It is discouraging, but do not give up hope until you investigate to find out if you are a possible candidate. You may be surprised. The most important thing to remember is that you need hair for the hair transplant to your balding areas. The hair has to come from somewhere on your body. Wherever you take the hair from is called the donor site. Other patients have rubbery skin that stretches too much and so causes wide donor scars. These two groups add up to about 5% of the patients who have hair transplant surgery. The other 95% of patients have no problems with their tiny scars at all. The hair transplant doctors are able to keep the donor strips very thin. It is the needle going in with medication to numb the tooth that is the real agony. Of course, to follow the dental analogy, after the numbing wears off there is plenty of pain where the tooth was before. With hair transplant surgery, there is pain after the surgery as well. Swelling is normal after hair transplant surgery and can even keep you away from work. People with the large plugs that look like doll's hair or toothbrush bristles are still around. While this type of hair transplant is rarely done anymore, the effects are still evident among people of a certain age. If someone who knows one of these people has a balding problem, they are not likely to think of hair transplants. Making the Decision to Have Hair Transplant Surgery Having hair transplant surgery is a big step. The decision does not come easily to most people. There are many aspects of your life that are affected by your choice to have or not to have the procedure done. There are several questions to ask yourself. Moving them from one place to another does not affect the basic nature of the hair follicle. Also, women do not have the problem of receding hairlines in most cases. Their hair is lost in a more diffuse manner, thinning uniformly all over the head. It is not so much where their hair is that is the problem, but how much they have.