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OrangeMonkey

I like having hair - but baldness runs in my family.

I've been using topical hair treatments since my early 30's to keep what I have.

Its vain, laughable, and a trope - but it bothers me.

We could be doing more with research, things that help humanity more than this.. but I appreciate this quite a lot...

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A hair transplant is also an option and relatively affordable nowadays (I paid 1600$ for mine, in Turkey). I was initially skeptical and had very low expectations but in the end, I'm very happy with the result. Normally, you don't lose the transplanted hairs because they are taken from the region of your head that doesn't go bald.

Here's a pic of me shortly before (left) and a few months after (right): https://raw.githubusercontent.com/olalonde/olalonde.github.c...

Edit: Thanks for the compliments :) To answer a few questions:

I was already visiting Turkey for a friend's wedding at the time so I didn't need to get a complete package with accommodation, etc. In fact, I decided to do the transplant on a whim, partly because my friend wouldn't stop bugging me about it (I'm glad he did in retrospect). I decided to do it, went for a consultation the following day, and had the operation the day after that.

I don't know what truth there is to this but I supposedly got a good deal because I didn't need transport, accommodation, etc. They politely asked me to keep the price to myself, so I feel ambivalent about posting the clinic here but I'll happily reply to emails (see profile).

Normally I'd have said nothing wrong with shaving it all off, but your transplant does look worth it, it's transformative. Thanks for sharing the comparison

It looks fantastic.

Care to share the service you used?....for a friend ofc.

Wow, the second photo looks so natural!

If you don't mind me asking, how much hair did you have before the procedure? (I assume you used to shave your head, as it's totally bald in the first pic)

Good question. I did have some hair left, but I lost enough that I felt shaving was a better option. Here's a pic I took a bit before the operation where you can see some of my surviving hair: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/olalonde/olalonde.github.c...

If I recall correctly, I had over 3K grafts. It did make a big difference.

It's hard to tell, but it looks like you had more than me :) I prefer a close-crop "number 2", but it's getting so I'll switch to "number 1" soon, I think! Luckily I kind of suit it.

How long did the procedure take?

It was a long time, I think 8 hours. But I was able to watch some movies on Netflix.

Dude, you look really good now!

Can you share the namenofnthe clinic that did this?

Looks great! Also following for the name of the clinic…

Damn, it looks that legit? And it's only $1500 in Turkey (plus flight/stay)?

Welp, when the time comes I know where to go now.

Yes but just for the operation, it didn't include the flight/stay. There are actually cheaper clinics if cost is an issue (my Turkish friend did his transplant for 500$).

That's great to know. Thanks for sharing the info

If you decided to cut your hair very short, how would it look? Would it look natural or would the transplants look artificial?

It looks pretty natural. I don't think it would be noticeable to an untrained eye.

Think you need to embrace it, I look at pictures of a time where I was still holding on and now I cringe. I guarantee you will feel better if you just shave it. The only people who look bad are the ones who are balding, not the ones who are bald.

Look at video of Steve Ballmer. Say what you want about the man but his bald sure does not get in the way of his alpha.

Vin Diesel, The Rock, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Michael Jordan, hell even throw in Jeff Bezos. Why would being bald have anything to do with how alpha you are.

One of those things is not like the others.

Also subjectively all but Bezos look good bald. Bezos to me looks every bit the evil Lex Luthor he is.

"embrace it" is easy to say for someone that doesn't have a head shaped like Kryten from Red Dwarf

I also felt better after accepting my baldness.

Patrick Stewart can be an inspiration in this regard: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pXOK-ZVJMaU

I agree if they have serious thinning/balding, but plenty of men have relatively mild thinning that can be treated with only minoxidil.

Depends if you think of it in terms of Mill's utilitarianism.

It makes a lot of people unhappy, curing it would reduce a lot of mental stress, and though it is low level, it could be argued that curing it is a greater priority than curing many life threatening diseases, because they affect a much smaller amount of people.

Well... if you read the article you would have seen that this research actually has the potential to help humanity greatly.

They were only using hair follicles because "...these are the only human organ that regenerates regularly and automatically". Their discovery may help guide our understanding for helping promote and control wound healing..

My friend, I did.

I appreciate this finding due to my own personal circumstances and I laud the researchers, my comment was more self deprecation over my own vanity.

All knowledge is worth having.

There's nothing really vain about wanting to look good. Eat the right foods, exercise, everyone _should_ be doing the basic things that make you look good. Cosmetic industry is slated to be valued over a trillion in the next few years, and that includes a lot of snake oil; good research that displaces snake oil remedies is a good thing. And I'm more than happy to see my tax dollars go into research that looks into baldness, even if only for folks who simply want hair.

Well, doing the right thing isn’t enough.

Looking good (being attractive) is mostly about immutable traits like height, physiognomy and until now having hair.

Unless you are terribly deformed, staying fit, personal hygiene, dressing well, and a pleasant demeanor are probably more important than the things you mentioned

> There's nothing really vain about wanting to look good.

Worrying too much about looking good is exactly what vanity means.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vanity

In days when women are denied bodily autonomy and medical treatment for serious health risks, we're worried about guaranteeing men control over their bodies through medical treatments for . . . baldness. Comparatively, it seems vain to me.

To fix the issue you're bringing up, we need different politicians and judges. There's not much for research scientists to do about it, and their funding sources generally can't be repurposed to politics either.

(Also worth mentioning that the research here could also help wound healing.)

"Vanity" means "vacuity".

There may be relative difference of substance, but there is not an absolute one. Appearances are not irrelevant.

Doesn't the liver also regularly regenerate with no scarring or anything? I thought that was one of the reasons behind our comparatively absurd alcohol tolerance as a species

Being bald has a negative effect on reproductive success, so I don't think it's trivial. All things being relative, sure, other more important things could have been researched, but not wanting to be bald isn't pure vanity.

But it has positive reproductive success for other not bald people

Never wanted to reproduce, so that didn’t particularly bother me. On the other hand, I don’t seem to have any problem finding willing sexual partners.

If that were true it wouldn't be so common

To be fair, historically you were pumping out babies by 22. Balding in your late 20's or 30's simply meant dad was going bald.

Making men less attractive after they have babies may actually improve reproductive fitness by helping solving the females-side's dilemma of being able to keep some co-carers / resource providers / companion around for the raising of the "offspring". So I don't think it's as simple as "less sex-attractive men" (if that's even true, I don't have any anecdotal evidence that bald men are less attractive to women in any way except what women say they are attracted to, but talk about attractiveness and partner choices are often independent in reality...but it may be true I don't study it), or "less sex-attractive after some time horizon" leads to lower reproductive fitness.

And dead by 40, so it didn't matter very much at all.

My hair started graying out before 40. I just cut it very short. No hair is better than gray hair for me. I don't need to be remineded that I inhabit this decaying carcass that will fall apart in mere decades.

Um...you can dye your hair.

Buggers grow too fast for my liking.

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