Male baldness need not be life sentence anymore

It was 1979, Steve Finklestein of Flushing, was 20 years old when he first noticed his hairline creeping slowly backward. At the time Finkelstein was single and an aspiring singer and musician. Immediately he began researching journals and books on hair loss. First he investigated the topical treatments at the time.
After spending a few months wages on lotions, potions and pills he concluded that his options had been reduced to a non-surgical hair piece or a hair transplant.

Although he was anxious of the prospect of surgery Finkelstein knew that the idea of wearing a hair piece the rest of his life was not an acceptable option. Supplied with literature and brochures from numerous hair transplant groups he went about interviewing doctors to perform his hair transplant surgery.

Simply put, a hair transplant is performed by surgically removing  a group of hair follicles called grafts from the sides and back of the scalp where the hair is not susceptible to male pattern baldness and transplanting the follicles into small incisions made in the bald or balding areas on the top of the head.

Finkelstein interviewed with Dr. Gary Hitzig  a partner of Gary S Hitzig, M.D., P.C. in Rockville Centre, L.I., and author of "Help & Hope For Hair Loss."  He believed he had found the doctor who had both the surgical qualifications to perform his hair transplant and the compassion to understand his motivation and goals.

Gary S. Hitzig, M.D.

Dr. Hitzig was a fellow sufferer. He had also lost his hair in his early 20s and spent a small fortune trying topical remedies and artificial hair systems.  While in medical school, Dr. Hitzig  had a hair transplant which grew poorly and left him with unsightly scars requiring a hair piece to cover. After extensive research he had his transplant successfully redone. His personal battle to regain his hair  was the professional turning point in his career. After finally regrowing his hair, Dr. Hitzig, who was completing his surgical residency, devoted his practice to hair restoration surgery.

Today, Dr. Hitzig is a world-recognized leader in the field of hair transplant surgery.  He teaches and presents the latest breakthrough in hair transplantation to doctors around the world.

Just in the past year, Dr. Hitzig and his associates have presented papers on his techniques in Palm Springs; Nashville; San Francisco; Boston; New York; Cali, Columbia; Rome, Italy and Barcelona, Spain.

Doctors researching laser hair transplants would attempt to make small slit incisions in the bald area large enough to hold a skin graft of 3 to 6 hairs. These laser incisions were performed next to surgical slits performed with a scalpel. In small test sessions the grafts growing from the laser incisions looked more natural and had better distribution of hair than the surgical slits. The reason for the better result was that the laser incisions vaporized (removed) a small sliver of bald skin creating a tiny slot which perfectly matched the small hair bearing grafts.

Unfortunately, when larger sessions were performed with lasers, the growth of the hair transplants tended to be poor because the lasers' heat sealed the important blood vessels that feed the new follicles.

Dr. Hitzig and his colleagues took what they learned from the laser and developed a scalpel that made the same "slot" shaped incision  without hampering the nourishing blood supply to the transplanted follicles. He developed the Hitzig Linear Punch scalpel. This new instrument was developed after the Dr. Hitzig observed hair transplants performed with medical lasers costing over $ 100,000.

In the meantime, Finkelstein is now 38 years old; married with two young boys. He manages a Real Estate company with his father in Flushing and only occasionally plays music with friends in small clubs. These changes though have not changed his commitment to his appearance. Over the past 18 years he has periodically gone back to Dr. Hitzig for additional hair transplants as his original hair continues to thin. Just last year, Finkelstein returned to fill some thinning hair behind his hairline and also to add some of the new single hair transplants on his hairline.

"The beauty of starting a hair transplant early is that I never had to go bald and I have my own hair." he said. "The only people who know I have had a hair transplant are the ones I choose to tell."

Dr. Hitzig, who has offices in Manhattan and New Jersey, also recently took advantage of the new technology and had Dr. Schwinning lower his hairline.

"I'm combing my hair back for the first time in 20 years." Dr. Hitzig said.

Reprint from: Times/Ledger, Thursday, January 8, 1998