Hair transplantation

Medical hair restoration has come a long way. If you suffer from male pattern baldness and other hair loss remedies such as drugs and topical treatments haven’t worked, you might be a good candidate for hair transplantation. Hair transplantation is a minor surgical procedure where grafts of healthy hair are removed from areas of skin that are unaffected by male pattern baldness and are planted for growth on your head. After a three-month resting cycle, the transplanted hair sprouts and continues to grow through the rest of your life.

Getting the Transplant

After your initial assessment with the doctor, you schedule your first procedure. To begin, strips of hair are removed from the donor area on your head, neck, or lower back. These are made into grafts. As the surgeon works from front to back of your head, he makes small incisions and inserts the grafted hair. Each procedure lasts from two to four hours and is performed while you’re under local or nitrous oxide anesthesia.

After the Procedure

Most people feel fine after the procedure. There are post-operative restrictions against heavy lifting or exercise for five days, allowing for an uninterrupted blood supply to the treated scalp. In some cases, physicians may require a topical antibiotic or monoxidil. You can shampoo by the third day. The number of transplants you’ll need depend upon a range of factors, including your initial goals, your economic and time limitations, and the amount of donor hair you have available. Your goals should be realistic given the severity of your hair loss pattern. Permanent hair growth begins by the eighth month after the procedure and fills out within the first year.

--G.H.