June 2 2005, 1:44 pm PT | Posted in: Repair
Today I saw a man who had surgery with us 6 years ago. He was very happy with the result but wanted more fullness. A couple of years later, he heard about a discounted price for hair transplants and had a procedure at that office. Unfortunately, the surgeon appeared to have made a mistake on the donor strip and excised a larger area than he could sew up. This resulted in a 1 ½ inch wide by 4 inch long scar which was difficult to conceal. He came for help.
On examination, his scalp was very tight. To address this wide scar on a person with a tight scalp, there are only two options for him:
- The use of a balloon placed under the scalp and inflated a few times a week. This process will last for 8-12 weeks while the head gets larger. It can be concealed by a well fitted hat.
- The use of FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) with the grafts then placed into the scar. The limitations of FUE related to the quantity of the grafts that can be successfully removed from each patient has many variables.
Of interest, the bargain that drove him to get a second surgery is not a bargain at all. He is more fortunate than others because he can be become normal looking with good corrective surgery.
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I just had a surgery couple of weeks ago, by a doctor I will not name, that I heard about The Bald Truth. The surgery itself was pretty pleasant. It has almost been 4 weeks, I do not know if I am being impatiant or not but, I really do not see any results. And yes! The operation did cost me around 10K. It would be nice if doctors thought less about their pokets and thought more about the patients pokets. Before my surgery, I had been saving for nearly ayear and I have some friends who just can not afford a transplant because it costs to much. Any way, I was wondering, why does a transplant cost so much, and my second question is, when should I start to see some results from my 1800 graft operation?
Jason,
I had a transplant of 1700 grafts 7 months ago and still have not seen results. My surgery cost me about $7,000, also from someone recommended by The Bald Truth. I know that my situation is not normal and that I should have seen results by now, but you should definitely not be concerned at this point. At the earliest, your transplanted hair should not start growing in until like 2.5 to 3 months after they first fall out. So thats like 4 months post-op.
Jason,
I generally tell a patient that results will start showing up at about 4-5 months because the hair that is moved goes into hair transplant shock and then goes into a sleep phase. The sleep phase ends differently for each hair that is transplanted. They come out in waves, some as early as 4-8 weeks, and some as long as 5-6 months. Occasionally, a patient will have no sleep phase, but that occurs in only about 1 in 20 patients.
Hair transplants are expensive because it requires an entire team of people to perform it. In addition, it requires a surgical process which includes medications for the surgery, supplies (which are very expensive) and the skills of a surgeon. Like any business, there are business costs as well, which have to be averaged into the costs. At our facility, we are an approved surgi-center (I believe the only such facility in the United States for hair) which also pushes up the costs in exchange for safety, cleanliness and strict quality control process that meet national surgical standards found in hospitals. Surprisingly, profit margins for our surgical practice are lower than the published results of other surgeons who move their surgery to hospitals so that they do not have to support the ’surgical’ costs.
Thank you for the replies. I guess I have to wait a tiny bit more to see results. I just wished that the procedure could be a little less expensive. If it was I think alot more people could afford it. Thank you for the reply Josh and Dr.William Rassman, you seem like a really cool doctor.
[...] usually get what you pay for. I’ve touched on this before in a previous blog entry, Bargain Hair Transplantation. As a way of assisting prospective patients who [...]