Category Archives: Dr Samuel Lam Reviews

In a previous video featured on YouTube and on this Web site, I discussed the dangers of performing hair transplants in men who are too young. Age is a relative thing and it depends on how much baldness one has, how fast that hair loss is, what kind of hair quality (density, thickness, color, curliness, […]

I have been asked to co-chair the basics course at the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery this year, which will be the first time doing so. I did teach there last year and gave a lecture on recipient-site anesthesia and tumescence. I have been really excited about actually chairing it this year, which gives […]

The “magic sauce” that I talked about in my previous blog involved platelet rich plasma (PRP) and Acell. The question though is whether adding Acell, a porcine bladder matrix, does anything? I know many physicians who only use PRP and think Acell is redundant. Having now done several cases with Acell, I would beg to […]

I just got back from running my course in Atlanta on hair restoration that involved a new hands-on component. I look at it as a mini-St. Louis Course, the main course that I run each year that is a very extensive hands-on course. This is my second year running the Atlanta meeting and I am […]

I try my best to keep up with the latest and greatest in the world of hair restoration. As many of the ladies know Latisse by Allergan Inc., the makers of Botox, has been a runaway success for extending eyelashes and making them thicker and longer. Bimatoprost, the generic name for Latisse, is a prostaglandin […]

I cannot believe that this will be the fifth year that Emina and I will be running our St. Louis Hair Transplant 360 Workshop, which has grown, matured, and evolved. The cornerstone of the workshop has always been excellent didactics and extensive hands-on training using cadaver tissues and models. Emina has come up with some […]

As many of you know Emina and I each wrote texbooks, Hair Transplant 360, volumes 1 and 2, respectively, a few years ago. Attending so many major meetings, I realized that even though our books are still highly relevant I needed a new volume that would reflect the multi-author, international perspective along with featuring the […]

As many of my patients know, I truly believe that prior to October 2011, we were in the Dark Ages of Hair Restoration. Of course, we always performed great work at the Lam Institute for Hair Restoration. However, we did not have the “magic sauce”, a term I affectionately refer to PRP, or platelet rich […]

Pain control is so very important for every patient. I take that concern to an extreme level. As many of you know for my conventional linear harvesting (standard hair transplant) where discomfort can be greater, we have every patient under what is known as Level 2 conscious sedation, meaning patients do not feel anything. If […]

Hair restoration is an art of illusion trying to make a bald man look as if he has a full head of hair. Most of the times surgical hair restoration alone is sufficient to accomplish this task. However, at times other techniques like medical management can help to delay and partly reverse the hair loss […]

I have offered almost every patient that has come through my door advice about topical camouflage products that could be helpful in the goal of camouflaging hair loss. I have directed them to the Internet to purchase products, my favorite one being Nanogen, but I have decided to start stocking the product in my office […]

Every year and every day I am seeking to attain better hair transplant results and the way to accomplish that task is to enlist better instruments, techniques, and ancillary measures. One small but prominent addition to my practice over the past year has been the use of the Cole tumescent gun that allows me to […]

Unfortunately, I did not see much sun while I was in the Bahamas for the 2012 Fall ISHRS meeting. Partly because there was little sun to be had (it was raining most days) but also because I was simply enraptured by all the meetings that had a huge learning impact on me. I also was […]

One of the most important developments I got from the 2012 Bahamas International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS) meeting was talking with Dr. Michael Rabin of LaserCap. I have been spending the last few years investigating the efficacy of laser technology on hair loss, which is known as low-level laser therapy or LLLT. At […]

Minoxidil, marketed as Rogaine, is one of the mainstays of treatments for hair loss. It is an over-the-counter medication used to treat hair loss that is both safe and effective. Although we do not know exactly the pathway by which it works, it works in synergy with Finasteride (Propecia) and should be considered in combined […]

Finasteride has unfortunately gotten a bad rap of late in the media due to the release of the article, “Persistent Sexual Side Effects of Finasteride for Male Pattern Hair Loss”, in the Journal of Sexual Medicine (Volume 8, Issue 6, June 2011) written by lead author, Michael S. Irwig MD. Coming back from the 2012 […]

I was watching the movie Grown Ups the other day and I could not help but stare at Kevin James’ hairpiece. Most likely you did not even notice it. The reason that I see results that look fake and you may not is that I have significant experience with hair restoration and know how to […]

Hair Transplant is as much an art as it is a science. Many times we simply see very bad hair transplant work that scares us into not wanting to have the procedure done. When the procedure is done well, it is seamless. Take Christian Slater’s hair transplant, which I think is both natural and artistically […]

We all know that we can recognize a bad hairpiece or a bad wig when we see one, right? Yes. However, hair systems today can be quite natural in appearance even to the most experienced eyes. Woven, natural hairpieces can escape the detection of many individuals looking at them like John Travolta’s. However, perhaps one […]

Obviously, there are many examples of bad hair transplants out there. I thought I would blog briefly about what is going on with Joe Biden’s hair-transplant result. Although his hair transplant was done during the era of “plug” grafts, the reason that his hair transplant does not look truly that bad is that his hairs […]

Jude Law’s Central Forelock The actor Jude Law has significant hair loss but does not seem that bald in appearance simply because he has a relatively strong retained central forelock. (I believe he has had a hair transplant by the way.) As a reminder, the central forelock is the tuft of hair that sits immediately […]

First of all, let me get this out of the way, I love Tony Horton; and I love P90X, which I completed in March of this year. Recently, I attended a live training session that he conducted on behalf of his new book, Bring It!, and that confirmed for me that in fact he was […]

Jamie Foxx’s hair transplant looks natural and appropriate for his ethnicity. When designing hairlines for a person, it is important to consider that individual’s ethnicity and gender. For African-American hairlines, the shape is oftentimes square even despite ongoing aging. Clearly with hair loss, there is a blunting or loss at the fronto-temporal angles like in […]

As everyone knows when they watch Tiger Woods play without a baseball cap, he is in serious need of a hair transplant. Perhaps the media attention has focused on other aspects of his life that he seems to be losing control of more than his hairline but for the sake of this blog, let’s focus […]

Hairpieces, wigs, caps, and hair systems come in all shapes, sizes, and quality. Sir Elton is clearly enamored with his hairpiece most likely because his hair loss is extensive enough that a hair transplant would not be able to fix the problem with sufficient cosmetic density for him. Someone with a Norwood 6 or 7 […]

As a studious observer of celebrity hair transplants, I remember a couple of years ago looking at Matt Lauer conducting an interview in which his bald crown was exposed. The area known as the posterior lateral hump (side temporal hair) has fallen since his previous hair transplant away from his vertex transition zone (the point […]

Unfortunately, bad hair transplants make everyone fearful. Bad scars are no exception. This photograph of Jeremy Piven’s scar (the actor from Entourage) has certainly raised quite a bit of attention. It compels me to write about why good harvesting techniques should avoid a scar that looks as bad as his does. Although one cannot shave […]