Lifestyle Choices

Hair Transplant, What needs to be done?

The most commonly and successfully used method for transplanting hair is the punch graft, which can be done under local anaesthetic and takes a couple of hours.

You will receive an injection of anaesthetic in the area of your scalp that the hair is to cover and the area from which the hair is to be taken. The instrument used for the operation is, as might be expected, a small punch. This is used to punch out about 20 to 50 small circular areas of bald skin, in a shape that will provide a relatively natural- looking hair line once hair-bearing skin is implanted in the holes. Then the same amount of hair-bearing skin is punched out, from whatever site has been chosen for their removal (usually the lower back or side of the head where thinner hair growth will be less noticeable). The hair- bearing skin is fitted into the holes that are waiting for them in the bald skin. But there will of course be small areas of bald skin between the holes, where hair still will not grow.

You will not walk out with hair where there was none before. It is the hair follicles that are transferred, ready for growth in their new home, and the trauma of the move will make the existing hairs that come with the follicles fall out. The surgeon must take particular care to ensure that the follicles are pointing in the, direction of your normal hair growth. No stitches are normally needed in either site.

A better-looking hairline can be achieved if a strip graft is used, but the procedure is more complex and more risky. A strip of bald skin is removed first, then a whole strip of skin, with all its hair follicles intact, is taken from the back of the head. It is sewn into place over the bald patch and the site it came from is stitched up too. Strip grafts can be supplemented by punch grafts, where appropriate.

A graft can be avoided if a strip of hair-bearing skin adjacent, or at angles, to the bald patch is almost removed but left attached to the scalp and the blood vessels and nerve network that serve it. The strip is flipped round so that it can be sewn back in place over the bald patch and, yes, this time you have instant hair there. The site it came from is stitched up too. The procedure may produce excellent results but is riskier. It may be done under local or general anaesthetic and, during the operation, a drainage tube must be inserted under the skin to prevent blood collecting.

Usually all the hair to be transplanted can be moved in one session. If, however, further treatments are required, there must be a three-month wait between sessions to allow the head to heal.

Hair Transplant Pain and Recovery

You can usually go home the same day but you must wear a bandage round your head for three to five days. Your head will ache for a day or two if you have had punch grafts, and may stay sore for up to a week if you have had strips of hair resited.

You must not wash your hair for about ten days and of course must take great care not to pull on the wounds when you are combing or brushing it. You can return to work or normal daily activities after a couple of days (though you may prefer to wait till your head bandage is removed). Stitches, if you have had them, will be taken out after a week to 10 days.

You should not swim for the first week and should avoid any sports where you may receive a blow to the head. Sex can be dodgy too, for a week or so, because of the risk of an accidental knock.

If you have had a punch or strip graft, do not expect to see hair on your old bald patch for at least three months, as it takes this long for a hair follicle to recover from its trauma and start sprouting hair again — but more slowly than before. Six months after your operation, your new hair will still only have grown about an inch and a half.

Hair Transplant Scars

Your new hair should, if all is ideal, cover the scars on your bald patch and hair can usually be brushed over the scars on the sites from where the hair has been transplanted. The scar is likely to be longest and widest (perhaps two inches) where you have a strip swivelled, but not removed, to cover another area of your head. Otherwise it will be about half an inch thick. If you subsequently lose hair from any surrounding area, of course, your cover will be blown and your scar will become noticeable, whichever type it is.

Hair Transplant Problems

The transplanted hair may fail to grow and that is pretty disastrous considering the entire aim of the procedure is to alleviate baldness. If a transplant does fail to ‘take’ — which can happen if blood vessels do not grow quickly enough into the transplanted skin to let it thrive and survive or if blood supply through to a swivelled strip of skin is too sluggish and the skin dies — you will have lost healthy hair from elsewhere on your head all for nothing.

Sometimes hair appears to sprout from the bald patch within weeks rather than months. This is not grounds for celebration. It means that the hair is about to fall out.

If blood collects around the area where transplanted skin has been placed, healing will take longer and the risk that hair will not ever grow from it is greater.

The punch graft leads to fewer complications. However, it offers a less pleasing result because hair, when it grows, is more sparse and the hairline looks less natural. One cosmetic surgeon, who refuses to do hair transplants, describes the result as looking like measles with hairs.

If, as is likely, the hair from your transplant is taken from areas of the head where hair loss is least likely, you may end up largely bald on top except for your transplanted hairs — ie, little rows of `toothbrushes’ on a shining scalp. Transplanted hair cannot be untransplanted, so you are stuck with the results.

On the other hand, your transplanted hair may disappear rather too quickly for your liking. How long your new hair will last will depend upon your own particular type of hair growth — and hair loss. As mentioned, if you lose the hair, you will be left just with the visible scars.

Hair Transplant Advantages

If all goes well, you will no longer look as if you are bald. Indeed, you will not be. So, if your hair and hair loss is of the type that promises best hope of a successful transplant, you may be very satisfied with the outcome, as long as your expectations were realistic in the first place.

However, if you are not seriously concerned by your receding hair or bald patches, the risks of a failed transplant, the effects of which may well seriously concern you, may well not be worth taking.

Cost of Hair Transplant Private Treatment

Dependent upon amount of hair to be transplanted.

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