I have come to the conclusion after 10 years of reading this board and the stories of the newbies the desperate, the docs pushing their clinics, with their techs etc, that HT is a dream, that fails to satisfy
The guys like me who have gotten their hair to stabilize for 10 yrs or more, we are in a position to say hmm why even get one should we or shouldnt we.
The guys who rush in to get a HT are IMO the WORST candidates for future happiness, because most have no clue how to stabilize their hair loss, thats why they need or think they need a transplant.
And many many of them are in their 20s and rapidly thinning and this is THE most vulnerable time mentally, I know I started rapidly thinning at age 21. I was DEVASTATED, and at that age the women do care. When mine started to thin it was not like nowadays, where you could shave your head. This was 1978 disco fever days, Bee Gees and Rock bands with flowing wonderful hair, HAIR WAS WHERE IT WAS AT, in the 70s, so losing it back then was even worse than now.
But seems to me the young guys are so eager, and the docs, even though they claim they wont accept young patients, seems to me a lot of the patients posted are pretty young.
As the years pass and you read the postings of the guys who had transplants years ago and are unhappy, you think oh these must just be the bad docs, or these guys got it done years ago when they didnt know what they are doing. True in many cases but not all.
In IMO all the cases the problem is not that the docs cannot do a great job. There are tons of docs out there who do excellent work and can almost make the guy look like he has not lost that much hair, depending on his NW scale and when he comes in.
The problem as I have noticed after 10 yrs reading the board is not quality of the work. The problem is that HT in general cannot make the person happy long term, unless they completely stop the progression of their hair loss, and we know this almost never happens.
As the years pass no matter how great the doc was, if the crown was transplanted the new fallout forms a "halo effect" bald ring around the old transplant. This is a nightmare and MUST be fixed, or risk looking like a freak. If the hair was transplanted on top to the part line, if or when the partline recedes downward on the sides, this also will result in a freakish appearance, unless the person goes in for touchup after touchup after touchup.
So the person is looped into a lifetime of transplants basically. Of course this makes the docs happy. They do not like to tell you this when you go in for the original transplant. They say, if you stay on medication HOPEFULLY IDEALLY you wont need further work. , This is , of course a pipe dream.
So I would say that most of the patients on the board, even the happy ones. 5 to 10 yrs down the road, are pissed off, and ever increasingly frustrated and losing hope because the newly balding areas cannot be succesfully fixed because they used up all their donor hair already.
So they end up praying that body hair will save them or hair multiplication will save them.
I see Hair transplants in general, not so much as a sc..am, but just a dream that is sold to desperate guys. At first it looks great, then as the years pass it turns into a nightmare of touchups, more surgery, and more money they dont have.
Then they come back to the board and say HEY LISTEN TO ME BELIEVE ME DONT DO IT JUST LEAVE YOUR HAIR THE WAY IT IS
Course the young guys think they are just disgruntled patients and dont listen to them