A hair transplant is a sophisticated procedure where your surgeon will ask you several questions to examine whether you are a suitable candidate or not.
Hence, the short and sweet answer to the question is, “No, a hair transplant is not possible for everyone.”
To be able to undergo a hair transplant, a patient needs to meet the following criteria:
- The hair fall should be up to the extent that there is enough baldness to perform the procedure. If a person is experiencing hair fall or thinning, but there’s still a good amount of hair left on the recipient area, the doctor will say no to conducting the procedure. This is because if the recipient area is still dense enough, there are chances that the process might damage the healthy hair in the area. Hence, it will do more damage than good.
- The hair fall is not too extensive and progressive—the pattern and progression of baldness speed and change with age. Hence, there are chances that even after a hair transplant procedure, a person might become bald after a certain age. It’s the same case with people having extensive hair fall. If a young person is experiencing extremely progressive hair fall, he or she might not get the best results of a hair transplant. Hence, a surgeon will advise not to undergo this procedure.
- The donor area should have enough healthy hair to cover the recipient area. During a hair transplant, hair grafts from the healthy area are transplanted to the bald region. If the hair is not enough, the surgeon won’t be able to cover the entire recipient area, and there would be no point in having a hair transplant.
- The patient should not have medical conditions like Diffuse Hair Loss or Alopecia Areata. Diffuse Hair Loss is a condition where hair will fall off from all parts of your scalp. And Alopecia Areata is a condition where hair will fall in clumps. Since these are medical conditions, they will continue to progress even after a hair transplant, and the patient won’t get the best results.
- The person should not be elderly. Hair fall is natural with aging. Hence, a person over 55 or 60 is not an ideal candidate as there would be no healthy hair follicles left for donating to the recipient area. Also, with aging, the recovery process starts to extend, impacting the overall health.
Consult your surgeon before the procedure to determine whether you are a good candidate or not.