HOW OLD IS TOO OLD FOR A HAIR TRANSPLANT?

The answer to the above question is probably, you are never too old as long as you are in good health and your goals can be met. The oldest man I have ever transplanted was 86 and the oldest woman was his wife at 78. The case presented today was 76 yrs old on his initial transplant in 2008 and returned 7 months ago, primarily to expand his area of coverage.

This case illustrates some of the aspects a lot of older patients struggle with when trying to decide if transplantation makes sense at an older age. He originally presented for consult in 2002 at the age of 69. While he wanted to have it done he struggled with the vanity issue…felt he was too old, what would his friends/co workers think and most of all, his kids thought it was silly for him to have done.

So he put it off. Six years later, 2008, he came back knowing he absolutely wanted to have a transplant and finally address something he had struggled with for the better part of 50 years. He still struggled with the vanity issue/what would his kids think, but decided if we could keep the price reasonable he would move forward.

In September of 2008 he moved forward with transplantation. As a full blown Norwood pattern 6 and only wanting to spend $4500 we had to design a transplant that would produce a very natural cosmetic result with only ~1300 grafts to work with. We placed his mid-frontal hairline at ~10 cm above the brow and kept deep temporal recessions to help minimize the surface area we were to cover.

His post op was uneventful and within the first 6 months he was already enjoying the cosmetic improvement transplants can provide. His natural result, cosmetic improvement and easy recovery not only made him a believer, but helped him get past his vanity issue he had related to doing this so late in life. While he still remained conservative, he did move forward in September of 2009 with an additional 1100 grafts to work through the mid-bridge region and augmentation of mid-frontal tuft.

I think his case/photos presented show that if you are in good health you are never too old to enjoy the positive change that can be made through transplantation. Obviously, none of know how long we are going to live, but this patient sure wishes he had gotten past some of the things holding him back from doing transplantation in 2002 as he could have enjoyed the results even more. But in the end, we all need to move forward when we are truly ready, have a plan and fully understand what we are committing to…no matter what your age.

Brad Limmer, MD/jac