Treating hair loss is a journey that needs to be mapped out carefully. I tell my patients that hair transplants are not the silver bullet in treating androgenetic alopecia (which is a hair loss aging process). Androgenetic alopecia and hair transplants are limited by the patient’s hair supply and demand. Therefore, I use the help of preventative medical therapies for hair growth and to ensure the highest percent of grafts survive, and it’s imperative that I use all the good genetic hair wisely.
Some patients and zealous doctors think that a single hair transplant will get them from point A to point B and then their goals will be accomplished in a quick trip. Unfortunately, point B is rarely the end point, and there could actually be a point Z. The younger a patient is, and the more extensive the hair loss, necessitates creating a much more conservative hair transplant. Ironically it is that same young patient and careless doctor who tends to treat it more aggressively, with bad results.
A pencil is not responsible for a bad test score, it is the person behind the pencil who is. Just as a specific tool or technique usually is not responsible for a bad hair transplant outcome, it is the doctor behind the tool or technique who is. Any tool or technique when used inappropriately can create disastrous results, such as spread scars that result from removing too wide of strips in FUT, or from an overharvested hair bank with scar tissue from FUE.
A good hair transplant doctor will put more focus and thought into the planning of the patient’s journey as his/her hair continues to thin. The nicest car in the world can break down or run out of gas if the travel wasn’t planned out wisely. Planning the journey of a hair transplant is much more important than the equipment you choose to travel in.
I tell my patients they are getting on the “hair transplant train”, and it is all about “hair bank management”. I need to use as little of the good genetic hair as possible to meet my patient’s goals, and I need to save as much hair as possible for the journey into the future. Hair transplants can look completely natural when the journey is carefully planned and mapped out for each individual person and their unique journey of life.
