HAIR TRANSPLANT FORUM

This patient came to the NYC consultation on the 12-12-2004. That is the only photos we have since Dr. Cole was alone and was under a time limit and as we all know he is a great Doctor but at most an average photographer.... He took a couple of shots with the camera that shows an amazing results with only 1600 grafts! I only wish i was there...
The grafts where placed along the hairline and 600 on the crown.
The patient could afford only this amount so Dr. Cole place it in a way that coverage will be optimized.
Notice the grown hair on his crown...there was nothing there before.

I have some more info on this case from Dr. cole that will help understand it better.
And i quote:
"What were we attempting to accomplish?

The patient had a prior surgery that left him with an unnatural hair line. He also had a strip scar. The strip scar preclueded our capacity to perfrom a larger procedure. Our intial objectives needed to focus on a more natural hair line and to begin coverage.

FUE and FIT require us to cut hair below a number one. Many of our patients are not able to shave their heads due to prior strip surgery. Therefore, we must proceed in steps. The first step was to add fullness so that he did not have a see through appearance. Second, the hair line was not good. Therefore, we wanted to soften this. Third, the crown was completely bald so we wanted to begin coverage in this area.

We were limited in the number of grafts we could obtain due to the prior strip scar. Therefore, our initiative was to give the patient the biggest bang for his procedure. We added a natural hairline and fullness to the front. We also added hair to the part side of the crown.

The result after only 1570 grafts was a much fuller front, even from a top facing view, a more natural hair line, and the beginning of coverage in the crown. we placed hair on the part side of the crown so that it would give him the best impact until the next procedure.

The subsequent procedure will include work on the right side of the crown and more fullness in the middle of the scalp. As you can see there are grafts placed on the hair line and the left side of the scalp only.

this is a very important case to show how we proceed in steps to produce the best result without having to shave the head and expose embarssing strip scars.

Sure, we could proceed much faster by doing another strip surgery, or by shaving the head to produce more grafts by FUE or FIT, but this clearly is not in the best interest of all patients. One must bear in mind that once you have an embarassing strip scar on the back of your head you do not necessarily want to make it evident to everyone else that you had a strip surgery to conceal your hair loss. Furthermore, not every patient who has had a strip in the past wants another strip due to all the negative consequences of strip surgery.

Many want discretion. Others have limited finances so they must add hair gradually within their budget. This case shows that we can obtain both. Sure, it takes a little longer, but sometimes this is in the best interest of those who are in the public eye. "