The reason why only a minority of hair transplant surgeons
do truly state of the art hair transplants is because
the most advanced procedures and techniques require
very high levels of skill, experience, and staff time.
Hair transplantation is a surgical procedure performed
on men and women who have experienced significant hair
loss. It helps to correct androgenetic alopecia, scarring
alopecia and other types of permanent alopecia. In some
cases, patients with hair loss from lupus, injuries,
or other medical problems may be treated with hair transplantation.
Hair transplantation is a minor outpatient surgery that
simply relocates existing hair follicles from the donor
site to the balding area.
Before your procedure begins, Dr. Finkel will do a final
review of your goals and expectations and will work
with you to determine the most effective use of your
donor hair. This review is an integral part of the process:
Dr. Finkel will listen to your wishes and ideas, take
them into account, and make suggestions based on the
thousands of successful hair restorations he has performed.
The frontal hairline is singularly the most important
feature of the entire head of hair. It is the aspect
of our hair/skin interface that we, and others, see
first. When we look in a mirror, or walk into a room,
when someone sees us and makes eye contact for the first
time, the hairline stands out. On a subconscious level,
beyond the rational, it speaks volumes about our age,
attractiveness, suitability as a mate, even about our
health and vitality.
The
single strip harvest method is the traditional and most
widely used method. A scalpel containing 2 or more blades
mounted in parallel is used to cut strips of donor tissue
10 to 20 cm long. The donor strip is then carefully
divided into follicular units under a microscope and
surgical light. In order to remove this strip, you will
have to lay on your stomach so doctors can get a topside
view of your donor area.
The Follicular Unit Extraction method is another technique
some doctors used to harvest donor hair. In this labor
intensive technique, doctors use a small punch-like
circular scalpel to remove follicular units one at a
time.
Hair transplant surgery begins
with injections of local anesthesia into the donor area.
The anesthesia will ensure that you feel no pain. Once
the area is frozen, your doctor will begin removing
the donor strip. Donor strip removal takes about 25
minutes. During this part of the procedure, you will
be lying face-down on a comfortable table very much
like a massage table. Once the strip removal is completed,
Dr. Finkel will close the donor area using the TRICO
or trichophytic scar method. While Dr. Finkel is closing
the donor site, technicians will begin separating follicular
units from the donor area.
The tricophytic method of donor closure will allow hair
to grow through the scar. This will camouflage the scar
and minimize its visibility for shorter hairstyles.
We use the trichophytic closure method on all strip
patients.
After the donor site is closed, then the surgeon begins
the tedious and painstaking process of creating the
hundreds or thousands of recipient sites. These are
generated using small needles or tiny scalpels; the
size of these miniscule incisions is based on several
factors: the area of the scalp, the thickness and laxity
of the scalp, and the size of grafts (one hair, two
hair, etc) that will be placed. Great care is taken
to avoid damage to existing hairs, and all this work
is done under magnification (as is the harvesting of
the donor strip).
In follicular unit transplantation the donor strip is
the strip of hair that is taken from one part of the
body and transplanted to the scalp’s bald region.
In this technique the donor tissue is removed in one
piece to ensure that the follicular units being removed
from the back of the scalp suffer no damage.
The donor strip is further cut into 3 sizes of grafts
— the micro graft, the single follicular unit,
and the modified follicular unit. The single hair follicular
unit has 1 hair; single follicular unit has about 2
hairs; and the modified follicular unit has 2 to 4 hairs.
The surgical technicians then isolate individual hair
follicles from the donor strip, and implant them to
the graft region. The grafts are inserted into pre-cut
micro and mini slits that are strategically designed
to aesthetically improve the density of your existing
hair, lower the hairline, and fill in balding areas.
After the sites are created, and as the ongoing work
for dissecting grafts under the microscope proceeds,
members of the team begin the fine work of placing the
individual FU grafts. This is done, under magnification,
by gently grasping the delicate connective tissue at
the base of the graft with ultra-fine jeweler’s
forceps, and sliding the graft into its waiting recipient
site. This is more difficult even than it sounds; the
level of expertise required is nothing short of amazing.
Not only must the FU’s be placed at the appropriate
angle, with as little trauma as possible, but it must
be done quickly and smoothly; remember that we try to
minimize the number of hours that the grafts are "out
of body", and that we may be creating and placing
thousands of grafts. This procedure is not possible
with out a large, expert and highly motivated surgical
team.
Depending
on the number of grafts you are having implanted, the
entire procedure can last from 2 to 4 hours.
Once the medical team has finished implanting the grafts,
the procedure is basically over with. The clinic may
keep you there for another hour or so to allow time
for the sedative and anesthesia to wear off. During
this time, your doctor will then go over your post op
surgery care with you. He will write you prescriptions
for pain, swelling and infection and give you careful
instructions on how to take care so that you do not
damage the newly implanted hair grafts.
Although the procedure only lasts 2 to 4 hours, you
may have to wait 3 to 6 to up to 12 months for your
new hair to start growing in. The newly implanted grafts
will scab as they heal and then fall out. However, do
not worry when they fall out because they have gone
into the dormant stage of the normal hair growth cycle.
