Since the invention of implants, plastic surgeons have been assisting patients with severe cranial abnormalities. Hair loss is just one of several potential reasons of these abnormalities. The name “hair replacement surgery” has largely fallen out of use as this practice has developed and changed over the years.
Loss of hair is permanent, both in men and women. It’s a problem that can manifest in either gender. Yet, the causes of one’s hair loss can be used to guide treatment. Admitting one needs hair replacement surgery can be embarrassing, Read on to learn more about is hair transplant painful/is hair transplant permanent.
Is Buy Hair Replacement Surgery
Like good health and youth, most of us take our locks for granted — that is, until they’re gone.
If thinning up top or going bald really bothers you, the procedure can be one way to feel more confident about your looks.
What Is a Hair Transplant?
It’s a surgical procedure that repositions your natural hair to cover bald spots.
The typical setting for this operation is the doctor’s office. The surgeon will first sterilize your scalp and inject medication into the back of your skull to numb it. Your transplant procedure may involve follicular unit strip surgery (FUSS) or follicular unit extraction, both of which your specialist would consider (FUE).
The FUSS procedure entails having 6 to 10 inches of skin removed from the top of your head. After that, the scalp was closed with stitches and put away. The hair immediately conceals this location.
The surgeon’s staff next splits the removed strip of scalp into 500–2,000 microscopic grafts, each containing a single hair or a small cluster of hairs. Your hair’s kind, quality, color, and the size of the area being transplanted all play a role in determining the amount and type of grafts you receive.
When it comes to the FUE technique, the surgeon’s team has the upper hand. The doctor will then carefully remove each hair follicle one by one. Little spots will appear as the wound closes, but your hair will conceal them.
Following that moment, there is no difference between the two methods. After the grafts have been prepared, the surgeon will numb and then carefully implant each graft in a small hole or slit they’ve made with a scalpel or needle. They will most likely enlist the aid of their teammates in planting the grafts.
The duration of the procedure ranges from 4 to 8 hours, depending on the size of the organ you’re having transplanted. If you’re still experiencing hair loss or would like your hair to be thicker in the future, you may need to undergo additional treatment.
Expectations and Recovery
After the surgery, your scalp may be very tender. You may need to take pain medications for several days. Your surgeon will have you wear bandages over your scalp for at least a day or two. They may also prescribe an antibiotic or an anti-inflammatory drug for you to take for several days. Most people are able to return to work 2 to 5 days after the operation.
Within 2 to 3 weeks after surgery, the transplanted hair will fall out, but you should start to notice new growth within a few months. Most people will see 60% of new hair growth after 6 to 9 months. Some surgeons prescribe the hair-growing drug minoxidil (Rogaine) to improve hair growth after transplantation, but it’s not clear how well it works.
Risks and Costs of Treatment
The price of a hair transplant will depend largely on the amount of hair you’re moving, but it generally ranges from $4,000 to $15,000. Most insurance plans don’t cover it.
As with any kind of surgery, transplants have some risks, including bleeding and infection. There’s also the chance for scarring and unnatural-looking new hair growth.
Around the time new locks start to grow, some people have inflammation or an infection of the hair follicles, called folliculitis. Antibiotics and compresses can relieve the problem. It’s also possible to suddenly lose some of the original hair in the area where you got the new strands, called shock loss. But most of the time, it’s not permanent.
Talk with your doctor about these risks and how much improvement you’re likely to get from the surgery. They can help you decide if it’s a good option for you.
Is Hair Transplant Painful
This worry is unfounded when it comes to hair transplants. Compared to other surgical treatments, this one is quite simple, though you may have some slight discomfort as your scalp heals. A small amount of local anesthetic is injected to your scalp before the operation begins to ensure that you feel no discomfort.
The first successful hair transplants were performed in the late 1950s, but since then, techniques have improved greatly thanks to the development of new technologies. Because of this, modern hair transplant surgeries are significantly less intrusive and traumatic than their predecessors; a hair transplant today is nothing like the hair transplant your grandfather or father underwent. I’m curious, though; do hair transplants hurt?
Even when hair transplants are performed in a minimally intrusive fashion, they are still considered surgery. However, many patients associate the word “surgery” with a lengthy recovery period and unpleasant discomfort. This worry is unfounded when it comes to hair transplants. As a matter of fact, it is relatively straightforward in comparison to other surgical operations. Just like how you may expect some slight soreness following the procedure while your scalp recovers, it is very clear to see why. A small amount of local anesthetic is injected to your scalp before the operation begins to ensure that you feel no discomfort.
Schedule a private consultation with us, and we’ll explain the hair restoration process in detail, putting your mind at ease. Reasons why are listed below.
Local vs. General Anesthesia
With general anesthesia, you’re put to sleep using a combination of medical drugs under the supervision of a surgical team. Doctors use general anesthesia for more involved types of surgery, when being awake or conscious during the procedure would be too intense for patients.
By contrast, medical professionals use local anesthesia for less-invasive work, including hair restoration surgery. Local anesthesia, as its name suggests, is targeted to specific parts of the body while you are fully awake and comfortable.
In this case, hair transplant surgeons numb the portions of your scalp that will be worked on. Local anesthesia rarely results in complications, and you’ll remain awake throughout the procedure. Without the use of general anesthesia, hair transplant recovery takes much less time. Where general anesthesia requires a hospital or comparable medical center, local numbing is easy and cost-effective to administer. You also won’t have to worry about post-surgery nausea or any of the other effects typically caused by general anesthesia.
No Incisions, Stapling, or Scarring
There are essentially two ways to harvest the hair for a transplant: 1. Cut out a strip of scalp from the back of your hair and dissect it into tiny pieces to create the follicular units for transplantation (Follicular Unit Transplantation or FUT, also called the Strip Method), or 2. Extract the individual follicles using pneumatic pressure (Follicular Unit Extraction or FUE). As you can image, the latter is much easier on the patient, both in terms of required sedation as well as recovery.
FUE is an FDA-approved, minimally invasive procedure that achieves a fuller head of hair without the downtime or pain of other methods. Because doctors extract individual grafts as opposed to a large strip of scalp, there’s also no scarring like there is with strip surgery. After the follicles are extracted from the donor area, it will be covered with small red dots from the individual punctures, and these usually scab over and heal after a few days. All you’ll need is a hat to cover these up, if you so wish, but you won’t have to wait for any stitches to heal or come back for their removal.
Especially patients who undergo more than one hair transplant by strip method could experience stretching of the scalp. This means the scar resulting from the strip removal could look worse over time. This is why FUE is preferable especially for patients who seek a second hair transplant.
Hair Transplant Recovery
First, the donor area of the scalp is removed by cutting a strip of skin from the back of the head, then the skin is stapled back together, and last, the hair follicles are extracted one by one from the collected scalp section and transplanted to the new site. NeoGraft, the cutting-edge FUE-based technology, does away with most of these procedures. A hair transplantation machine eliminates the need for incisions to be sewn closed at the donor site and enables for the direct extraction of hair follicles by a trained technician. The extraction process leaves such minute holes that they close up and recover on their own.
Your response to the grafting technique and your personal medical history are two examples of variables that could affect how long it takes you to recover from FUE. The application of the numbing chemical causes minimal discomfort for most patients. Hair transplants using the NeoGraft method often cause very little discomfort during the treatment and even less when the patient’s scalp heals.
It is important to keep your follow-up appointments after a brow lift. Contact your doctor for questions and concerns between appointments. Call your doctor right away or seek immediate medical care if you have:
- Bleeding
- Breathing problems such as shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, labored breathing, or wheezing
- Change in alertness, such as passing out, unresponsiveness, or confusion
- Chest pain, chest tightness, chest pressure, or palpitations
- Fever. A low-grade fever (lower than 101 degrees Fahrenheit) is common for a couple of days after surgery. It is not necessarily a sign of a surgical infection. However, you should follow your doctor’s specific instructions about when to call for a fever.
- Inability to urinate, pass gas, or have a bowel movement
- Leg pain, redness or swelling, especially in the calf, which may indicate a blood clot
- Pain that is not controlled by your pain medication
- Unexpected drainage, pus, redness or swelling of your incision
How might brow lift affect my everyday life?
You will not be able to color, straighten, or perm your hair for at least a month after surgery. It is a good idea to get these hair treatments done before surgery.
A brow lift can make you look younger, more alert, and feel better about yourself. Many surgeons caution that it is important to be realistic about how much a brow lift may improve your self-image. It is important to be aware of what a brow lift can and cannot do for your overall appearance and self-image.
Is Hair Transplant Permanent
Within five to seven days of finishing therapy, you’ll be back to doing anything you like. Hair transplants are permanent and can be styled and colored normally.
You may think of the obvious, uneven hair plugs of yesteryear when you hear the term “hair transplants.” Nonetheless, hair transplantation techniques have advanced significantly during the past decade.
The results of a hair transplant are permanent and can be shown to endure a very long time.Those who have previously experienced substantial thinning of the hair on their head are the best candidates for the job.
Find out what to anticipate from a hair transplant, the many types of operations, and the final results in this detailed article.
Is it permanent?
Your skin needs time to repair after hair follicles are grafted into regions where hair is thinning. Some hair loss is to be expected in the first three months following the treatment.
But, once the donor area has healed, new hair will grow from the transplanted follicles, concealing the scars. This hair is the kind that grows normally as you age.
The hair follicles cannot be put back into their original position once they have been relocated. But, hair follicles that have been transplanted have a finite lifespan, just like your natural follicles. They might eventually cease growing new hair altogether.
Is there a chance you’ll need another?
It’s probable that you’ll need more hair transplant surgeries after the first one.
Some potential patients may be told by their surgeon that they will require numerous transplant “sessions” before they see the outcomes they desire.
When their first hair transplant has healed, some patients are so happy with the results that they opt to try to cover up even more bald spots.
Methodological Categories
The term “modern” refers to two distinct methods of hair transplantation.
Hair follicles are extracted from various points on the scalp and transplanted to bald or thinning areas during a Follicular Unit Extraction (FEU).
Both FUE and FUT hair transplants are permanent solutions.
Appearance
It will be some time before you can notice the outcomes of your hair transplant treatment. Your doctor or healthcare team should reassure you that this is typical.
Hair follicles from your own scalp will become visible once your hair transplant has fully healed. The hair will grow in and match the rest of your hair in texture and length. Micrograft hair transplants allow for styling, coloring, and cutting to suit individual taste.
What to expect long-term
Your hair transplant should hold up over the long-term.
If your hair thinning continues, your hairline won’t recede according to your former “pattern” of natural hair loss. Your provider should discuss with you, at length, the plan to make sure that your hair doesn’t look patchy or unnatural in the coming years after your hair transplant.
The general risks of surgery include:
- Anesthesia reaction, such as an allergic reaction and problems with breathing
- Bleeding, which can lead to shock
- Infection
Potential complications of a brow lift
Complications of a brow lift are not common but include:
- Emerging sutures that your doctor will need to manually remove (instead of dissolving on their own)
- Eye irritation or dryness and eyelid problems
- Eyebrow asymmetry
- Hair loss at the incision(s) and an elevated hairline
- Nerve injury of the face causing weakness, paralysis or numbness
- Pain, swelling and scarring
- Poor wound healing
- Skin loss and skin contour irregularities
Reducing your risk of complications
You can reduce the risk of some complications by following your treatment plan and:
- Following activity, dietary and lifestyle restrictions and recommendations before your procedure and during recovery
- Following your doctors instructions after surgery, such as elevating your head and applying cold compresses to reduce swelling
- Not smoking. Smoking increases your risk of poor wound healing and may compromise the aesthetic outcome of your procedure.
- Notifying your doctor immediately of any concerns such as bleeding, fever, increase in pain, or wound redness, swelling or drainage
- Taking your medications exactly as directed
- Telling all members of your care team if you have any allergies