Goals and Expectations > Styles and Costs > Repair Work

Coverage Goals
The doctor must discuss your hopes and expectations in light of the physical realities and financial constraints of your particular case. NHI affiliated physicians will work with you to develop realistic goals that are possible to achieve. It is impossible to determine exactly how many procedures it will take to accomplish the coverage you may want. Many people change their goals as their perspective changes with more hair. What we call "hair greed" often reflects a high satisfaction with the initial hair transplant and must be calculated into your decision-making formula.

Hairline Design
The doctor should sketch a hairline on your head and photograph you so that you can give your insights on a hairline location that meets your needs, your family and ethnic background, and your budget. The choice of hairline (how high, how flat, etc.) is very personal and depends on your head, facial shape, ethnicity, family characteristics, hair reserves, and personal goals. We generally discourage hairlines that do not reflect a maturing pattern because we fully expect that every one of our patients will live to be old.

Designing the Distribution of Your Hair
In general, we will transplant your hair in a natural distribution, (the way it naturally grows), so you may groom it as you choose. This is realistic in individuals who have above average hair densities and/or more than enough hair to gain the desired coverage for the area being covered. In individuals with low-density hair or an extensive balding area, weighting the hair to one side or the other may produce better coverage from the hair that can be safely harvested. In some instances where a patient has had previous transplants that were improperly distributed, and the patient has a limited donor supply, we may choose to distribute the repair transplants in a way that will most effectively camouflage the existing transplants.

Styling Tricks and Adjuncts
A patient can make his hair appear thicker by using various mousses, gels and wetting agents. In addition, having a permanent can make straight hair wavy. A good hair stylist can make what we might consider poor hair characteristics look like better hair characteristics. In addition, scalp-coloring agents, which come in many product forms, can color the scalp to reduce high contrast between skin and hair color. By combining styling products with the talents of a good stylist and a skilled hair transplant surgeon, many individuals can achieve fuller results than with hair transplantation alone. This is particularly important for individuals who have depleted their donor supplies by having surgery that used older techniques.

Financial Planning with Your Budget
Your financial situation will determine how many grafts or how much work you can afford. You should not rush into the transplant process unless you can afford to follow-up with enough work to leave you with a normal appearance. To facilitate this, NHI offers various treatment plans and financing programs to patients who qualify. In these situations, the goals of the patient must be based on economics. Often, a patient is inclined to do only the work he feels he can afford rather than to follow the recommended treatment plan. Patients should clearly understand the aesthetic consequences of purchasing less than the recommended number of grafts. The doctor should be inflexible when it comes to creating a "work in progress" that will lead to an unhappy outcome. Hair restoration surgery is elective surgery and because it is elective, there is plenty of time to think about it thoroughly before commencing the process. In our experience, a major cause for patient dissatisfaction is associated with moving less hair than was recommended. Often, we advise patients to wait until financial resources can be balanced with an appropriate procedure that is designed to meet reasonable goals. The rate of hair loss must also be taken into account, particularly in young men with early, rapid onset balding or thinning.

Financial Planning for the Progressive Nature of Hair Loss
Given the large number of grafts we routinely place in a single session, a patient may find that all the work he or she will ever require is accomplished in a single session. However, the patient's balding pattern often dictates the necessity of additional procedures. This is the case when the restoration involves following a receding hairline, particularly in a young patient just starting on his balding pattern. After the initial procedure, the patient is committed to additional procedures as his hairline recedes; the patient must clearly understand the financial commitment he is entering into before having his first surgery. Each hair loss patient has a natural stopping point. Completing the restoration process to this point will allow the patient to have an aesthetically acceptable result. Some individuals can stop after one procedure and some cannot. It is imperative that an individual recognize the category he is in before commencing his hair restoration program.

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