I would like to share with you a story written by a woman named Melba who has been with The Women’s Hair Loss Project since last October. Before I share her story, I’d like to talk a little about hair transplants and my thoughts on women being candidates for this procedure. I have written in the past that I am not particularly a fan of hair transplantation in women. The reason for this being the common diffuse pattern of hair loss prevalent among many women who experience thinning hair. I am not a physician and everything I write is simply my opinion based on my own hair loss and that of all the images I have seen published by the members of The Women’s Hair Loss Project Network, along with the many stories I have received from women who had less than favorable outcomes from hair restoration surgery.
In a hair transplant procedure a strip of hair is removed from the back of the head and the follicles are implanted into the thinning areas. For men this usually works out great because the area in the back of the head is usually DHT resistant, which is why even in the baldest male, he will usually maintain that rim of hair around the bottom portion of his scalp. In many women with female pattern hair loss, the hair falls from all over the scalp in a more diffuse pattern. I say pattern, but it is really a lack of pattern, it is just from here and there and everywhere. For myself I lose hair from the top, both sides and also the back of the head (top and bottom) and my hair has fallen this way for the last 9 years. So I know I make a very poor candidate for a hair transplant procedure since any hair moved could potentially just fall out the next day. Many of the 1400+ members of The Women’s Hair Loss Project Network have the same type of hair loss as myself, so it seems this is more the norm for female androgenetic alopecia than an occasional occurence.
Having said all that, I have to ask, how can a woman with diffuse female pattern hair loss be a candidate for surgical hair restoration? I simply cannot wrap my mind around that, yet there are some physicans who believe that hair transplantation is a viable option for women with this type of hair loss. [click to continue…]
{ 15 comments }
