Hair Transplants

If you are looking for a permanent type of hair replacement, something that can become a part of you, chances are that someone will recommend a hair transplant.

Its greatest advantage is that you'll be able to say it's your own hair--because, in effect, it will be. It is the most permanent type of hair replacement available. Once it is completed and your system has accepted it, you can work, play, sleep, and even swim, and never have to remove your hair.

It may sound tempting, but a transplant is not something you should jump into blindly. It is strongly recommended that you look, and look carefully, before you leap. It may be for you, but if you find out that it isn't and you already have had the initial steps performed, it could be a disaster!

A transplant requires more of an investment, both in time and money, than any other method of hair replacement; and although it can be quite attractive if properly carried out, there are no guarantees.

A transplant is a minor operation carried out under local anesthesia in a doctor's office. The patient can usually sit upright in a chair while healthy hair from the back of his scalp is transferred to the balding areas on the top and top and front of his head.

With the use of a circular punch, the doctor bores out plugs of bald scalp and switches them with plugs of scalp that are capable of bearing hair. (Various shape punches have been known to be used, but the circular punch remains superior.) The entire operation requires more than one session, so the patient returns for more punching and plugging at two-week intervals.

It is important to realize that the newly transferred hair stubs will shed within a few weeks. It takes as long as 10 to 20 weeks after the operation before new hair begins to grow, because the hair roots go into a resting stage after the trauma of being transplanted. The patient goes through a period of nearly a year of having the transplanted area resemble cornfield stubble much more than it does hair.

Blonde hair, grey hair and red hair gives less impressive results, since they do not have the appearance of being as thick as dark hair of the same thickness.

No matter how minor the operation, a transplant is surgery, and one must be concerned with the usual surgical questions such as wound healing, clot formation, bleeding tendencies, etc. In addition, there is also a possibility that patients having diabetes could develop hypoglycemia associated with the stress of the procedure, and those who fail to admit to underlying cardiovascular ailments may also be in great danger.

Usually, a certain amount of pain can be expected when the anesthetic wears off, and patients must often put up with black eyes, tearing, swelling, etc., after each session. Itching and a discharge of sebaceous matter at the donor site are also common nuisance. For this reason, if a man is being forced to get the operation by a wife or girlfriend, the minor discomfort may turn into major problems as a result of the psychological trauma.

The procedure is open territory for anybody in medicine who feels qualified, be he a dermatologist, a general practitioner, a head and neck plastic surgeon, a psychiatrist, a pathologist, etc. According to the American Hair Loss Association “It is also important to note that surgery should always be your last resort after all attempts to stop the progression of your hair loss have been exhausted. Currently in the United States the field of surgical hair restoration is completely unregulated by both the government and the medical community. In the US any licensed physician can legally perform hair transplant surgery without any prior surgical training or accreditation of any kind. Every physician, MD or DO, has the legal right to pick up a scalpel and proclaim him/herself a qualified hair transplant surgeon”. in some cases much of the work is entrusted simply to technicians. As you can imagine, with such a variety of operators, many of whom have never shown any surgical aptitude before, the results are sometimes failures, and the patient suffers severe emotional and physical scars.

If the procedure is not planned properly before it is begun, failures can result. Perhaps a patient really does not have enough healthy hair left to donate to the balding area. The fact must be accepted that progress in balding of the scalp will require additional transplants to the newly naked areas.

Doing transplants in the frontal area of a man in his twenties may commit him to transplants for the rest of his life as male pattern alopecia progresses. No one can guarantee that he will have sufficient healthy hair left for subsequent operations required. Furthermore, grafts of hair-bearing scalp taken from an area which is becoming bald will themselves bald at the same time as the area of the scalp from which they were removed.

Failures can also result if the procedure is not executed properly by the physician. Some doctors are not realistic about what a man's natural hairline should look like, and they are seen devising new hairlines never before seen in the history of human nature!

The size of a graft must be no larger than 4mm to survive. However, since skin punches are available in large sizes, a number of surgeons are tempted to use them. Then, there is little or no hair growth. Several of grafts become red, granulating, and ulcerated, because the epidermis did not survive. All that remains is scar tissue, just as occurs when a technician goofs and puts the grafts in backwards or lets them dry out before they are planted.

To make matter worse, if the transplants do not take, the patient will then not only have surgical scars on the bald area.

Perhaps the most prohibitive factor in selecting this method of hair replacement is the cost. Plan on investing at least 5,000 to 10,000.

It is only fair at this point to acknowledge that numerous hair transplants have been successfully completed. But when you consider what is involved in order to achieve success, the fact remains--it is a gamble. many have bet on it and have come out winners. Only you can decide if you want to take the risk. The stakes are high. the jackpot is a tempting target. But to lose could be quite a financial, a physical and an emotional set-back!

The hair doctor David Hansen
www.davidhansen.com