Dr. Ken Washenik Discusses Hair Restoration with Tee It Up Radio

Are you on the fence about your hair loss restoration options? Looking for more information about the procedure, pain, or the aftercare protocol? Curious about the costs?

Bosley’s Medical Director, Dr. Ken Washenik PhD., discusses everything you need to know about hair restoration with Alan Gottfried, AJ Gottfried, and Coach K. Tracy Roberts on the Tee It Up Radio Network. Just in time for Bosley’s 40th anniversary, the team outlines the hair restoration process, the costs, determining your candidacy and more, while also highlighting their own successes as hair transplant recipients and the impacts having a full head of hair has made in their lives. Listen to the full radio segment below, read the transcript, and learn more about your hair loss treatment options.

Al: Welcome back everyone as we continue to cover the PGA Tour here in South Carolina this morning. This is the Tee It Up radio network, Al Gottfried, AJ Gottfried, Coach Tracy Roberts and that favorite segment of mine is now coming up, our health and wellness segment and it’s a special honor to welcome to our Tee It Up radio network airwaves this morning Dr. Ken Washenik MD PHD, Bosley Medical Director Los Angeles. Doc…pleasure to have you on with us this morning.

Ken: Alan. thank you very much. There is one thing I like to do is talk about hair. I really appreciate the invite.

Al: Well and again I want to remind all of our listeners, thank God in this particular segment we are not talking about curing cancer nor talking about preventing heart attacks which we have been talking for 20 years about probably everything with the human body, except it’s been a long time since we’ve talked about what Bosley is famous for and hair transplantation and improving ones looks if you will. It’s a pleasure to have you on doc. Talk about a little bit first the history of Bosley Beverly Hills, California.

Ken: This is actually our 40th Anniversary. Dr. Bosley, a dermatologist like myself started a little practice, as a little humble country dermatologist in Beverly Hills and with an interest in hair and gradually did more and more hair to the point that we do … boy 10 to 12,000 hair restoration procedures. We see tens of thousands of patients with hair loss every year and give them our thoughts on what they might do to address their hair loss situation and we are in most of the largest cities across the US.

Al: Let’s start … a lot of people are born with thin hair and problems from birth. Most men and women I know – with age comes to mind, they start receding the crown and the back of the head and of course the forehead. It’s just a natural thing though, isn’t it?

Ken: It’s natural if you inherit those genes.

Al: Okay.

Ken: You mentioned the magnitude or the number of people you see and that plays into the concept of it being natural and that is about half of men, then actually half of women. If you wait till men and women hit the age 50, about half of each group will experience noticeable hair loss and in that group of men, you know 50%, you are talking really, really, tens of millions of men and it’s not… everyone doesn’t have the same. We’ve all seen someone with really advanced hair loss, virtually just a thin rim of hair above their ears, across the back of their scalp and you have people who just have some recession in the front. And then you have your occasional Ronald Reagan who hasn’t lost a hair. But for the most part, half of us … half of us end up with clinically noticeable hair loss by the time we hit the midway point in our 50’s.

Al: You know doc, I think a lot of people are … there are a lot of concerns, one pain and price. Pain with the procedure. Talk about the procedure. Talk about the relative cost involved. I mean I’m personally so tired of seeing so many of my friends, colleagues, listeners, fellow golfers… they definitely could use what you guys do. Instead their way of fixing things are growing a beard or a mustache and calling it a day.

Ken: Well you know… and you buy yourself a nice golf cap.

Al: Exactly.

Ken: The truth is hair restoration has been around for a long time in the US. So I’m a dermatologist from NYU and in 1959, a dermatologist, Norman Orentreich from NYU published this paper, a seminal scientific paper showing that you could move hair around from spots where you have more than you would need it to spots where you need it more, where you had hair loss and those hair follicles would survive and that a simple process, it’s an outpatient surgery process. You just do it in the doctor’s office. You don’t go into a hospital setting. You are not admitted. You are wide awake while you are having the surgery. Watching some videos and your scalp is just numbed up with some local anesthetics so that you can move those hair follicles around without you as a patient feeling it and it’s a one day process. You come in the morning.

You are talking hair, we are moving thousands of hair follicles from one spot to a place that you have better use for them; usually the front or the hairline area. As you said earlier Allan, you have people who have lost hair in the back of their scalp, that balding circle and you move them in there. And the price is varies a lot. It’s all over the place. It could be anywhere from $5,000 to north of $10,000 and in our group where we do a lot of different degrees of hair loss, it averages out to be in the $8,000 in range.

Al: I got to be redundant. I talked about this … I actually had the procedure done nearly 10 years ago and 10 years ago ….

10 years ago, we talked about this. I haven’t really talked about it and that’s why I’m happy to have you back on the air with us talking about Bosley and your work. I have been the happiest adult these last 10 years, I mean …

AJ: And you weren’t going bald necessarily. You were just kind of thinning out.

Al: Right.

AJ: Yeah.

Al: And I have never felt better these last 10 years and it’s lasted … it’s been fantastic.

AJ: Yeah. You look great.

Ken: But you know being on radio, it’s hard for people to make a big fuss about the way you look, but we are going to have to take your word for it and I’ll tell you if you just did this around 10 years ago… I’ve had the process done twice and I’ve reached the point of where I called tricho arrogance, tricho means hair, it’s a Latin root for hair we use in medicine and that is I’ve become very satisfied with my hair and in the way it appears and I get it. I started this process 10 years ago. We might have been sitting in different rooms at the same time.

Al: There you go.

Ken: Having our work done.

AJ: Hey doc, I got to get in here a little bit. I figured I’d let Al do all the talking, but I have a question. I’m younger. I’m half of Al’s age. He is my father. But I have an issue, believe it or not, I actually have thick hair, thank God, so far everything looks fine. However, when it comes to facial hair, let’s talk a little bit about that because I grow a beard out and for the most part I grow out a pretty good looking beard. The problem is around my chin area it doesn’t connect. What is the issue there? I mean can you actually fix that as well.

Ken: Is this AJ?

AJ: Yes.

Ken: Is that who I’m talking too?

AJ: You got it.

Ken: You can. You sure can. There was a story out here just … maybe two months ago, pretty recently. They got a story about a big surge in the popularity of facial hair transplantation and I can tell you there is no big surge, it’s always been popular for people (and by always, over the past decade or so) for people who have what’s called ‘skip areas’ in their beard. The famous one is the goatee where you are missing the connectors.

AJ: Yeah, that’s me!

Ken: Yeah, you need the connectors and so this concept that we refer to in medicine and surgery is donor dominance. You move the hair from one place where it is growing great and if healthy, you put it somewhere else and they’ll continue to grow just like it did where you took it from and so we do that all the time. I tell you another spot where that works nicely is you’ll have some people with some facial scars. Someone maybe born with a cleft lip condition that was repaired and then they have that scar in their upper lip where they will not grow facial hair and you can put grafts, you can remove hair from the scalp, hair follicles and put them into those skip areas, the connectors for the goatee, you can put them into scars like in a cleft lip and they’ll grow very nicely.

AJ: Wow.

Ken: To fill in the areas where you are lacking hair. We … you brought up a good point because we focus on the hairline, right, I mean you want to frame your face with hair but within that concept, you are always assuming that you are happy with the hair you have for your beard. People say well you can just shave it but a lot of people have enough for that 5 o’clock shadow that there are still areas that you’ll notice that are skipped and then just to carry it to the remaining spot on your face is eyebrows.

There are folks and some of them are men who have surgery, some are men who were born with thinner eyebrows than they would like and a lot of people we see are ladies. Women who come in who have gone through the decades where having very pencil thin eyebrows was in fashion and as soon as you decided you are going to stop plucking them, it stops growing back and they can come in and we can do restoration into their eyebrows with hair follicles from their scalp.

AJ: It’s just amazing where once starting and where you guys are today and obviously where it is going. I mean the technology is amazing.

Al: Very informative doc.

AJ: Revolutionary.

Al: Again the website for everybody listening very simply.

Ken: It’s easy, it’s bosley.com.

Al: Right, B-O-S-L-E-Y.

Ken: Yes, B-O-S-L-E-Y.com. No surprise. We have some phone numbers if you want to call and talk to a live person.

Al: Please do. You have a toll free number there doc?

Ken: We do. We have an 888-808-6672. Whether you call in or go to the website, you can get a lot of information. A lot of the stuff we’ve talked about is on there and you can help arm yourself with information before you even go further with it but in the end, your best bet, I mean you said it earlier Allan, it is every one of us has this speed bump, this threshold we have to get past. We want something badly but it takes that first step, and you can come in and see our doctors, you know, have a consultation. We’re in major cities all across the US and get a free consultation. Find out what can help you. What might be done and sometimes you find out it’s not for you.

Al: Yeah. Exactly.

Ken: Sometimes that’s worth the trip in itself.

AJ: Repeat that toll free number one more time please doc.

Ken: It’s 888-808-6672.

AJ: And I just want to add before we go to commercial break here. I really want to emphasize that you should not be discouraged or embarrassed. People, some people they’re [like], ‘I don’t know should I do it, I feel embarrassed’. Look at it, why not? You see women self-improving themselves all the time in various areas and men do it as well. What’s wrong with taking care of something that makes you feel better, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, it’s how you feel and so there is nothing wrong with this and I think it’s a wonderful thing.

Ken: We can help the vast majority of the people medically or surgically and if it doesn’t bother you, don’t bother. Get back out on the course!

AJ: Hey, my dad has been so confident. He looks wonderful. He did this a long time ago and I mean it just, I think it’s a wonderful thing and I definitely recommend it for everyone and, gosh, definitely check it out online, Bosley.com. Appreciate it doc.

Ken: Thanks very much.

AJ: Doc, nice talking. Thank you.