Welcome to the Foundation for Hair Restoration's BLOG. As Founder and Director of the Foundation for Hair Restoration, and one of the top hair transplant surgeons, I feel a responsibility to educate those experiencing hair loss on the common sense, intelligent approach to surgical hair restoration. After more than 14 years of specializing exclusively in surgical hair restoration, my track record of having literally thousands and thousands of happy patients speaks for itself.
As an American Board Certified Facial Plastic Surgeon and American Board Hair Restoration Surgeon, I attempt to apply aesthetic plastic surgery principles to surgical hair restoration, allowing for the most aesthetic, natural appearing results. All of the other Foundation for Hair Restoration Surgeons are also highly skilled and trained to achieve similar results. And with the microscopic technique of follicular unit grafting, for the first time, it is in fact possible to attain restorations that, even with the hair cut short, look completely natural.
I am proud of the top notch devoted doctors, technicians and staff affiliated with The Foundation for Hair Restoration. We are pleased to invite all of our visitors to learn from the questions of others who find themselves with a similar concern: hair thinning or loss issues and other hair related concerns.
I am 47 and would like to get a hair transplant to fill in my crown
Posted July 10, 2010 4:31 PM in Hairline Advancement
Question:
I am 47 and would like to get a hair transplant to fill in my crown. I am assuming that I am still loosing my hair there because it is not yet completely bald. I was wondering if there were any risks or concerns about filling in the crown before the hair loss was stopped.
Answer:
No, you certainly can fill in the crown at your age of 47. You may still lose some hair in the area but you always have the option of taking more hair and filling out the crown with a little more density. One must also remember that the crown is a more difficult area to fill in than the front of the head and that the take is not quite as good as other areas. However, I would certainly recommend getting the crown filled in at this point and then, as the years go on, you can make some adjustment in it with more hair transplants.
Posted by Richard Galitz, MD, FACS
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I had a hair transplant years ago and had folliculitis soon after
Posted July 08, 2010 9:31 AM in Hairline Advancement
Question:
I had a hair transplant years ago and had folliculitis soon after. I am planning on having my second hair transplant soon and wondering if I am more likely to have folliculitis again since I had it the first time. Also, is there anything that I can do to prevent it from happening this time around?
Answer:
I cannot speak for how the original hair transplant was done. However, I would say that anyone who has had problems with folliculitis may be slightly more likely to have problems again if a hair transplant should be done. With the way our follicles are placed into the graft sites and with the quality and the great experience of technicians that we have in our office, the chance of folliculitis is certainly less. If your scalp is clean and healthy and if you have good technicians working on your hair, it should be rather easy to minimize the possibility of folliculitis from the hair transplant.
Posted by Richard Galitz, MD, FACS
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I have been smoking for going on 20 years now
Posted July 07, 2010 6:42 PM in Hairline Advancement
Question:
I have been smoking for going on 20 years now. I have tried dozens of times to quit with no real success. I desperately want a hair transplant so I think that might be just the motivation to get me to quit. How soon before my transplant do I need to quit smoking and how does smoking affect the hair transplant?
Answer:
Obviously, the further before the hair transplant that you can quit smoking the better. However, we insist that everybody quit smoking for at least one to two weeks before the hair transplant and for one to two weeks after the hair transplant. If you are a seriously heavy smoker and if you should smoke during the hair transplant, certainly the possibility of having a poor take of the hair follicles can happen and you would be getting an unsatisfactory result.
Posted by Richard Galitz, MD, FACS
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I am a 56 year-old male and had a hair transplant years ago
Posted July 05, 2010 3:42 PM in Hairline Advancement
Question:
I am a 56-year-old male and had a hair transplant years ago. The scar from the previous procedure never healed well and I was wondering if it would be possible to do anything to repair it. How would this be done and what sort of result can I expect?
Answer:
We do a large number of scar repairs on people who had previous hair transplants, mostly at other places. If you have a scar that is either a hypertrophic scar or widened scar, many times it is possible to do a w-plasty or some other procedure that can effectively remove the scar and give you a much better result. We can also at times, if need be, transplant hair follicles into the scar to camouflage it. We will be able to advise you of the best procedure for your particular case upon seeing you. But again those are the two particular methods: one would be a scar revision which we do very successfully and the other would be transplanting hair follicles into the scar itself to camouflage it.
Posted by Richard Galitz, MD, FACS
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Is it really necessary to consult several surgeons for hair transplantation before picking one?
Posted July 03, 2010 2:12 PM in Hairline Advancement
Question:
Is it really necessary to consult several surgeons for hair transplantation before picking one?
Answer:
In my opinion, if you go to one of the surgeons from the Foundation of Hair Restoration and Plastic Surgery, it is not necessary to see a number of different surgeons.
I can say this honestly because we have so much experience in doing hair transplants. By far, we do the best hair work and we can show you pictures of thousands of patients that attest to this so that you should feel comfortable in choosing us. However, I would never tell anyone not to go to another surgeon because seeing anyone else should show you clearly that the best, safest, most natural work you can get would be with one of the surgeons at the Foundation for Hair Restoration and Plastic Surgery.
Posted by Richard Galitz, MD, FACS
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I have been thinking more and more of getting a hair transplant
Posted July 02, 2010 1:07 PM in Hairline Advancement
Question:
I have been thinking more and more of getting a hair transplant. I think I would like to make the next step and schedule a consultation but I am still hesitant, I suppose because I have no idea what to expect. Can you tell me what happens during the consultation?
Answer:
I am happy to walk you through a typical consultation. When you come to the office, you are signed in and all appropriate information is given to the nurse, such as your medical condition, any kind of medications that you may be on, anything that would put you at any particular medical risk, and allergies and other things that are important for any surgeon to know. Once all that information has be given to us and once we know the condition of your medical situation, you are then brought to a private room where you will meet with both the doctor and a patient consultant. At that point, the doctor examines you after finding out what your particular concerns are and he then shows you what the likely results from a hair transplant would be and what the best procedure is for you. Then we will show you lots of pictures of before and after, especially patients who have the same similar kind of hair loss. After that is done and you know what to expect from the surgery, the patient consultant will go over all the aspects of cost and scheduling with you. We make the consultation as comfortable as possible and make sure that all of your questions are answered and that when you leave you have a clear idea exactly what the procedure involves, who the people are that will be working on you, what the costs are and what you have to plan for in terms of recovery at home.
Posted by Richard Galitz, MD, FACS
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My hair transplant was nearly a year ago
Posted July 01, 2010 11:14 AM in Hairline Advancement
Question:
My hair transplant was nearly a year ago. Unfortunately I suffered shock loss. The surgeon said the hair would grow. It still hasn’t. At this point is my hair lost or is there any chance that it will grow?
Answer:
If there is still shock loss at a year afterward, there certainly is a reduced chance that the hair will now grow back. Most shock loss returns within 6 to 12 months and I think at this point you should go see the surgeon and explain the situation to him and maybe consider getting additional transplants if the scalp is healthy at this point.
Posted by Richard Galitz, MD, FACS
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I am looking to have some work done on my hairline. I am very concerned about having a natural-looking result.
Posted June 16, 2010 9:09 AM in Hairline Advancement
Question:
I am looking to have some work done on my hairline. I am very concerned about having a natural-looking result. I can look at pictures of guys who had hair transplants and say this one has a natural hairline or this one does not but how is this achieved? What are the characteristics that make up a natural hairline and how is this achieved through surgery?
Answer:
Probably the most important aspect of a hair transplant is creating a natural hairline. This is done by two manners. First is the design of the hairline itself and its particular shape. Is it natural looking and is it appropriate for the patient's original hair distribution and for the shape of his scalp and face? Second, is the hair itself planted in a very natural way so it does not look artificial? In our office, the hairline is designed under great care to make sure that it will look natural and it takes into consideration the patient's facial shape, the existing hairs that are still in place and what the original hairline may have looked like. The hair is then placed in such a way so that there is a certain amount of irregular irregularity with certain hairs coming out more forward and certain triangular aspects created to give a variability and not a straight line to the hairline itself and also to always consider the aspect of randomness when placing the grafts.
Posted by Richard Galitz, MD, FACS
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I had a transplant about five and a half weeks ago
Posted May 03, 2010 5:17 PM in Hairline Advancement
Question:
I had a transplant about five and a half weeks ago. The transplanted hairs should have shed but they haven't yet. Does this mean they won't and is this normal?
Answer:
In most cases, shedding or shock loss would occur from one to four weeks after the hair transplantation procedure. Most commonly, 95% to 98% of the transplanted hairs will shed in the first one to four weeks. However, on occasion, we do run into a patient who experiences very little shock loss and the transplanted hairs just start growing from the day of the procedure. This is very unusual and it is really more of a bonus when this happens because the patient will not have to experience the three to four month wait before the new hairs start to grow again. I would say this is not certainly normal but does occur and is more of a lucky break for the patient than anything else.
Posted by Dr. Charles
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Are hair loss medications like Rogaine and Propecia as effective in African Americans?
Posted April 19, 2010 12:47 PM in Hairline Advancement
Question:
Are hair loss medications like Rogaine and Propecia as effective in African Americans?
Answer:
Yes. There has been relatively equal data showing that there is no difference in the efficacy in both Rogaine/Minoxidil and Propecia/Finasteride in regards to the prevention of male pattern baldness or androgenetic alopecia. I personally have had many African American patients over the years taking either one of those two products or both together have had equally successful results in those patients as compared to those patients that are non-African American.
Posted by Dr. Charles
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