Male pattern baldness is a progressive condition, so the amount of hair loss will only increase with age. By age 30, it’s thought that 25% of men will experience noticeable hair loss. By 50, this has increased to 50% and by age 60, over two-thirds of men will be experiencing thinning and loss of density often combined with a receding hairline or growing bald patch.
As androgenetic alopecia is linked to your age as well as genetics, it’s no surprise that most men who are experiencing noticeable hair loss have also seen a proliferation of grey or white hairs as 50% of the population has about 50% of grey hair by age 50, according to dermatologists.
So, can you have a FUE hair transplant when your hair has started to go grey or white?
One misconception about grey or white hair is that it’s no longer ‘healthy’. The principles of FUE hair transplantation is you’re taking healthy, viable hair follicles from the donor area and transplanting them to an area where they are able to graft successfully and start producing new hairs.
We get our hair colour – along with our skin, nail, lip, and eye colour – from specialised cells called melanocytes which produce a pigment known as melanin. It’s thought that follicular melanocytes are far more susceptible to oxidative stress and therefore stop producing melanin at a much quicker rate than melanocytes situated in the iris for example.
When this melanin production slows down, our hair begins to lose its colour, becoming grey or white when there is complete absence of pigmentation in the hair. However, this lack of pigment does not affect the viability of this hair follicles and they can be successfully grafted.
Careful planning is essential when performing a grey or white hair transplant and Mr Michael Mouzakis not only takes into account your hair growth patterns to ensure the grafted follicular units match in terms of angle and placement, but he will also factor in the colour pattern of greying hair when transplanting follicular units.
Call 0207 411 9858 to book a consultation with Mr Michael Mouzakis and find out if you’re suitable for a hair transplant.
