Many consider it their crowning glory: their hair.
Unfortunately, for millions of Americans, it's a losing proposition. So more and more are turning to hair restoration.
While hair transplantation remains the gold standard, there's a new weapon, when used in conjunction with hair transplants that is making a difference.
Christopher Walsh is a heavy metal kind of guy. His last band was called Orchestra of Insanity. His hair color of choice was cherry bomb red.
"And I have the hair to do it," Walsh said.
Walsh had hair about 20 years ago. Then he started losing it.
"I noticed it probably when I was 23," Walsh said. "I tried shorter haircuts, longer haircuts, sprays with color ... It was awful."
"When the 90s rolled around, it was like Calvin Klein cool to be shaved-headed and tattooed and pierced up. So, I kind of flipped that around for a while," Walsh said.
Then, three years ago.
"I was sitting in traffic. I remember it like yesterday," Walsh said. "I was sitting in traffic in Braintree. I noticed a sign that said 1-800-GET-HAIR."
Half-heartedly he made the call and met Dr. Robert Leonard.
"Chris came here looking for a treatment for his hair loss," Leonard said.
He opted for the gold standard: a hair transplant using his own hair from the back of his head to fill in up top. But that wasn't all.
"What I'm offering patients now, post hair transplant surgery, is low-level laser therapy for the immediate post-operative period," Leonard said. "And that increases blood flow, allows for earlier growth of the grafts. The typical transplant, hair starts to grow after about three to four months and by using the laser therapy post-op now, we can decrease that now to about five to six weeks."
For 30 minutes twice a week for two weeks, Walsh sat under a low-level laser after his first hair transplant.
"The first one gave me density and then the second one kind of filled in the blanks in between to thicken it up," Walsh said.
He sat under another laser after his second transplant.
"My sister's a hairdresser, and for years I would tease her and say that I'm going to get a hair transplant. She's like, 'Don't get those plugs. You'll look like a Barbie doll.' That's the stigma that goes with it," Walsh said.
"We can help virtually anyone with hair loss. If a person does not have adequate donor area hair -- this is the hair from which we harvest -- if it's not thick enough back there then they're not good candidates for transplantation because we're robbing Peter to pay Paul as far as hair goes," Leonard said.
Walsh had enough donor hair.
"He has hair now that he didn't have before. He can do whatever he wants, including dying it bright red if he wants," Leonard said.
As for his sister the hairdresser -- you know the skeptical one?
"She'll just bee-line right to me and start grabbing at it," Walsh said.
Depending on the extent of hair loss, Leonard charges between $3,500 and $7,500 per hair transplantation, including the low-level laser treatment.
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