Q: I am scheduled to have a hair transplant next month and wonder if I should do scalp exercises before the procedure? A: For the majority of patients, scalp exercises are not necessary. The scalp in the donor area has a fair amount of redundancy. With a properly planned hair transplant, the donor area will [...]

Q: I had a follicular unit hair transplant performed by another doctor that was scheduled for 2,500 grafts and I ended up paying for exactly that amount. I was supposed to be paying per graft, so it seems strange that it came out to be exactly 2,500? How do I know what I really got? [...]

Q: I would be so grateful if you could give me some idea on how the quality of the hair that is transplanted is affected by its new ‘home’ and the native neighboring hair. Is it likely all the hair that is going to be able to come back to life with Propecia will also [...]

Q: I am 26 years old, have had two successful hair transplants, but am still losing hair in the crown area. The doctor I have worked with told me that he does not do crown work on anyone until they are at least 40 (due to lack of donor area). I have very thick hair [...]

Q: I heard that a smaller per cent of women are candidates for hair transplants compared to men. Is this true?

A: Yes, that is true. Women more commonly have diffuse hair loss where the thinning is all over the scalp. This means that the donor area (the back and sides of the scalp) are thinning as well.

If the donor area is not stable, then there is no point in doing a hair transplant, since the transplanted hair will continue to fall out. Remember, the transplanted hair is no better than the area where is comes from.

On the other hand, women with stable donor areas can be great candidates for surgical hair restoration. The stability of the donor area can be assessed using a procedure called densitometry and should be part of the hair loss evaluation when you see your physician.