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Hair Restoration

The Lion is not a Lion without his mane. But a human? Well, a human indeed, but without the epithet of handsome or pretty assigned. Agreed that there are people whose extended foreheads rule supreme (Yul Brynner and Sinead O’ Connor for example), but that proves the above statement all the more to be true, more so, because unless it’s intended (which again depends on personal preference), Alopecia, or baldness is the ghost that has and still is, haunting countless millions, making them fall prey to absolute forlornness. The remedy used to be wigs and potions until sometime back; with the help of modern medical technology, restoration of lost follicles is no more an Utopian concept.

Commonly known as hair transplantation, hair restoration is a surgical process that involves moving healthy hair from one area of the scalp to another area where baldness has set in. Recent advancements in the field have succeeded in making these donor portions smaller in comparison to the large chunks of yore; the process now delivers a much more cosmetically acceptable result than it used to in the 1950s and has gained immensely in terms of popularity. Looking from a psychosomatic point of view, hair restoration, apart from restoring back a more youthful appearance, grants the treated ones heightened self-esteem and higher self-confidence, resulting in changes that are far more enduring than the hair that is transplanted.

A common question the practitioners face is when should hair restoration be looked upon as a remedy. There’s no clear-cut answer to it since every patient varies in terms of his/her attitude towards receding hair. However, hair restoration is as effective in the earlier stages of baldness as it’s in its advanced stages; the only difference that can be noticed is a hike in the overall cost. Therefore, it is better to have a transplant right at the preliminary stage.

Hair restoration requires foresight. It’s a must for the surgeon to keep in mind the possibilities of future transplants while planning hair removal from the donor area. Once that is set, as per the choice of the patient after a successful completion of the pre-operative preparation (diagnosis, analysis and prescription), he may follow any of the four surgical techniques, namely Micro, mini and slit grafts; scalp reduction; strip graft and flaps. It’s also important for the patient that (s)he keeps away from certain medicines and intoxicants; else intra-operative bleeding may result into a poor grafting quality.

Hair restoration surgeries are usually performed with optional mild sedation and injected topical anesthesia. The time span ranges to roundabout four hours; the time is inclusive of shampooing the scalp and antibacterial chemical treatment. The real process begins with removing a strip of skin (15sq.cms to 30sq.cms) from the posterior scalp featuring good hair growth. Sealing of the wound and dissection of individual follicular unit from the strip is carried along simultaneously; great care is taken for removing excess fibrous and fatty tissue without damaging the vital follicular cells that’ll produce the new hair. Next comes the process of puncturing the sites for receiving the grafts; it is done according to predetermined density and pattern though on an average, it’s kept between 50-55 grafts per sq. cms.

To transform the surgery into a success, adequate Post-operative care is recommended; dressings are to be replaced daily and the scalp is not to be shampooed for at least a week. The next ten days would see a shock loss brought about by the relocation; all the hair shall fall out and new hair shall show up within a span of two to three months.