Hair Transplant Back

Introduction

Any person who is losing hair with his/her self-confidence will first look out for hair restoration options that are non-surgical ,treatable with medicines. However, not all stages of baldness can be helped with medicines. After a certain stage, medicine may only have a role in preventing further loss of hair but it may not help in bringing back the hair that is already lost. At this stage, wouldn’t it be great if you had a procedure that fills up your bald patch with your own, natural hair that will continue to grow for the rest of your life? Hair that you can style, color, wash, oil or cut the way you want – just as you would do to your normal hair.

Surgical Treatment

Advanced techniques of surgical hair transplantation can replace the lost hair and reshape the hairline. This is done using your own hair, which grows naturally and permanently. The transplanted hair can be washed, trimmed and styled as one wants. The gold standard surgical procedure is ‘Follicular Unit Hair Transplantation’. Other relatively recent method is ‘Follicular Unit Extraction’.

The follicular unit is a physiological entity and consists of one, two, three or four hair growing in a cluster. The hair growth is better when the follicular unit is kept intact during transplantation.

Principle

Hair transplantation surgery is based on the principle of ‘Donor Dominance’. Hair at the back and sides of the scalp continue to grow throughout the life a person. These hairs are resistant to the hormonal influence. When the hair is transplanted to the bald area, it continues to grow naturally.

Candidates for Surgery

1.Men with male pattern baldness.
2.Women with female pattern hair loss.
3.People who want to restore or thicken moustache, beard, eyebrows and eyelashes.
4.People who want to restore or advance their hairline.
5.People with hair loss due to injuries or skin diseases.

Hair Surgery Procedure

Hair transplantation surgery is considered to be “minor out-patient surgery.” Hair transplant procedures can take 4–8 hours and are usually performed using local anaesthesia on an out-patient basis, occasionally with some supplemental oral or IV medication. Patients are awake as usually no sedation is used. There is typically little discomfort during the surgical procedure.

FUT Method

The donor areas, from where the grafts have been harvested, are usually closed with sutures. These are usually removed in 10–14 days. Dissolvable sutures may occasionally be used in order to eliminate the need for you to return for stitch removal. Using ‘Trichophytic Closure’, the scar will be better concealed, as some hair will grow through the scar.

The harvested hairs are then cut into follicular unit grafts under magnification. These grafts are then placed in the areas of hair loss (recipient area) with small, superficial needle holes or slits in the skin of the scalp. This process may take 3-4 hours. Breaks are allowed during the surgery, for refreshments and visit to the rest room. The donor site will have a small dressing and the transplanted area has no dressing.

FUE Method

Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) is a method of extracting, or “harvesting,” donor hair for transplantation in a follicular unit hair transplant. In an FUE procedure, an instrument is used to make a small, circular incision in the skin around a follicular unit, separating it from the surrounding tissue. The unit is then extracted (pulled) directly from the scalp, leaving a small open hole.

This process is repeated until the hair transplant surgeon has harvested enough follicular units for the planned hair restoration. This process can take two or more hours and, in large sessions, may be accomplished over two stages . The donor wounds, approximately 1-mm in size, completely heal over the course of seven to ten days, leaving tiny white scars buried in the hair in the back and sides of the scalp. This method of donor harvesting, removing follicular units one-by-one directly from the scalp, is what differentiates the FUE procedure from a traditional Follicular Unit Transplant (FUT), where the donor hair is removed from the scalp in one thin, long strip and then subsequently dissected into individual follicular units using a stereo-microscope.

After the grafts are harvested, tiny “recipient sites” are made in the balding area of the scalp using a fine needle-point instrument. The follicular units are then placed into the recipient sites where they will grow into healthy hair-producing follicles. The creation of recipient sites and the placing of follicular unit grafts are essentially the same in both FUE and FUT procedures. The difference lies in the quality and quantity of grafts obtained with each technique.

After Care and Results

Hair transplantation is a very safe surgical procedure. There is usually little or no discomfort in the grafted area. Most patients feel some “tightness” in the donor area for 1–2 days and a mild analgesic will help cope with this. Patients may be asked to sleep in a semi-upright position for 2–3 days following the procedure to minimize swelling and bruising.

Small crusts may form on each graft, and these can usually be camouflaged by any existing hair that can be combed over the recipient area, or with camouflage products . These crusts will flake-off by 5–14 days after the surgery, the smaller follicular unit scabs often falling off at 4–6 days and the multi-follicular unit scabs taking longer. The transplanted hair seen growing out of the scalp may initially be shed; however, the roots remain and will be dormant for 10–14 weeks, at which time the new hairs will begin to grow.

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