Rahul Raichand, by birth, was born into royalty, but male pattern baldness doesn't care about personal accolades, wealth, or birthright. Hair loss does not discriminate based on race, color, or creed. Unfortunately, Rahul suffered from the most severe grade of hair loss, the dreaded Norwood 7 pattern. Generally, patients with this level of hair loss are not hair transplant candidates, because there isn't enough donor supply to cover their baldness. In this article, we share his inspirational and life-changing hair transplant journey and story.
Rahul's First Hair Transplant Procedures
First, in 2002 when FUE was new to the world, Rahul underwent an FUE procedure with a clinic in Mumbai, India. The results were not aesthetically appealing, and the growth was very sparse. In the early days, FUE grafts were too fragile, and if extracted improperly, the grafts would not grow.
In 2003, Rahul was studying at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. At that time, FUE was still in its infancy, and the technique was nowhere near what it is today. In those days, Follicular Unit Strip Surgery (FUSS) or strip was the gold standard. Rahul decided to undergo a strip surgery with a local physician in England, the results were decent for the time, but his hair loss progressed rapidly to mirror his father, who is also a Norwood 7.
Fast forward a few years later, in 2008 he was living in South Africa, he had done some minor research and found a local hair transplant surgeon that was supposedly a 'good' doctor. He underwent another strip surgery, because again at that time FUE was improving, but was overall inferior to the strip method. This time, the results were not good. He had a tuft of hair on the top of his head that didn't look natural.
Hair Transplant Redemption With Dr. Pradeep Sethi and Dr. Arika Bansal
When he visited Dr. Pradeep Sethi, and Dr. Arika Bansal in 2017, he had two gruesome strip scars. To add insult to injury, he had a small donor supply, due to his previous hair transplants and his aggressive hair loss pattern. I guess anyone in his position would be thinking they are 'royally' screwed, no pun intended.
He had given up hope, but after he saw his brother-in-law receive an out-of-the-park hair transplant result, who himself suffered from previous bad hair transplants just like Rahul, Rahul thought maybe there was hope. His wife, a famous actress in India, insisted Rahul visit the same clinic that his brother-in-law visited.
Rahul flew to Delhi, and he had his procedure performed by husband and wife duo Dr. Sethi and Dr. Bansal. He received 6,500 grafts in 2017 (1,000 from the scalp, 2,000 from the chest, and the rest from his beard). His results were night and day, nothing in comparison to the previous work received. In 2018, he had an additional 2,000 grafts, all beard hair.
In 2019, Rahul decided to undergo another hair transplant procedure with Dr. Sethi and Dr. Bansal, this time he received 4,000 grafts ( a few hundred from his scalp, a 1,000 from his chest, and the rest from his beard). The scalp hair added further refinement to his hairline and temples. Unfortunately, his hair quality is thin, which means he requires more grafts to have visual density. Regardless, almost all of his scalp grafts have grown, and his beard hair is very robust.
Conclusion
Rahul's story is not only inspirational but shows the vast difference in the growth and appearance of a hair transplant result from a duo of skilled, experienced, and talented hair transplant surgeons. Rahul has shared his extraordinary story and journey on the popular hair loss forum called the hair restoration network. The hair restoration network remains the leading forum for real patient-posted results and reviews.