Hair transplants in UK?

[Darkstar1]

Hi I'm 27 from around the Portsmouth areq of the UK and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction of a respected surgeon for hair transplant. I began losing my hair when I was around 22/23 years old and I'm so bothered my hair loss that I rarely leave the house without a hat on. I don't think I can live a normal life without a hair transplant but it's only recently I looked into hair transplants as I thought it was some crazy new thing that would cost a lot more than it does.


Having said that I only have around £14k to spend but may able to get more funds in the near future. I'm clueless where to start looking and I really don't fancy going overseas to have it done I have pretty bad anxiety that hair loss made a lot worse as you can imagine.

 

[Nightowl]

I`ve been on here for a while now and still not decided what to do.

The doctors in Belgium look good, short train journey or flight. Otherwise Dr Ball and Farjo look good in the UK. Theres Vinci and Dhi clinic but you will need to research a particular doctor, not the clinic.

£14,000 is a good chunk. How much hair have you lost?

There are things like Proscar pills or Rogaine foam you can try to grow your hair back or at best prevent more from falling out.

 

[Darkstar1]

Taking pictures of your hair by yourself is incredibly hard. Some of them I used flash which makes it look as worse as possible, the dark one's are without flash and came out blurry. I'll try some better pictures tomororw.

Yes I know I need a haircut badly I haven't had one in nearly 3 months! I'll be getting my hair cut tomorrow and maybe post some better pictures then. /images/emoticons/th_15-3.gif



(Pictures removed at request of patient. Bm)

 

[Darkstar1]

I've been losing my hair for around 5 years but the worst of it happened in less than a year. I think it was around April I started noticing my hair was thinning and by Christmas it wasn't that much better than what it is now. At the time I had a habit of pulling my hair out (stress) which made it worse. I don't do that anymore.

 

[salvar]

Hi Darkstar, your budget is fine and you can get all you need done for less than that but I would really look at medication first if you are not already on something to stop further hair loss as it seems that you have quite a bit of miniaturisation (thinning hair), hair transplant will only fix the hair you have lost, not prevent future loss.

Its important for you to take a long term view at your hair loss not just jump into surgery without plan how to tackle your hair loss in the long term, there are plenty of stories of people on this forum and others that you can learn from and prevent you from repeating them.

You have a few clinics in the UK and there is no need for you to go to Belgium or anywhere else, I am obviously biased as I work for the Vinci Hair Clinic but you have also Farjo up in Manchester and the Wimpole clinic that produce nice results, I have no connection with the later two clinics.

 

[bullitnut]

In the UK Seeing as you are down south Dr Ball in Hammersmith and the Farjo institute are both a good place to start with your research, also have a look at some of the UK clinics on the forum dude.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[JoeTillman]

Some good answers here and I VEHEMENTLY echo what Salvar said about long term planning and medication. You're about to turn into a full blown NW5 as the strongest hair on the top of your scalp is the bridge spanning the vertex. The forelock is thinning and the hair is miniaturizing and the crown is obviously going as well. Having a hair transplant with no effective prevention in place is like getting a tooth replaced and no longer brushing your teeth. It makes no sense and in the long run you'll just need more and more work. With the limited donor supply we don't have the luxury of taking an unlimited number of kicks at the can.

Talk to your doctor and see if you can get a prescription for Propecia 1mg or Proscar 5mg (cut into quarters, one quarter taken daily) and THEN once you see your loss has stabilized you can consider surgery.

 

[Darkstar1]

Thanks for the quick replies and advice.

I've been looking into some of these medications but the side effects frighten me and seem worse than going completely bald.

There's also the cost factor I take it that you have been taking this medication for the rest of your life? and once off the medication any gains you made would eventuality go away?

 

[salvar]

Hi Darkstar, my quick thoughts on what you wrote:

a) If you loos all your hair and have no medical treatment its not likely to look very dense or good or dense, its a simple supply and demand formula

b) With side effects you are probably referring to Propecia, I have taken it for over 12 years, works great and I have never experienced side effects but I get where you are coming from but you have other options like Minoxidil, PRP and laser that have little or no possible side effects if you dont get along with Finasteride.

c) I will take the medication for the rest of my life, no problem for me, cant imagine my life without hair now having said that you are most likely to experience significant hair loss in your early years (as seems the case with you) and if you come of meds later on its less likely that you will see the same rate of hair loss as you see now.

d) Cost, medication today is relatively cheap, you are looking at around £40 per month for generic Finasteride (can be slightly more or less) or less the £500 a year to keep your hair, I think thats a bargain! Dont start calculating if I take meds for 10 years I can afford a hair transplant instead, thats a flawed formula that to may try to use.

e)Its hard to implant and get a good result when working on a moving target which your hair is at the moment, allot of miniaturised hair and very likely to see significant loss in the next year, that is while your new hair might grow in you will see allot of the existing hair fade away and very likely be unhappy with the result.

My advice is to go and get a consultation in person, discuss your fears with the meds, its better to give you a better evaluation and advice that way, just dont do the common mistake of jumping into surgery before planning long term which sometimes create more problems then it solves.

 

[Darkstar1]

salvar wrote:

Hi Darkstar, my quick thoughts on what you wrote:

a) If you loos all your hair and have no medical treatment its not likely to look very dense or good or dense, its a simple supply and demand formula

b) With side effects you are probably referring to Propecia, I have taken it for over 12 years, works great and I have never experienced side effects but I get where you are coming from but you have other options like Minoxidil, PRP and laser that have little or no possible side effects if you dont get along with Finasteride.

c) I will take the medication for the rest of my life, no problem for me, cant imagine my life without hair now having said that you are most likely to experience significant hair loss in your early years (as seems the case with you) and if you come of meds later on its less likely that you will see the same rate of hair loss as you see now.

d) Cost, medication today is relatively cheap, you are looking at around £40 per month for generic Finasteride (can be slightly more or less) or less the £500 a year to keep your hair, I think thats a bargain! Dont start calculating if I take meds for 10 years I can afford a hair transplant instead, thats a flawed formula that to may try to use.

e)Its hard to implant and get a good result when working on a moving target which your hair is at the moment, allot of miniaturised hair and very likely to see significant loss in the next year, that is while your new hair might grow in you will see allot of the existing hair fade away and very likely be unhappy with the result.

My advice is to go and get a consultation in person, discuss your fears with the meds, its better to give you a better evaluation and advice that way, just dont do the common mistake of jumping into surgery before planning long term which sometimes create more problems then it solves.

I'm not sure about the significant hair loss one year from now. I haven't had much hair loss for years it's pretty much stayed the same. I began losing my hair around July 2009 and by Christmas that year my hair at the front had completely thinned out and receded and I began noticing bald patches on my crown.
My hair loss was so fast at the beginning I thought this couldn't possibly be male pattern baldness so I contacted my GP who was pretty sure it was MPB.
I guess it's a matter of time before I'm completely bald but the rate it's going now I don't think it'll be anytime soon?

 

[salvar]

By now most likely you are in a slower phase of hair loss but its very unlikely its stopped even though you dont notice it as much, again a microscopic view can tell you allot of how fast and how much you are likely to loose over the next few years, for some people its a eye opener.

Go in person and have a consultation, nothing that we can tell you on the forum beats that in your case.