Brian Beacom: Why I had a hair transplant

Now, there are those who will reckon these to be the words of a vain, self-obsessive with a irregular set of priorities. And they’d be right. 

But I have to admit my head has been in total agreement with Larry’s on the baldness issue. In fact, I had obsessed about hair loss over a 30-year period. From the age of 18 I’d watched my hair relocate from scalp to sink plug, and in the process I’d tried every hair loss lotion and potion available. 

I’d used alcohol rubs, snake oil, hot oil, scalp massage, every shampoo on the market – I’d even hung upside down for a few weeks (it was claimed an increased blood supply would increase hair growth) – and indeed I’d tried everything possible to regrow hair except castration, realising this was probably a step too far.

And I knew it wasn’t just me and Larry who were devastated by the arrival at the door of the Grim Hair Reaper. Dr Pamela Wells’ writing in the British Journal of Psychology summed up exactly how I was feeling, describing how balding men had “markedly lower self-esteem than those with good hair covering.” 
She explained how confidence diminished in direct relation to the amount of hairs going down the shower plug hole.

Dr Wells understood implicitly how hair loss equalled existentialist despair; I comb, therefore I am. (I could understand perfectly why Julius Caesar had a combover, and why Cleopatra once tried to concoct a hair potion for the thin-haired Marc Anthony.)

But then hope arrived one night while watching television. TV Dragon Duncan Bannatyne, boasting a good head of hair, said he’d had a hair transplant and his re-forestation had come about at the hands of a Dr Farjo in Manchester. 

Now, I was excited. And I told my chum, John Reid, about my plans to investigate the hair doc. Yet, John didn’t share my delight at all. “They don’t last,” he said. “The hair just falls out.” And I knew that he knew what he was talking about. The Paisley-born pop manager’s most famous client was Elton John and he’d held his star’s hand during Elton’s ill-fated visits to the Parisian clinic where his hair was transplanted.

Sadly, Elton’s relationship with his new hair lasted about the same length of time as his first marriage. A decade of wearing hats resulted, before a very expensive wig system was purchased. 

Yet, I didn’t accept John’s argument. I studied up on Elton’s failure. The bald truth was that Elton’s treatment had failed because hair science in the early 1980s wasn’t adequate. Transplantation involves hair being taken from the back or sides of the head – which is genetically programmed not to fall out – and moved to the top. However, Elton’s hair had been transplanted in large chess board-sized squares. As such, the follicles were denied sufficient blood supply to grow.

Pop star Gary Numan, I learned, had suffered a similar fate. Comedian Russ Abbot’s “doll’s hair” plugs didn’t work either for the same reason. But now there were new micrograft transplant techniques available

which meant grafts were small and manageable. And single hair shafts could be inserted – which avoids the doll’s hair plug effect. 

With this info, I took off to see Dr Bessam Farjo in Manchester. Thankfully, amazingly, he did give me new hair. Or at least cleverly re-positioned hair. The process was painless. And just as importantly, I still have the hair 10 years later. I now carry a comb as a right. I no longer look at men’s hairlines with envy. I no longer dream of recapturing my teenage David Cassidy hair.

Ironically, Cassidy later informed me he’d had three transplants.

But what of hair transplantation today? A decade ago, it was next to impossible to find someone who’d had a successful hair transplant to talk about the process.

There was a huge stigma. One close female acquaintance even said it was, “not something a man should have done”. There were also high failure rates, heavy scarring involved, some very bad results in clinics in Britain and across the world. Is this still the case?

The hair transplantation business has grown massively. Worldwide, the industry was worth $2.5 billion in 2014. Two years later it soared to $4.1 billion, a 64 per cent increase in market size. It is expected to reach an incredible $32.4 billion by 2026, according to figures released by the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgeons. 

However, Brian Adams, of the Hair Loss Experiences web forum, explains that the success of the hair industry has created a new wave of hair problems. “With the development of follicular unit extraction [the process whereby a small drill unit takes small hair grafts from the back of the head – as opposed to the strip method, where a length of scalp is removed and the follicles then separated and insterted] teams of ‘tecs are being sent in to cosmetic clinics, even dentist surgeries, to carry out the work. 

“Some of these hair technicians will be good, but some are very, very  bad, and this can result in really shoddy work, with infections resulting, or bad hairlines and bald patches.”

Dr Pauline McCluskey, of the Glasgow Clinic, echoes these concerns. “Lots of young people are being encouraged to have hair transplants by ‘influencers’,” she explains. “YouTube is full of them. The danger is that these youngsters have a transplant without really needing them, simply because they’ve seen someone famous having one. And, sadly, they view the procedure as similar to having their teeth whitened. 

“But it’s not. They don’t realise that by using under-experienced transplant ‘technicians’ they may have hair grafts taken from a part of the head where it is programmed to fall out. They don’t realise hair loss is a progressive condition.”
The transplant surgeon adds: “What is also common is over-harvesting, which leaves the back of the head looking moth-ridden.”

There are problems with incredibly poor artistry, whereby hairlines look too square, creating a Thunderbird puppet effect. “And it’s really sad to see some of the cases we have referred to us for repair. In fact, recently we even had to remove hair grafts from someone’s forehead.”

This Frankenstein world of surgery is frighteningly common, says Brian Adams. But he adds a further concern that the likes of government agency Health Care Improvement Scotland don’t have the expertise to examine the hair work carried out in the detail he and reputable transplant surgeons would like.

“I also see a great deal of men having hair transplants being sold short; they may have relatively fewer units transplanted than they could have had. And they may have a pluggy-looking forehead. But because they don’t know any better they don’t know the difference.”

Brian Adams adds: “My advice would always be to go to a surgeon who is registered with the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgeons. Go to a clinic where you can see accreditation and examples of the work.”

At least, says Brian Adams, the stigma for men has almost evaporated, that the procedure has “become normalised.”

Since footballer Wayne Rooney went public about his re-turfing, the industry has taken a huge bounce with the likes of fellow football figures Ryan Giggs, David Silva and Jurgen Klopp talking new hair. In Scotland, the likes of Kris Boyd and James McFadden were treated at the Glasgow Clinic.

Meanwhile, at the Farjo Clinic the celebrity client list has soared and the institute can claim to have restored the locks of five Emmerdales, two Coronation Streets, an EastEnder and one Cold Feet star. 

Dr Farjo has also implanted follicles into the heads of former Sunderland and Celtic player Micky Gray. More recently, the hair doctor has returned 1980s pop star Martin Fry’s quiff to its majesterial position.

The ABC singer is vocal about what a hair transplant has meant to his well-being. “In the music business you are often standing in front of a mirror an awful lot,” he explains. “And then the audience becomes your mirror. When you’re losing your hair that becomes very difficult. And so over the years I tried all sorts of products to make the hair thicker, even a bit of talcum powder. But it didn’t work, and being older and still in the public eye, when I hit 50 I knew it was time to do something.”

The Look of Love singer added: “I looked at options across the world, but when I walked through the doors in Manchester it felt right. And the results are way better than my expectations. It has changed my confidence.” 

He grins: “And rock stars can’t go bald. Just ask Bruce Springsteen or Bono.”
Cold Feet star John Thomson echoes the pop star’s thoughts. He likened his old hairline to an “apprentice monk”. He said: “It looked really thin. I thought, ‘Do you know what? I’m gonna do something about this.’”

Thomson, like Fry, has seen his self-confidence soar. “The new hair arrived and it was like a window box that had been watered. I don’t have the worry now.”
Career prospects, he argues, have also greatly improved. The actor would agree with the research carried out by the University of Pennsylvania that says those with hair look, on average, 10 years younger. “I’m going to get cast younger than without hair,” he maintains.

John Thomson’s Cold Feet co-star James Nesbitt believes that having had a hair transplant has extended his career. “Several years ago, I began losing my hair and like a lot of men it was a major concern to me, in fact it was practically an obsession.

“But, also I’m an actor so I’m in the public eye a lot and I really felt that my hair loss could affect my career prospects. So, after many agonies and a great amount of thought, I took the decision to visit Hair Restoration Blackrock in Dublin. Dr Maurice Collins who does it is a genius. But it’s not cheap, probably 20 grand.”

James Nesbitt’s comments on cost raise a major question: how much do you need to pay to have new hair? Blackrock this week quoted me a price of 30k Euros, (around £25k) to have 3,000 grafts. That’s the same number I had with the Farjo Clinic, at a cost of under £10k. 

The Glasgow Clinic suggests a hair transplant can cost, and they stress this is a guide figure, around £5-10k. “But we won’t offer a fixed figure until we see the patient,” says Dr McCluskey. 

“We need to look at the area to be covered, and the donor area, and consider whether one transplant will be enough to achieve a satisfactory result.”

Brian Adams says potential recipients should beware of paying over the odds. Wayne Rooney is said to have spent upwards of £20k and had several transplants. “What you also have to look out for is the brokers, the middlemen who will set up websites suggesting they are a transplant clinic, but who will charge a fee for directing you to a hair transplant surgeon.” 

He also warns of paying way too little. “You have to beware of the attraction of tourist transplants. You will see lots of ads for hair transplants in Turkey, for example, where you can have one and a holiday for £1500. And you will see blokes post of how happy they are to have new hair. But they don’t realise they’ve had bad work done until it doesn’t grow properly, it’s patchy, or they have bad scarring.”

But why does our hair fall out in the first place? Woody Allen once declared: “The best thing to do is to behave in a manner befitting one’s age. If you are 16 and under try not to go bald.” 

Well, Allen’s joke works because the truth is we have no say on when we lose hair. Certainly, by the age of 50, most men are in the process of hair loss. By 60, two thirds will have checked into the Follicle Free Hotel as a result of DNA bad luck.

That’s because every hair follicle is unique, a little hair factory made up of several different parts, including the hair shaft which is created, pigmented, assembled and oiled by sebaceous glands. But it is under attack from a by-product called dihydrotestosterone, (DHT). 

If scalp hair were Superman, DHT would be its kryptonite. It enters the cell of the hair follicles and hooks itself (we don’t know why) onto a highly specific cell protein and commands the protein to destroy itself. And the hair follicles stop cycling. One tribe of South American Indians has no history of hair loss whatsoever; they have no DHT in their blood. 

But, thankfully, follicles at the back of the head are kryptonite protected. That’s why hair transplantation can produce great results. Yet, not everyone can have one; if you don’t have a dense enough donor area, it won’t happen.

There is hope for those poor souls. Dr Farjo believes in the possibility of cell therapy with dermal papilla cloning. Located at the base of the hair follicles, the dermal papillae play a crucial role in hair growth cycle by inducing follicle development from the epidermis to produce hair fibre.

And while John Reid had hair reservations 10 years ago, the procedure can produce even better results today, thanks to the new scientific techniques that give better yields; higher magnification, better preservation solutions (while transporting follicles to the top of the head) and more teaching and learning “in an ethical manner.”

And Dr Farjo says wigs can work. Elton self-deprecatingly says he looks like Shrek without his wig. Yet, the singer adds that the effect of wearing a wig is that the bald jokes have disappeared. 

What’s obvious in 2020 is that there are many hair options. For most men (and a few women) it’s no longer a question of hair today, gone tomorrow.
The worry suffered by Sir Larry is disappearing fast. But make sure you put your head in the right hands.