Bolton Packs: The Best Kept Secret in the Hair Transplant Industry
When someone loses their hair, they are faced with many unanswered questions. In years past, those questions usually led to an appointment with a dermatologist. This physician, who is not a hair loss specialist, would spend a few minutes with the patient and in most cases would diagnose the hair loss as androgenic alopecia. This is better known as male or female pattern hair loss. Due to the fact that it is genetic, it will only be a matter of time before the patient becomes bald. How far, or what pattern of baldness will eventually emerge? Only time will tell. In today’s times, people with hair loss can collect a lot of great information directly on the Internet. There is website after website that will detail any condition you may have. If you do enough digging, you’ll get pretty close to what’s wrong. In this case, it will not be difficult to determine for yourself whether you have a genetic pattern of hair loss.
This information that is available on the internet has changed almost everyone’s life. As in the example above, people with hair loss are included. However, sometimes very important information can be left out. Take for example the automotive industry. There are very few, if any, car dealer websites that will give you absolutely all the information you are looking for. They will omit specific prices or exact lease payments. The information on those sites is created to provide you with just enough information to get you to visit the dealership, and nothing more! The hair restoration industry is no different. However, not only do they show you amazing before and after photos to get you excited, they leave out specific details about the options you can choose from. The option THEY offer is the only way. Your option is better than any other! And, of course, business is business. Everyone wants you to visit for the free consultation.
The hair restoration industry is made up of three different categories. The first are all oral and topical medications and cold laser therapy. The second is the very mysterious world of the non-surgical industry. This includes wigs, toupees, extensions, weaves, or anything else you would like to call fake hair that is somehow attached to your head. The last category is the surgical hair restoration industry. This includes hair transplants, scalp reductions, flaps, and the new modern plug method known as FUE. The hair transplant industry has been hiding a little secret information that it doesn’t want you to know for about twenty years. That little secret centers around the standard pricing structure and density, or should I say, lack thereof!
In today’s modern hair transplant clinic, the most common and proven method of surgically removing hair follicles from the back of the head (the donor area) to the bald areas known as the recipient site is called a hair transplant. follicular units. As long as the doctor is considered a specialist, which means he only performs hair surgery full time, he can be sure that this procedure will be undetectable. Your hairline will be smooth and natural. The scar area at the back of the head should heal well and not be noticeable with just a little coverage of hair. Your hair transplant will be considered a success after approximately two weeks of healing. No one can tell that you had the procedure and all it takes now is a year of waiting for new hair to grow. This is where the secret lies. In most cases, the patient will come back asking the doctor why there is not more density. Density is the key word. And density is a very ambiguous term. Since you’ve healed up properly and everything looks great, you might be presented with two more options. The first is to wait another six months for further growth, which will be limited. The second is to have another procedure. Whichever option you choose, the problem will always be about density.
The science is quite simple. This follicular unit transplantation, (FUT), was created due to the original technology that is sometimes called “plugs”. Many people said that the result of the old style resembled the hair on the head of a doll. In theory, the FUT procedure moves hair from back to front in exactly the same way that hair grows. Hair normally grows in small groups of 1 to 4 hairs. As this procedure became more and more used, fewer people walked like a doll. This created an opportunity for physicians to price each graft. Again, a graft can vary from 1 to 4 hairs. It even created the appearance that the cost went down. As an example, the plug style procedure would charge $10 for each plug. If 500 seedlings were transplanted, the cost was $5,000. Now, since the FUT procedure was more efficient, let’s assume that the price dropped to $5 per follicular unit graft. If 2,000 grafts were moved, the cost would be $10,000. But wait a minute; Wasn’t that supposed to drop the price? Think about this. The plugs averaged about 10 hairs per plug. Now, let’s do the math and find out the hairs that were transplanted. The plug surgery moved 500 plugs @ 10 hairs per plug for a total of 5000 hairs. Remember the total cost was $5000 for that surgery. Now at $5 per FU, the modern procedure moved 2000 grafts at $5 each for a total of $10,000! Now let’s find out how many hairs were moved in the modern FUT procedure. Let’s see, if each follicular unit has an average of 2 hairs each, that gives us a hair count of 4000! Now you have discovered the secret that the hair transplant industry does not want you to know. Now do the math again. Except that this time I price the surgery for the hairs. Use $1.25 per hair, which is an industry standard fair price. 4,000 hairs at $1.25 per hair is $5,000. And they just charged you $10,000! So now you see the difference and why 99% of all hair transplant clinics charge per graft.
There is another part of the secret that the hair transplant industry does not want you to know. This one is simple. If the hairs are left in locks with more hair per follicular unit, say an average of 5 or 6 hairs each, the patient will get more density. You may wonder why the industry would not want patients to have more density. The answer came back. If the grafts contained more hairs, there would be fewer grafts per surgery. Since the price is set by the bribe, fewer bribes means less revenue. The industry is simply not set up to go back and charge more per graft. That would be frowned upon by the consumer. So the idea has been to create more grafts, with as little tissue as possible, generate more revenue, and with less density, this creates more opportunities for more surgeries. And more surgeries mean more income! What a wild cycle!
There are exceptions to this pattern, but very few. An example is Dr. Brett Bolton, who not only sets the pricing structure to the letter, but also uses his special technology called “Bolton Bundles”. Bolton bundles may also be referred to as multiple follicular units. He still uses single hair follicular units on the front line and temporary spikes for an extremely natural and smooth hairline. However, the key to his success lies behind the hairline. These Bolton bundles are groupings of more than one follicular unit. They remain intact, which means they are not dissected or separated. An example would be placing a series of Bolton packs behind the hairline with an average of 4-8 hairs per pack. If you just compare industry standard follicular units, which average 2 hairs each, to Bolton packs, which average 6, you’ll immediately get an idea why density is taken to a whole different level. . This combination of a soft, natural hairline and extreme density behind is the best for the result. Great density results make patients very happy! Now you know why Bolton Bundles are the industry secret, and if the industry has a say, it’ll stay that way!