Wed 21 Feb 2007
Can you transplant hair that’s not from your own head and put it in
your balding areas?
If people could donate their hair follicles to another person for a hair transplant I can just imagine the strange scenarios that would come about. But unfortunately (or fortunately) only hair from an identical twin could be successfully transplanted without being rejected. But since hair loss is genetic I can’t imagine the identical twin would want to give up their hair.
I use to tease my younger brother who has ridiculously thick hair that he should donate some for my next hair transplant. But he was never willing. Eventually he found out that this would not work and I was no longer able to tease him about it. What a shame.
Pat – Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Coalition Hair Loss Learning Center, and the Hair Loss Q & A Blog. To share ideas with other hair loss sufferers visit our Hair Restoration Discussion Forum.
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July 16th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Just want to correct what you are saying about hair transplanting from another person. The people do not have to be identical twins or even related to one another. I have been told by a retiring hair transplant expert who tried some of these surgeries that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Just as there was a learning curve for transfusing blood, there are things not understood about why hair can be transplanted sometimes from an unrelated donor, and sometimes can’t even be transplanted between identical twins (possibly with the twins the bald brother had an infection that caused his original hair loss, after transplantation from his brother, his head swelled up and rejected the new hair).
I have also been told that hair transplanting between people was made illegal in the United States several years ago — so doctors no longer try it.
July 19th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Marion,
Thanks for your comment. But like an organ transplant, without anit-rejection medication, hair follicles transplanted from one person to another will certainly be rejected. It would be interesting to learn more about this specific doctor’s research and to see if his research contradicts what dozens of leading hair transplant surgeons have said regarding this topic.
Best wishes,
Bill (Falceros)
Associate Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, and the Hair Loss Q&A Blog