Hair loss in men is a phenomenon that is "getting younger" every year. If earlier signs of alopecia in the stronger sex manifested themselves by about 35 years old, today young people aged 18 and over face this problem.
The sacred fear of baldness among the male population of the planet contributed to the rapid expansion of the hair transplantation market. This method of aesthetic medicine has gained the scale of a profitable business today.
THE BALDEST
The Czech Republic ranks first in the top 10 countries with the baldest inhabitants. This is followed by Spain, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands and Russia, which closes this list.
"Hair has aesthetic and age-related value, and is also a testament to masculinity. It is no coincidence that the word "bald" does not appear in the selection criteria on websites or in dating apps. Because it's ugly and not sexy. Conversely, a "shaved" man is the height of masculinity in certain circles," says Nadezhda Pierre, a psychologist and sexologist from Paris.
According to a survey by the French Institute of Public Opinion IFOP, 25% of French and 2% of French women admitted that they suffer from baldness. At the same time, 36% of respondents said they refused to go to bed with a bald man.
Baldness threatens, first of all, representatives of the stronger sex with an increased level of androgens - male sex hormones. With the so-called androgenic alopecia, the hair located on the temples and forehead, or on the back of the head, falls out first.
"The so-called hormone-dependent ones, those related to testosterone, are falling out. Hair implanted in the form of a crown around the skull never falls out," says Paul Benet, a doctor from Paris who specializes in hair transplantation.
According to the International Society for Reconstructive Hair Surgery ISHRS, the number of hair transplant operations in Europe increased by 240% between 2010 and 2021. Today, about 640 thousand such operations are carried out annually in the world.
Tracy Cohen Sayag, director of the Paris clinic of Aesthetic Medicine La Clinique des Champs-Elysées, explains the sharp increase in demand for hair transplantation by the fact that as such it is becoming less and less a taboo topic, not least thanks to famous personalities.
Such British and French pop stars as Elton John, Robbie Williams and Florent Pagni publicly admitted that they had undergone a hair transplant.
WHY TURKEY?
Turkey has become a kind of mecca for men who want to transplant their hair. In this country, surgery in aesthetic surgery clinics is significantly less expensive compared to Western European countries.
Today, Turkey employs not only a large number of experienced specialists using the latest technologies, but also has all the necessary infrastructure.
In recent years, many hair transplant clinics have appeared in the country, which have established themselves as a reference service.
In Western Europe, the cost of transplantation varies depending on the institution, its specialists and technical equipment and ranges from 3 thousand to 10 thousand euros. These funds are not covered by medical insurance, since this method of surgical intervention is considered a cosmetic operation.
In Turkey, it will cost the patient 2-4 thousand euros. Such a significant difference in price is explained by a number of factors, primarily the preferential tax regime for aesthetic medicine clinics.
BEAUTY TOURISM
Turkish institutions specializing in hair transplantation widely use the practice of accompanying patients arriving from abroad.
We are talking about a comprehensive approach from the moment of the client's first contact with the clinic until his return to the country of permanent residence.
According to Istanbul-based Dr. Emra Chinik, at the initial request, a potential patient is asked to send photos of the hairline in order to determine which method will be most appropriate, depending on the need.
Upon admission to the clinic, the patient is prescribed a blood test and a diagnosis of the heart condition is performed. On the day of surgery, the client will be subjected to a number of additional checks, after which either the entire skull will be shaved, or only the donor and recipient areas.
The operation itself consists of several stages: extraction and preparation of the graft, opening of the canal and implantation of the graft. The duration varies depending on the number of transplants to be implanted.
Upon completion of the procedure, the patient is taken back to the hotel. The first cranial lavage is performed at the clinic the day after the operation.
Throughout the healing process, it will be necessary to adhere to the recommendations of Turkish specialists. It takes about 15 months to get the desired result, warns Dr. Chinik.
NOT WITHOUT RISK
Hair transplantation abroad is becoming one of the directions of medical tourism. Turkey and Tunisia today offer services to potential customers at very attractive prices, including flights, hotel accommodation and the operation itself.
At the same time, inexpensive clinics, where operations are performed not by doctors, but by specialists, go to a variety of tricks in order to attract customers.
Positioning themselves as "cut-price hairdressers," these establishments have launched a whole brainwashing campaign on social media. Using stolen photos of the results of other clinics, they claim to specialize in the advanced DHI method.
Today, only 10% of trichologist surgeons practice it, and the method itself is not used at all in Turkey or Tunisia.
According to Dr. Emra Chinik, the hair restoration practices used in these countries are nothing more than the imposition of hair strips by the archaic FUT method.
It can be difficult to recognize unscrupulous practices: "specialists" insert doubt-removing explanations from well-known doctors into their advertisements, publish false patient reviews.
At the same time, the method of suppressing critical responses is widely used. In this case, the dissatisfied patient is immediately attacked by a group of Internet users who question his testimony, extolling the merits of a particular clinic of aesthetic medicine.
At the same time, as soon as the client leaves the country where the hair transplant was performed, he is automatically deprived of legal protection, and the "doctors" stop contacting.
Scammers also mislead potential customers with assurances that they use elite hair restoration methods. Recently, offers such as "sapphire technique", "golden method" or "diamond transplantation" have appeared on the Internet.
These big names were not chosen by chance. They were invented to make the client believe in exclusive and highly effective methods, but in fact we are talking about the classic method of patchwork transplantation.
In fact, the Saphire hair transplantation technique uses blades made of precious stones, and with Gold, hair transplantation is performed using a punch covered with gold.
In general, patients should be notified that transplanted hair is not a guaranteed success. They cover the areas of baldness, but do not prevent the development of androgenic alopecia in the future, which may require another visit to the doctor.
In addition, after surgery, patients are subject to strict requirements: no sun, alcohol, cigarettes and even sex for about ten days. Sports are prohibited for a month, and bodybuilding is prohibited for three months. You also need to take a lot of pills.
"Transplantation is the last resort. We fix what we can, but it's not a miracle cure. Many people go to Turkey, but you should know that they are transplantologists there, not doctors. Everything is different in Belgium," says Ornella Accaputo, a dermatologist and surgeon at the Erasmus University Hospital in Brussels. - If someone decides to go to Turkey, then they must continue their treatment in Belgium under the supervision of a doctor. If this is not done, in 10 or 15 years, the negative effect of the transplant may develop, and you will get something terrible."
IT IS NOT ONLY IN TURKEY THAT THEY ARE BEING FOOLED
To get rid of baldness at an attractive price, up to 100 thousand men from different countries come to Istanbul every year.
Despite the fact that the practice generates a profit of one billion euros per year, the relatively low cost of hair restoration surgery in Turkey is explained by the fact that transplantologists in this country are subject to much lower taxes than in Western European countries.
In recent years, the number of aesthetic surgery clinics in the region that practice transplantation without an appropriate license has increased dramatically.
If English football star Wayne Rooney, who resorted to a hair transplant in 2011 at the age of 25, paid more than 30,000 euros to a London clinic for an operation, today some practices offer it for only 1,000 euros.
"For several months, my scalp was crusted and bleeding. I heard a lot of people laughing at me. One colleague even thought that I had syphilis," complained to reporters one of the victims of the "transplantologists" named Paul.
After numerous complaints about the negative effects of hair transplant operations performed without a doctor's permission, KSL Hair Aesthetic Medicine clinic in Glasgow, Scotland, closed its doors.
