I always had fine hair and when I was young I had to use hair spray to keep my hair in place. I began losing my hair in the forehead at the age of 30 and around 40 it started on the top. Fine hair and less hair is the worst combination. So I let my hair grow in order to cover the top as much as possible with longer hair going from one side to the other. So every time I had to do a lot of styling work on my hair.The system used to cover the top was totally inefficient when it was too windy, when it was raining, when I went to the swimming pool or when I was making any sport activity. So I started thinking about hair transplant surgery.
What hair loss treatments have worked best for me?I did not use any treatment till I was 50, then I started to use twice a year a treatment based on AMINEXIL it was helpful because it make your hair thicker but you can’t recover the loss hair so I didn’t want to make other experimentation and I decided to go ahead with a hair transplantation.
Am I happy with my hair transplant experience and the results?

The only complaint I have is against me: why didn’t I started sooner?

I visited several internet sites on the subject and finally the Belgian surgeon I selected was Dr Jean Devroye, he practises is art in a private clinic in Brussels in Belgium and also in New York. I booked my appointment for a consultation in September 2006. He spent nearly 1 hour with me explaining the hair transplant procedure, the recommendation for me based upon the photos I submitted and answering all of my questions, together we decided the strategy in order to fullfill my requirements with the target to transplant as much hair as possible during this procedure.

October 15th was D day what I can resume from that moment. It wasn’t painful, the 5-6 persons team he his working with is very professional. I spent a long time with them, 12 hours to transplant 3200 grafts, the last hour it was what I call “fine tuning” because it was adjusting the height of the grafts in the holes, not to deep not to high…., this is really the state of the art.

Finally the results exceeded my deepest wishes, I was very lucky to see my hair starting to grow immediately with little loss of the transplanted hair. And after three months I already had an excellent and promising result. 6600 hairs added make a lot of difference.

I’m not thankful enough for this astonishing work.

What hair loss treatments would I recommend?

As I didn’t do any, it’s difficult for me to recommend products, but what I can say is :don’t hesitate to go for the ultimate treatment and book your hair transplant surgery, but take your time to choose for the best surgeons possible, it’s worth it and it’s not wasted money versus the money you can spend on different products. Hair transplant is really the best you can get.

How has hair restoration surgery changed my life?

Now, I can enjoy jumping in the swimming pool and I don’t need anymore to hide from the wind ,what a pleasure to feel the wind in your hair, and by the way … they all say I’m looking younger.

My general advice and suggestions.

Don’t hesitate and go for it!!

After one year, the result is very natural. The hair structure is slightly curled and this helps giving a impression of higher density.

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Looking at these pictures it is hard to notice that this patient had lost his hair. the transplant is undetectable.

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The anterior line looks very natural. Backwards, the density of the donor area does not seem to have changed after a year. The trychophitic suture is invisible.

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In order to realise a good hair transplant you must have a good team, a good technique and also a good clinic. Both the consultations and the surgeries take place in this clinic: clinique capillaire Grand Roi in Brussels, Belgium. I welcome the patients for the consultations and I realise the surgeries in a operating room which respacts the European rules, iso 2000. The air is purified by a system of spray, oxygen is available, the sterilisation room is separated… It is very important to provide comfort to a patient during the whole surgery so the armchair can be adjusted to change the position very often. For the patients living in another country, we arrange the accommodation in a very comfortable hôtel only 10 min far from our clinic.
For more information, have a look on our web site.

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What matters the most is not the age but the stage of baldness reached. Obviously, it is important to be very careful and reserved when a young person, with a little baldness, wants a hair transplant. If you do not understand precisely the causes of the hair loss, it is better to wait and postpone the surgery. Moreover, some medical treatments like minoxidil and finasteride are often very efficient at that age but if the baldness reached an important stage, it is possible to make a hair transplant before the recommended age, which is 25 years old. It would be best to see a good doctor, who will analyse your case and recommend you a therapeutic solution.

All transplanted hair will keep their genetic characteristics. They are resistant to male hormones effects, in opposition to the original hair, and they will keep this peculiarity. That is why it is always recommended to make a quality hair transplant even if at the beginning the hair grafted are hidden by the hair existing. In fact, when those hair fall, only the transplanted hair will remain…

Local anaesthesia is administered for the surgery, and when it is done properly the surgery is practically painless. Here is how it works: it is important to go on very progressively and to deliver stings only on already anaesthetised zones. So the placement of the grafts in that zones is totally painless. It is remarkable to notice how the donour area, which receives between 2000 and 3000 incisions, is completely painless on the day after the surgery. On the day after, only the donour area, where the strip was removed, could be a little bit painful.

Indeed, both techniques are less and less used. The scalp reduction consists of surgically removing the tonsure or the bald area. The scalp is then stretched to cover the bald spot. The surgery lasts about one hour and gives immediate results. It calls up hair from lateral areas. Moreover, it is quite painful and this surgery leaves a central scar which is visible and the scar can widen in the long term. The orientation of the displaced hair often looks artificial.  For more details, you can have a look on this web page.

Rags. This is another obsolete technique. It consists of displacing large areas of the scalp. The orientation of the hair transplanted does not give a natural effect. This technique could be useful during reconstructive surgery, for example after an accident.

These technique cannot be qualified as surgeries against balding, even more when they are used to redefine the front line as the final result is not natural.

There are four imperfections:

The grafts are too big on the front part.

This anterior line is too regular, too round

Crescent shaped hair on the first inches due to the consecutives surgeries on a surface which was too short.
Very large scar visible when his hair are short.

The patient situation: Donour area, mainly the anterior line, is not very prety because of its irregularity, the unbalance of density between the anterior part and the back of the head. The donour area is blasted, the scar is unpleasing and it is very hard to take another strip of hair.

Correction

Using the FUE technique the grafts were taken, one by one, from the hairy zones of the head. This 1856 grafts were removed in two days (1015 and then 841, for a total of 4454 hair) and placed on the transplanted zone in order to fit in with the crowd of other bad grafts. The biggest grafts were removed from the most frontal part, and around the ones left there some one hair grafts were implanted in a regular way. The very dense crescent shaped part was not transplanted.

The scar was reduced after two months. The patient was lucky to have a very good laxity, which allowed us to take it off completely. The results will be posted in the next few weeks.

IMAGES OF IT

Unfortunately, although nowadays hair transplant techniques prooved to be ready, some doctors still do not take enough care nor enough time in making the surgeries. There are two techniques to correct a bad hair transplant on the front part. You can either take off most of, or all, the bad grafts thanks to the use of micro punches, like the one used for the FUE technique,  or you have to implants new grafts between the huge ones in order to hide the non natural aspect.

Sometimes, and in a few cases only (around 5% of the patients using the treatment), a hair loss may occur in the part treated with Minoxidil. Usually, it is just a transitional loss which often starts between two weeks and two months after the beginning of the treatment. It may be due to the acceleration of the loss process of those hair which where going to fall soon. I advice you to wait for two more months and then the beneficial effects of the Minoxidil should be visible. If this does not happen, you will have to stop it and possibly start to use Propecia.