplanted nape hair eventually thinning out. So, basically, it's less than 24,000 to harvest from. With that in mind, maybe it's more like 21000 to harvest from. And then from there, perhaps the surgeons believe that no more than a 1/3 should be harvested to maintain the illusion that there were no hairs plucked from that safe donor area. That leads us to harvesting a typical 7000 grafts.

Which is stupid because you're left with good hair at the sides and back and STILL have sh!tty hair at the top. Just fvckign swap the two scenarios and a lot of us would be happy.

 

[jksl]

Which is stupid because you're left with good hair at the sides and back and STILL have sh!tty hair at the top. Just fvckign swap the two scenarios and a lot of us would be happy.

I agree with you. Just swap the two and have a more faded look on the sides and back. It would look much better.

 

[hellouser]

I agree with you. Just swap the two and have a more faded look on the sides and back. It would look much better.

Yup, which is how a lot of guys have their hair anyway; shorter on sides, longer up top. It wouldnt matter, if you brought down the donor area to 35 grafts/cm2 you could still grow it out just fine. Essentially you're taking away 40-50 grafts/cm2 from the entire donor area.

I read on an hair transplant doctors blog that the average balding area is 170cm/2... which means at 55 grafts/cm2 we'd need 9,350 grafts. I think we're being trolled by hair transplant doctors.

 

[jksl]

Yup, which is how a lot of guys have their hair anyway; shorter on sides, longer up top. It wouldnt matter, if you brought down the donor area to 35 grafts/cm2 you could still grow it out just fine. Essentially you're taking away 40-50 grafts/cm2 from the entire donor area.

I read on an hair transplant doctors blog that the average balding area is 170cm/2... which means at 55 grafts/cm2 we'd need 9,350 grafts. I think we're being trolled by hair transplant doctors.

I wonder if there are any surgeons willing to do this. I don't see why not, provided we acknowledge the risks. And we would be paying for it anyway.

 

[hellouser]

I wonder if there are any surgeons willing to do this. I don't see why not, provided we acknowledge the risks. And we would be paying for it anyway.

I wouldn't do it today with Pilofocus coming out 'soon'... well, soon could be five years according to Dr. Carlos Wesley. All these docs flap their gums about 'soon' when in reality they mean years if not decades, lol. With FUE you'd have the moth eaten look in the donor area (if you were to go far enough to make it look thin). With FUT you'd have the strip scar line. Personally, I'd take out as much hair as possible from the back and sides until it started to look thin like it does up top. The hairline, crown, forelock and midscalp are the MOST important areas.

 

[jksl]

I wouldn't do it today with Pilofocus coming out 'soon'... well, soon could be five years according to Dr. Carlos Wesley. All these docs flap their gums about 'soon' when in reality they mean years if not decades, lol. With FUE you'd have the moth eaten look in the donor area (if you were to go far enough to make it look thin). With FUT you'd have the strip scar line. Personally, I'd take out as much hair as possible from the back and sides until it started to look thin like it does up top. The hairline, crown, forelock and midscalp are the MOST important areas.

I am waiting for pilofocus, but getting really impatient. I'm a single guy in my 30's. I can't wait until I'm in my 40's. sigh.....

 

[hellouser]

You'll wait a long time then. I didn't make that mistake, pilofocus was mostly just hype, and now it disappeared from the radars anyway.

It didn't disappear, Dr. Wesley is still (pathetically slowly though) chugging away at it. You can read all about the device and patent information here:

https://www.google.ca/patents/US20140236181

Now, I know that you're pushing the hair transplant option because it's worked for you... but you need to accept reality in this matter:

1) FUE a lot of times will show moth scarring
2) FUE yield rates are lower than Pilofocus and even FUT (this is big)
3) FUE donor count is limited compared to Pilofocus (taking ALL the nape hair)

Doesn't matter how you slice it, Pilofocus *will* become the gold standard eventually. Have you even watched the video demonstration of it? Take a look:

https://vimeo.com/77919975
password: piloscopy

Demonstration starts at 20:20. You can see that the harvesting time will be drastically reduced compared to FUE and FUT. Luckily this should also bring down the price as hair transplants cost so much due to the doctors time. But I haven't even touch on an important aspect of Pilofocus' benefits: Body Hair! This should also be capable of being used on legs. If I were to combine leg hair with a tradition hair transplant, I'd be able to get a fully dense scalp where an NW6 area would be. Hair loss CURED.

You CANNOT do this with FUE or FUT.

 

[Lollerme]

1) There is never visible scarring when a small enough (0,8 mm) punch is used. And I can assure you of that because I've seen dozens of results from my surgeon, and no one had visible scarring.

2) FUE yield rates are not lower than FUT, I cannot show you the link because BTT is censored here, but even a reputed surgeon revised his position on this a few weeks ago. FUE is as good as FUT in terms of yield.

3) That would be the only advantage of pilofocus.

FUE appeared in 1999, and it took roughly 15 years to become the gold standard, and this is still debated today.

Be realistic, when do you think you'll be able to go to ******** or De Reys (for someone who lives in Belgium like me) and get pilofocus from them at a reasonable price?

2020? 2030? They will most likely be retired by then anyway. I see as another excuse to sit and wait, just like hair multiplication was a few years ago.

I'd advise a young NW5 to act now and get a FUE like I did, because you do not get to live your youth twice.

1) Wrong.

2. Wrong.

Last sentence; stop spreading bad advice.

 

[hellouser]

I've wondered the same thing. We should be able to move half of the hair from the donor region. Not 30-35% like they do now.

We're being trolled on all levels. Mind you, I didn't even mention body hair. My legs have a ton of hair, about 15,000 hairs (so about 6,000 grafts). If you got real crafty, you'd be cured.

I agree. And there is nothing stopping you from getting pilofocus after FUE when it becomes available.

There kind of is... yield rates are not 100%. By that I mean, if you take 1,000 grafts from the donor that doesn't mean all 1,000 will successfully grow. It *can* be as low as 75% success rate, so 750 grafts would grow. 10% failure seems to be normal, but generally CAN be worse. Either way, Pilofocus will be closer to 100% (watch the video I posted) and will give you a small boost.

The key is to get as much grafts as possibly... NO CUTTING CORNERS.

 

[resu]

Aren't blood vessels and scarring tissue the issue? Like even if they could clone hairs you could never get the exact density pre-Androgenetic Alopecia.

 

[hellouser]

Aren't blood vessels and scarring tissue the issue? Like even if they could clone hairs you could never get the exact density pre-Androgenetic Alopecia.

I believe Tsuji Labs is working on an injectable solution where cells would form follicles withou the need to implant follicles like an hair transplant procedure. With that, you could go for a density beyond 80 grafts/cm2 (but would you want to? that wont be fun maintaining, washing and styling)

 

[hellouser]

I have about 25000 beard hairs and thousands of 1-2 inch long chest hairs. I just need money and a trip to Umar/******** to use them.

In that regard, pilofocus should be very useful to me. But I'm 27 and basically a 3A and don't have time to wait around. 90% yield with FUE sounds pretty good to me at this point.

Yes, but here's the other problem I have with Hair Transplants;

What happens to the dermal papilla cells that have miniaturized? These CAN be revived with a procedure from Histogen and Replicel. Does implanting grafts in the recipient area compromise their potential regrowth? That would really suck if you screwed your chances of a cell based treatment... otherwise, you'd need to clone follicles. Apparently though Replicel is supposed to be able to create follicle neogenesis as well, so it's all unknown at this point. To play it safe: try treatments first, any and all possible especially going by what AnteUp has been writing. Tackling inflammation, fibrosis, wounding, healing, upregulation of cd200, cd34+ cells, blocking DHT, DKK1, etc etc could lead to results that would hopefully render a hair transplant useless. On SAGA the amount of work, reading and collaboration to completely reverse baldness is pretty fvcking impressive.

Still, that doesnt change the fact that we DO potentially have a LOT of hair to use for full restoration despite the fact that hair transplant docs are unwilling to go beyond the stupid 'safe zone'

 

[Mach]

I think the chance of regret is higher if I wait.

i think your right.


How many can afford a 12,000 graft surgery? I had 2800 FUE and it hurt my wallet big. I was thinking of another 1000 grafts to get me at a Norwood 2 zone (I'm 35) but it's expensive. $12 nonshaven FUE is pretty steep. I don't think I could do another shaved transplant but this one won't be as big.

My expert Bro-science opinion is we need to reverse miniature hair. HSC, replica, folica, guys like Greco or even a mad scientist on this board will be our only hope for a true affordable cure. What Wesley got going on is years down the road and out of most people's budget. I hope not. He'll have to train people and set process up.

Best to all

 

[MoHairMoBetta]

I'll sell my car and take the bus for a hair transplant. Hahaha

 

[hellouser]

I'll sell my car and take the bus for a hair transplant. Hahaha

You'd probably get more respect from women if u had hair but had to take the bus over being bald but having a car.