Hair
Transplant Surgery
The
process of losing hair is a natural occurrence. We normally lose
about 40-200 hairs daily. Our hair starts to thin out when the lost
hairs out number the regrowth of the follicles. There are multiple
causes of hair loss, the most important being hereditary (genetic).
This means that every hair follicle has its life course predicted
from the time we are in the womb. Other causes are hormonal, stress, scarring
after scalp trauma, bad nutrition and medications.
Male pattern baldness starts at different ages and areas of our
head, most commonly in the crown and/or temples and frontal hair
line. A female's hair loss is more of a generalized thinning of the
hair affecting the whole scalp.All persons are possible candidates
for hair restoration. The one important factor is the donor area,
Occipital (back) and temporal areas (sides) of each candidate. The
reason why the hair is taken from the Occipital or temporal areas
of the scalp is that these hairs will not fall in our lifetime.
If you see persons in their eighties or nineties, they usually have
hair in the occipital and temporal areas. It is very rare to see
complete baldness unless there is some type of medication or illness
behind it.Transplanted hair is for life. We have been doing hair transplants
for 25 years and have gone through the evolution form large (3-3.5
millimeters) plugs (7-10 hairs per grafts) to the present mini (3-4
hairs) and micrografts (1-2 hairs), (1-1.75 millimeters). Presently
we place several hundred to over a thousand grafts per session.
Our vast experience and the usage of mini and micrografts provides
each patient with a natural look, which is the most important aspect
of this procedure.
THE PROCEDURE
Hair
transplants are done in our surgical suites as an out-patient procedure
with local anesthesia. The session takes an average of 2-4 hours
depending on the number of grafts used.The first consultation involves
a complete history of the medical and hair condition of the patient.
Each patient is evaluated in a unique way. All aspects of his/her
hair are evaluated: donor area, recipient area, combing styles,
how many grafts and/or sessions are needed to achieve each patient's
goals.What is transplanted is the follicle, which is from where
the hair grows; this is inside the skin of our scalp. It is the
follicle that has the genetic information of not to fall. We could
transplant this follicle to any place in the same patient's body
and it will grow.The procedure involves harvesting the grafts from
the donor area (strip of hair) and placing them were they are needed
(frontal hairline, crown area).
The donor area is washed, outline and trimmed. Next the local anesthesia
is applied and the grafts are harvested. After harvesting, the donor
area is sutured. The donor area is invisible since it is covered
by your hair; and the suture line is very thin.
The next step is the cleaning and preparing of the mini-micro grafts
for insertion into the recipient sites. The recipient area is anesthetized
and then the grafts are placed in the normal direction that hair
grows.
After the grafts are inserted a bandage is placed over the scalp.
This dressing is removed on the morning after the procedure. The
dressing is to keep the area clean and all the grafts in place for
a few hours.
POSTOPERATORY
The
patient is seen in our center the day after the procedure to remove
the dressing and have a shampoo. After combing their hair they are
ready to go home or work.
The first 6-7 days after the procedure the patients are asked to
restrain from strenuous physical activities (jogging, playing sports
), they are not allowed to go to swimming pools or the ocean for
15 days. He/she can start to do all his/her desk work, or light
activity the second day. On the 8th postoperative day the sutures
are removed. A scab will form over each transplanted graft. All
the scabs will fall off by themselves around the 10th postoperative
day.Transplanted hair starts to grow around the second month after
the procedure at 1 centimeter per month for the rest of the patient's life. Once the hair starts to grow it can be treated as your normal
hair; cut, wash, and comb it. This is for life.
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