A New You for the New Year

What To Expect If You Decide To Get A Hair Transplant

2 March 2022

Adam Newman

If your loss of hair bothers you, consider all your options for treatment. Hair transplants have been performed for decades, so a transplant is worth a close look. Transplants are suitable for men and women. Plus, you can have a transplant anywhere you need it like on your scalp, face, or pubic region. Here's how a hair transplant for your scalp works.

Determine If A Transplant Is The Right Choice

A hair transplant is a type of surgery, even though it's done in the doctor's office or clinic. That means you should have good general health before undergoing the transplant. Medical conditions, such as diabetes, should be controlled. If you drink alcohol or smoke, you may need to stop.

Also, you need enough donor hair to do a transplant, so your doctor considers how much hair you've lost along with how much hair you have to donate when deciding if a hair transplant is the right choice for you.

Undergo The Transplant Procedure

Your doctor decides on the right way to do the transplant since there are a few options. The choice depends on how many transplants you need and the type of hair you have. Your doctor also determines how much work is to be done in each session, as you might require multiple surgeries to get the coverage you want.

Two ways to do hair transplants are with strip and punch grafts. Strip grafts involve cutting out a strip of scalp from the donor site, cutting it into many tiny grafts, and transplanting the grafts in your bare area. Transplanted grafts are spaced far enough apart so the area has good blood circulation. The doctor can then fill in the gaps in later sessions.

A punch graft takes out tiny bits of scalp and hairs from the donor site and moves them to the bare area you want to be covered. When hair is removed by either a strip or punch graft, the hair that remains covers up the bare spots or scars so they are invisible.

The number of hairs in each transplant varies as well. Tiny grafts might have a couple of hairs, while larger grafts could have many hairs. If you get the micro grafts, your sessions will last longer since the doctor may need to transplant hundreds of grafts. Your treatment could last for several hours.

Enjoy Your Results

Getting a hair transplant is often a gradual experience unless you're just covering hair in a small area. The hairs that are transplanted usually fall out, so it could take weeks to see them grow in. Plus, you'll need to wait between transplant sessions for your skin to heal, and that could take weeks too.

If you have a lot of thinning or bald areas to cover, it might be many months until the transplants are completed and your hair has gone through the growing cycles needed to show new hair growth. However, the wait is worth it, since you'll eventually have the lush hair you desire. 

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