Hair Transplant Nightmare

OK if it's not true why when you do a simple search on yahoo.com with "hair transplant repair" in quotation marks do you get 338,000 hits! Do a search and look at the pictures for yourself and the truth will become readily apparent of the lives that have been ruined. The scar it leaves can be very red and 12 inches across and one-half an inch wide, mine is. This is NOT a simple procedure don't be fooled and learn the hard way, once the damage is done it cannot be undone. There are forums on the internet with literally thousands of people desperate for repair who's lives have been ruined by these procedures. They have "cobblestoning", raised bumps where the grafts were not placed deep enough in the scalp. Pitting, indentations where the graphs were placed too deep in the scalp. Ridging along the hairline, where a large area is raised above the surrounding skin demarcating where the grafts were placed. Unnatural results that are pluggy "doll-like-hair". The list goes on and on. Many try to get the grafts excised or the hair lasered out to reduce the "tell-tale" signs of the hair transplant, but then the large scar on the back of their head is more apparent as is the cobblestoning/pitting/ridging effect. There are many doctors who's major clientele are hair transplant repair patients. Wow its unbelievable that these procedures are still being done. If I can save one person from avoiding the mistakes we made when we were young and impressionable then it's worth my time. Remember some of these people posting on here might be in the hair transplant industry and trying to promote these procedures because they have a vested interest in keeping the truth out.

Fred, Care to share the name of the doctor you and your brother used? I want to get a procedure and I visited Bosley, but I realize now that it is more important to pick a doctor that has shown proven results. Please help me out.

Mia just out of curiosity, what in your life experience makes you say I’m in the "unfortunate minority" of people having a bad transplant? How would you know this Dr. Cole from that Dr. Cole? No offence but it sounds like you are from this very industry I’m trying to warn people about. Just be honest. This is definitely not the same Dr. Cole you are thinking of this is Dr.John P. Cole located in Alpharetta, GA. he is a well respected top notch transplant surgeon. However, the problem is the surgery itself is fundamentally flawed. When a strip of donor hair is taken from the back of your head you have a scar where the hair was taken from and no hair grows there anymore. As you have more surgeries this gap becomes much wider due to decreased scalp laxity. Eventually you cannot have further surgeries because the scalp is too tight. Now you have a exaggerated wide scar on the back of your head that you cannot cover with your existing hair and the donor is "tapped-out". So your left with extensive scarring and you are still losing hair so the transplanted hair stands out and is more obvious as a transplant. Why would someone want to take all this risk and complicate their lives?

The industry does not implode because there is a constant supply of people that don't realize what a surgery like this involves, they are sold on a false dream. I can show you transplants preformed in the 70's, 80's, and 90's where cookie type cutters the size of a dime where used to punch holes in patients scalps with up to 100 hairs per graft. These holes were left gapping and oozing and the patient was wrapped up and sent home. There is even a name for it in the industry "open donor" these people have obviously been seriously scared with corn-row transplants to boot. Why would a patient knowingly have a scalp reduction when it causes extensive scarring and the skin eventually stretches back and leaves atrocious scarring that causes serious scalp deformity. Why did/do the patients keep coming? They trusted the advertising and the doctors who showed them the glossy pictures and didn’t tell them the repercussions/implications. Come on lets be honest most of these doctors played on peoples insecurities and maliciously ruined people lives knowingly to make a buck. That’s the sad truth. I am studying to be a nurse and for the life of me I can’t understand stand how a medical doctor can do this for money. I wouldn’t ruin someone’s life for any amount of money, maybe I am weird I don’t know. But alas the patients kept coming because they didn’t meet the last guy who's life was ruined. How could they he is now hiding under a hat or hair piece or doesn’t leave the house and has cut contact with family and friends. Sounds extreme but it’s the truth…… you would do the same thing if you had an obvious hair transplant. The industry survives by a combination of desperate younger naive patients and doctors who are not completely honest and downplay the pitfalls. If doctors didn’t there is a good chance people would not have the surgery done. Sure people will have a series of surgeries done because it is a short term "fix" but once they continue to lose hair they will realize the scarring that has been done that the hair was semi-covering. This cycle has already happened to thousands and thousands of patients. How can a doctor do a series of hair transplants on a youngish patient when they cannot predict what the extent of future loss will be and the donor and scalp laxity is limited....it doesn’t add up. Actually my situation is not bad at all compared to a lot of others, their lives are for all intents and purposes is ruined. How can they live a normal life when they have an obvious hair transplant, they are humiliated. A person without arms or legs is worse off for sure but there is nothing as humiliating as a person with an obvious transplant that people stare at all day and whisper about behind their backs and snicker at. You don't know because it didn’t happen to you so it's not such a big deal. Trust me if you were in there situation you would feel totally different. I don't want another naive desperate young person to risk ruining their lives based on a false dream painted by a malicious industry and unscrupulous doctors . I truly hope this industry and these doctors are proud of themselves and enjoy the money they have made.

O M G - you want revenge, don't you? Every operation has good and bad results. You are TOLD about the risks well beforehand. You can accept them, or refuse them. Every body has a different response to operations. Some people cannot accept the fact that they are (getting) bold, and will do whatever it takes to have an operation done - EVEN when the dr. tells them that 6.000 hairs will not make a HUGE difference on a nearly bold head. At the gym I go to I have seen quite a few guys with THE JOB done. I rarely see the big scar you are referring to, nor the tiny white scars. And red bumps??? Nope .... Most of them are very happy with the result. That is all that counts. Whether I like it or not is totally irrelevant. THEY like it, and THEY consider it worth the money. By the way, I am the only male in the family who is not bold. And yes, we're from the same parents ;-) I have been standing on my head since the age of 7, use food supplements and massage my head twice a day. Since last year I also use Finasteride. If I need to do this for the rest of my life (I'm 62, so maybe another 30 years) I will happily do this. It's been part of my daily routine, like brushing teeth and taking a shower. The only solution for you, I M H O, might be a professional to talk to. And maybe a full body check - bumps all over your head might be indicating something else .....