Women’s Hair Loss & Hair Restoration

As hair restoration surgery is a good option for nearly ninety percent of the balding men in the country, women think they’ll also make good candidates, but this isn't usually the case.

Very few women have the kind of hair loss that makes them good candidates. Most women have diffuse hair loss as a substitute, an overall thinning in all areas of the head, including the sides & back, which are the areas that act like donor sites in men. It’s from these sites that the hair is detached for hair transplantation to other areas of the head.

In men, the giver sites are called stable sites, which mean that the hair & follicles in those areas aren’t affected by the dihydrotestosterone (DHT) that shrinks follicles elsewhere on the head. This’s the situation in those with androgenetic alopecia, or what is commonly called male pattern baldness.

In female pattern baldness, though, these donor areas are usually unstable. They’re thinning, just like the other areas of the head. The giver areas in women are affected by follicle-killing DHT. That means if you remove hair & accompanying follicles from these giver areas in women & transplants them to other areas; it is just going to fall out. Any doctor who would effort to transplant hair from an unstable donor site is potentially unethical & may just be trying to take economic benefit of the patient.

Another difference between male & female pattern baldness is the frontal hairline. Unlike men and women with hair loss tend to keep their anterior hairline. They do not have to worry about needing a hair transplant to frame their face & are instead more concerned about the loss of volume from the top & back. Hair transplants, though, do not do much to increase volume. It just shifts hair from one place to another.

According to experts a very little percentage of women are candidates for hair transplant surgery. About two percent to three percent of women with hair loss will benefit from this type of technique. 
 

•  Women who have endured hair loss because of mechanical or traction alopecia.
• Women who have had earlier cosmetic or plastic surgery & are concerned about hair loss about the incision sites.
• Women, who have a distinct pattern of baldness, like that of male pattern hairlessness. This includes hairline recession, vertex thinning, & a donor area that isn’t affected by androgenetic alopecia.
• Women who suffer hair loss because of trauma, including burn victims, scarring from accidents, & chemical burns.
• Women with alopecia marginalis, a state that looks very parallel to traction alopecia.