Hair restoration or hair transplants used to be taboo but not anymore. It may sound like a cliché, but for many, it’s given them their lives back. Male hair loss can be deeply traumatic. Some pass it off as insignificant and live with the ‘bald jokes’ quite happily. But for others, it is a different story. For a great many men, going bald is life-altering and, unless treated, can have tragic consequences.
Signs of baldness can cause bouts of anxiety, psychological stress, emotional distress, lack of self-confidence and even depression. Brad — who once had a glorious mane but now self-deprecatingly calls himself ‘another bald man’ — admits his ‘self-image took a beating’. For a fair number, the thinning of hair psychologically denotes loss of virility, attractiveness and even decline in sexuality.
Off-Limits Subject
Such is the stigma around hair loss and transplants that many men did not even want to talk about the subject; they thought it was an invasion of privacy and believed the subject was off limits.
Norman says, ‘You become obsessed. Every moment is spent looking at yourself in the mirror, looking at your hair, analysing what could be and how and why’. Norman’s wife said that he had ‘real identity and confidence issues’ when he started going bald ‘because he took it as a sign of ageing’. Some men take to wearing a hat and hiding behind it.
Hair transplant candidates are strangely reticent, as if discussing or showing an inclination or opting for a transplant depicts a weakness; as Norman says, of ‘not being a real man’. He adds, ‘It might have something to do with the image of bald men and potbellied stars trying to behave like youngsters when, in reality, they look very old. That reminds us of old age’. Another reason could be that a bald head remains one of the few physical flaws used as a butt of jokes.
Either way, it is ludicrous that in today’s cosmetic frenzy to shy away when it can be easily rectified and that’s just what seems is happening. Secrecy and shame and embarrassment continue to shroud hair transplants and premature male baldness in general. Strange given that hair loss affects 60% of men before the age of 40 and that of those affected, one in four will begin the process before the age of 21.
Baldness or alopecia usually follows a typical pattern of receding hairline and hair thinning on the crown. This happens because of an excess of a chemical called dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, which causes the hair follicles to make thinner and thinner hair until they eventually pack up completely.
Today, it’s more acceptable for men to worry about their hair and spend money on correcting things they don’t like about themselves. It seems that the psychological factors in male hair loss have been vastly underestimated.
Hair transplant techniques have become more sophisticated. Old methods involved taking large sections of skin from the back of the head and grafting them on top of the scalp, resulting in erratic and unnatural-looking regrowth. But follicular unit extraction, or FUE, is almost undetectable. FUE allows surgeons to place individual follicles back into the thinner parts of the hairline around the top and the front of the scalp. The results are sometimes dramatic and, more to the point, very natural in appearance. ‘Transplants have changed my way of life. It was horrible going bald’, Nick shares. He adds, ‘Anyone who says he doesn’t mind going bald is lying. It is debilitating and creates another persona, which is not you at all’.
Not everyone is a good candidate for hair transplantation, though, and not just those with conditions such as alopecia totalis, which leaves them without any suitable donor sites. Some have behavioural issues that need to be addressed.
