Expert warns: hair transplants could be a problem for men in their 20s

March 11, 2014  17:46

For balding men, regaining their hairline with the help of a hair transplant can seem a good idea.

But one doctor is now warning that for men in their 20s, undergoing a hair transplant could be something they will go on to seriously regret.

“About 20 to 30 percent of my hair transplant surgeries are on people for corrective purposes,” Dr. Abraham Armani, a hair transplant surgeon in Dallas, Texas, told FoxNews.com

According to Armani, problems often arise when a hair transplant is done before a man has fully finished losing all of his hair – making it a risky procedure for younger men.

During a hair transplant, a surgeon typically removes a strip of hair from the very back of a man’s head, relocating it to the front of the head where balding occurs. 

“Let’s say a 19-year-old comes to see me and I do a hair transplantation and lower his hairline by one inch, that hair will always be there,” Armani said. “Let’s say five years later, he has rapidly lost the rest of the hair in the front and now he has this strip of hair that I transplanted that’s forever going to be there and behind that – that is empty space. That’s not a natural look or a good look.”

“We need to stabilize [a patient’s] hair loss first using medication and once his hair loss is stable and we know the pattern of balding, what we are looking at in the future, then 3 or 4 years later he can look at hair transplantation,” Armani said.

Armani recommends that men considering hair transplants meet with an experienced physician specializing in hair loss issues – and avoid chains that use salespeople instead of physicians to tout their procedures.

“Hair loss is not just male pattern baldness, there are medications that can cause hair loss, medical problems like hormones that cause hair loss – and a salesperson is not going to be able to diagnose these problems,” Armani said. “First, patients have to search for someone who specializes in hair loss and transplantation, who sits down, analyzes scalp, takes a medical history and then they can have informed options of what they need to do – whether medicine or waiting or hair transplantation.”

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