Hi folks, i'm new to the site.

Had a question: I'm a 4a and my doc told me to try propecia, which i have been on for over a year, but it only slows the hair loss. Anyone around my age had a HT and did they find 26 to be too young?

cocopuff:
I'm 28, was NW 4A, and just had my first HT.
There are several threads that address your question -- search a bit for them. Some people will tell you no way you should do HT at 26. I am not one of them, and there are good arguments pros and cons.
I'd ask yourself a few simple questions:
Am I willing to take Propecia forever if needed?
Am I willing to settle for at best NW2, or must I have a flat, young hairline to be satisfied?
IMO the real problem is that you lost your hair young and hairloss is progressive and in the meantime the donor supply is not infinite.
The other problem is we want to be satisfied with great hair now. It is hard in the 20s to think about what we might look like in our 40s, 50s, or older. If I am too agressive in "fixing" a hairloss problem now, it may be all for nothing if I create more problems latter because my hair looks weird due to more hairloss.
I have a quick glimpse into my new hair look. It is quite an improvement IMO. Will I be satisfied? I don't know yet. I'll know in 6 months or so when the new hairs fully grow in. Then I'll make a decision.
Best of luck with yours. Do the research because knowledge is power.

vocor1

cocopuff:
Check out "Topic: Is it Ethical to HT under 25". It is under the "questions for doctors" forum. There are other threads as well, but that is a recent one.

vocor1

Thanks for your replies. I'll have to talk to my doctor more about it. It's going to be Bernstein. I heard great things about him

he did mine a year ago,looks great.i'm sure your
end result will be a nice improvement,but
remember it takes time,although i had nice growth
at 6-7 months it has drastically improved up to
the one year mark this week. good luck

Figsy, can you tell me more about your procedure with Dr. Bernstein. I looking to have work done by him in the spring. Was this your first transplant, or did you go to him for repair work? What norwood class were you then, and are you now? How many FU did you have placed, and in what area? Do you have any before and after pics? Did you experience any pain during the procedure? How was your post-op healing? Any swelling? How long did your procedure take? Was it strip, or FUE? Would you say your results are 100% natural? Has anyone been able to tell you've had a transplant? Anyone else who's had a procedure with Dr. Bernstein please come forward and tell of your experience. And please ad pics if you can. I know he's great, and have seen his work first hand. But when it comes to Transplants, you can never have enough reassurance of the experience, and most importantly, the final result. Thank you in advance to anyone who shares their experience and results.

Thanks
Mr. Hair

whats up hair,
for a more in depth analysis of my whole
experience including my highs and lows,just
click on my name on one of my posts and you'll
be able to read about all i went through including
some stupid things i did post op,but as i was
told those grafts are solid after a few days.1 had
1285 grafts placed in the front third of my scalp.
as i still have a good amount of hair left in
the crown area.it was my first ht,and i was scared
to death prior to doing it.and as you're aware
dr.b isn't the type to hold your hand through it.
but don't let that scare you, knowing what i know now i feel silly with all the anxiety i had.i'm
planning a second procedure in sept. to thicken
things up a bit.the procedure itself is pretty
painless,you'll be a little sore a couple days
after,but it's no biggy.no-one can tell i had it
done,in fact my mother and best friend still think
the propecia and rogaine are miracle drugs.i myself have a hardtime determining which are my
grafted hairs and which are the existing hair,
if you've seen his work you know what i'm talking
about.he does amazing work. fire away if you need
to know anything else after reading all my posts.
happy hairy new year.

Thanks for the reply Figsy. I'm going to read your posts, and if I have any questions I'll get back to you. Also do you live in the New York tri-state area or did you fly in?

Mr. Hair

i live in long island,so it was a hop,skip and
jump over the gw bridge.roughly an hour drive,
i chose the fort lee location cause of easy
access,and i hate the city,can't park or hook
up with right subways.so fort lee was the place
for me.

Starting with a 4a at 26 years old, does it mean I'll have to go through several surgeries over the years or would one or two be enough.

that depends on your expectations and future
hair loss,i was a 4 and 1285 grafts left me
with a nice squared off look,although thin.
if i had to live with this look i could,as it
filled in temples and bald recessed area.but
i think i'm gonna have 1 more done to thicken
things up a bit,and hopefully i'll be done
with ht's,but no guarantee and thats important
to remember,regardless if some doc says i dont
think you'll be bald,dont buy it.you just don't
know. good luck

I don't think that 26 is too young to consider a HT. That said it is important to be conservative. By this I mean keeping the hairline relatively, focusing on the frontal area and limiting the surface area to be covered.You want to avoid transplanting the crown, at least for the time being.

It is crucial to plan for the future and do everything possible to conserve donor hair.You don't want to be in a situation 20 years from now where you need to restore the front but lack donor hair.Similarly you don't want to have transplanted the central crown only to find that the hair has receded from the sides, leaving a "bull's eye" appearance.

Propecia can certainly help decrease the rate of hairloss and it is a useful adjunct to HTs. Rogaine 5% is also helpful and can be used in conjunction with Propecia.

I had a transplant when I was 26. To answer your question "is 26 too young for a HT?" I would say yes and no. Yes, it's to young depending on what you think your future hairloss will be. And No it's not to young if you have a good idea of what your future hairloss will be. Now before everyone starts jumping on me and says "there's no way you can tell what your future hairloss will be." That's correct, you can't tell. But I feel you can have a pretty good idea of what it could be. For me, I looked at my family history. Every male in my family both mother and father's side (grandfathers, uncles, brothers, cousins) was at the most a Norwood 3 with no balding in the crown. So knowing this I figured I'd reinforce my hairline which was thinning out (I was a Norwood 2a). Everything worked fine as far my future hairloss. I still have plenty of hair on the top and back of my head. Also I stopped taking propecia about 2 years ago and have not experienced any loss to the top or crown. But the front has thinned out slighty, and the problem now is that I had mini and micro grafts. And even tho no one has noticed anything, and I mean no one. I know that it's time to go in and soften up the hairline before it does become noticeable. The way it is now, I figure I could probably go about another 2 years (oh, by the way I'm 30 now. HT 4 years ago) before my existing hair thins out enough for the grafts to be noticeable. But I just want to get it over with and move on with my life.

As far as being a 4 or 4a at 26. That's some rapid hairloss. Where do you think you'll be as far as hairloss in the next 20 years? What do the males in your family look like? I would say, at best you should be very conservative with your hairline. Dr. Bernstein is the right man for the job, because he'll take everything into consideration. Also, when thinking about a transplant, know that you'll probably have to have it done 2 or 3 times depending on what you want your finally result to be. Dr. Bernstein can definitely give you a good result after just one transplant (I've seen patients of his that have only had one transplant), but your going to look thin as figsy will tell you, and your probably going to want to fill it in some. Then as PRoseMD explained, if your baldness progresses you might have to go in for touch up work. But staying on propecia will help atleast prolong having to go back under the knife. Hope this helps.

Mr. Hair

Mr. Hair:
I couldn't agree with you more on the point you make on family history. I am 23, currently 2a, and the only thing that really bothers me about my hairline are recessions at the temples. I haven't really noticed any hairloss, and none of my ancestors went further than Norwood 3, which gives me a pretty good odds at not going bald at all. Nevertheless I want to get an FUE, to improve my hairline's appearance. Just like you I will probably need another one in my 30's to improve on the density in the front, but since I will be doing FUE only I don't have to worry about scarring. On the other hand if somebody's father and grandfather are completely bald, and you are in your twenties and are trying to get an HT, than it is a pure act of desperation, and you're probalbly better off shaving your hair and going with a system or something, because at least it is not permanent.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic''. Arthur C. Clarke

Both the previous posts make an excellent point. I too assessed my family's hairloss. I wanted temple work done. I have my father's hair. We talked at length about when his hairloss happened and when. Almost identical to mine so far, as our experiences related.
He is 71, BTW. Very thick on the sides and back, large thinning crown that is not bald, thin on top, and temples slightly more recessed than mine.
He told me of how his hair fell out very quickly at 23 for him in his temples (as mine did at 22). He said it freaked him out too, because he didn't know why it occurred at the time. There was no Rogaine or Propecia back then.
That added a lot of confidence to me. We could fill in the temples some and fill in the top with less risk to it looking weird later in my life.
My (lucky) brother has awesome, thick hair without any of the extreme temporal recession I've had at a young age. His hair is from my mother's side of the family.
Hey, if you are gonna drop $5-10k for an HT, you better do your research TO INCLUDE researching your family history of hairloss. The more thorough you are, the less chance for future disappointment and dissatisfaction.

vocor1

My father is about a 5. I hope I stay a 4a. I didn't realize 26 was young for such hair loss. I'm almost 27, anyway The propecia seems to be holding the hair from receding furhter back but i am getting thinner on top rapidly.

I'll talk to bernstein about reasonable results. the info here has been of great help. Thanks

Cocopuff,

Good luck when you talk to Dr. Bernstein. I actually have a consultation with him this coming monday. Also, I don't know if you know this, but there will be an open house at his Manhatten location this coming wednesday the 15th which I plan to attend. There you'll get to actually see a procedure done on someone, as well as see other patients there who've already had it done. You'll get to inspect the results up close. And when I say up close. The last time I went to an open house of his about 2 years ago, he had his former patients sit down next to a person who's never had work done, still had his original hairline, and under magnification you got to examine the non-transplanted head compared to the transplanted head to see if you could see any difference. I wouldn't have known the difference if he didn't tell us who was transplanted and who wasn't. I thought it was incredible, not only that his work is that good, but that he's so confident that he'd put anyone of his heads up against a natural head. Not only in a side by side comparison, but under magnification as well. Anyway, good luck with whatever you chose to do.

Mr. Hair