Change your life

The Right Hair Transplant Can Change Your Life.

Is losing your hair affecting your confidence? Your self-esteem? Your quality of life?

If the answer to the above questions is yes, then what do you do about it?

The short answer is to have a hair transplant! But where do you go for a hair transplant? Who do you talk to and who do you believe?

Everyone you talk to will tell you that their hair transplant methods are the best; that they can perform hair transplant surgery better than their competitors. Then they would, wouldn’t they?

In the very early days of hair transplant surgery the only option open to people was called ‘plug surgery’. This hair transplant method involved removing a 4.5mm ‘plug’ of hair bearing skin from the back of the scalp, the tonsure area, also known as the ‘donor area’. The tonsure area is the part of the scalp where no one ever loses their hair. It is the strip of hair that always remains, even when a man has lost all of his top scalp hair.

In later years, it was discovered that this hair remained, even in the most severe cases of hair loss because the hair roots in that area were unaffected by ‘Male Pattern Baldness’ (MPB). Why, because these roots contained much lower levels of the male hormone known as Dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Whereas the hair on the top of the scalp, of those who were destined to lose their hair, contained much higher levels of DHT.

An older hair transplant method called ‘Plug’ surgery was performed by removing the ‘donor’ hair with a drill! Yes, a ‘Black & Decker’ drill no less. That was the only option open to people in the very early days of hair transplant surgery. Sounds horrendous doesn’t it? Believe me, it was and painful too. I know, because I was one of the first in the UK to have done such a hair transplant.

Few years later this archaic method of replacing lost hair was replaced with a more refined method of hair transplant surgery called ‘Micro Surgery’. ‘Micro Surgery’ was performed by removing the ‘donor hair’ with a scalpel. This is a far less painful hair transplant method of removing the ‘donor’ hair from the back of the scalp.

A hair transplant with ‘Micro’ surgery involves the doctor to remove a narrow strip of hair-bearing skin with a scalpel. Once removed, small ‘grafts’ containing 1 to 3 hairs were dissected from the ’strip’ and then ‘planted’ into the bald or thinning areas by making a ’slit’ with a scalpel into which the newly removed roots were placed. As the roots were taken from an area unaffected by ‘MPB’ and replaced into the areas of hair loss that had been affected, they would continue to grow for the remainder of the man’s life, just as they would have done in his ‘tonsure’ area.

If you take a look at my ‘history’ you will see that as I continued to lose hair I had two further hair transplant procedures using ‘Micro’ surgery, one hair transplant surgery in 1995 and another in 1998. Both of these hair transplant procedures proved very successful for me and up until recent times continued to keep me hirsute.

Then, a few years ago I heard of another method of hair transplant surgery. I received a phone call from a very old friend of mine. A man who has played an important part in my life as a hair transplant consultant, his name is Dr. Richard Shiell. Richard, as you can read on this website has been instrumental in guiding me through my long career in my chosen field. He too can be researched in my ‘history’ on my website.

Richard told me about another hair transplant method and at that time, a little known method of hair transplant surgery that he believed I should take a serious look at. This method is called the ‘Choi Implanter’ technique. A technique which has not only changed my views of the hair transplant industry, it has completely changed my life… period! For one, it resulted in my leaving the UK to live in Greece.

Why Greece? Simply because this hair transplant technique which is entirely more advanced than conventional ‘Micro’ surgery, is practiced here. The reasons why the ‘Choi’ method is available in Greece and not in the UK, USA, Canada, or any of the “so called” 1st world countries is a simple case of economics. The ‘Choi’ hair transplant procedure, unlike ‘Micro’ surgery, uses a needle and not a scalpel for ‘implanting’ the new hairs into a previously bald scalp. Using a needle to place the new hairs requires a team of up to four people to work on the bald areas, as opposed to the ‘normal’ doctor plus two assistants. Which of course makes the hair transplant procedure entirely too costly to offer people in those economies where the cost of living is prohibitive. As the average monthly income in Greece is about 600 Euros, the Greeks are able to offer the ‘Choi method’ at much more competitive rates than the rest of the aforementioned economies. This is why, a few short years ago I had my front hairline lowered and thickened using the remarkable and highly effective ‘Choi’ hair transplant technique. An area that I had previously avoided having my hair transplanted with conventional ‘Micro’ surgery.

Hair transplant procedures using the ‘Choi’ technique, as I said, uses a needle to implant the new hairs, which means that the hairs can be placed a lot closer together than can be achieved with ‘Micro’ hair transplant surgery. In turn this means that the density required can be achieved with this method of hair transplant surgery which is far more successful than using the scalpel. It also means that with a team of four assistants, our surgeon can implant up to 6,000 hairs in one hair transplant session, as opposed to a maximum of 1,800 hairs with ‘Micro’ surgery. Which would mean that someone with major loss would have to return for a further two hair transplant procedures at 6/8 monthly intervals with the conventional method of hair transplant surgery.

It also means that instead of ending up with the typical hair transplanted hairline using the scalpel, which on close examination can resemble a straight line, one gets a hairline where the hairs are ’staggered’, which is much closer than the hairline that nature originally provided. Only achievable by using a needle, this is why I now find myself living in the south of Greece, working with a world renowned specialist of the ‘Choi’ method of hair transplant surgery. The ‘Choi’ hair transplant method has greatly improved and is a far less costly method of hair transplant surgery.

Malcolm Mendelsohn

August 2008