You may well have seen the pictures of David Beckham from Miami last September showing clear signs of having a hair transplant.
Look carefully at the pictures – including one on the left below – and you can see that there is a darker patch at the front of his scalp.
This is almost certainly the result of a FUE (follicular unit extraction) hair transplant towards the front of Beckham’s scalp.
Beckham has a strong baldness gene in his family: his father Ted is almost completely bald.
The former England football captain is now 43 and around half of men of his age will have suffered from some form of male pattern baldness – even more so if the problem runs in the family,
like it does with the Beckhams.
Beckham has not said anything publically about the changes in his hairline.
But significantly for a man with such a sky-high profile he has not denied having help with his hair.
It is likely that he had a discreet hair-transplant to bolster the front of his hairline after inheriting his father’s male pattern baldness – albeit at a later age than his dad.
What is interesting now is seeing the transplanted hair grow back.
It can take up to a year for the full benefits of a hair transplant to show.
Initially, the new hairs fall out while the new follicles bed into the scalp.
But over time, the new follicles take root and the new hairs thrive in their new home.
That is what is happening to Beckham.
If you look at the recent picture from his Instagram on the right, you can see that he has thick hair at the front of his scalp – far thicker than the pictures from Miami last September.
Those MIami pictures were taken seven months ago – plenty of time for the new hair to start to emerge. Beckham’s hair should look even better over the next few months as all the new hair beds in further.
At Crown Clinic, our consultant surgeon Asim Shahmalak treats lots of high profile male stars such as David Beckham including Jack P Shepherd (David Platt in Coronation Street), Martin Roberts from BBC1’s Homes Under The Hammer,
Ben Jardine from the Channel 4 shows Love At Fight Sight and Celebrity Big Brother, the model Calum Best and the soccer pundit Didi Hamann.
They all chose FUE where the donor follicles are removed individually from the back and sides of the scalp and then replanted in the balding areas.
Around 80% of our patients chose this procedure with Dr Shahmalak at Crown Clinic.
Around 20% of patients opt for the more traditional method of hair transplantation, FUT (follicular unit transplantation). This is where a strip of skin is surgically removed from the back of the scalp to obtain the donor hairs which are then replanted in the balding areas in the same way as FUE.
FUT is slightly less labour intensive than FUE and therefore a little cheaper. It is not suitable for men who like to wear their hair shaved or short because the scarring from the removal of the strip is visible unless you like to wear you hair a little longer (in which case you hair grows over it and covers it up).
The TV doctor Christian Jessen has had two FUT transplants with Dr Shahmalak.