One of the concerns everyone has when contemplating the hair transplantation procedure is the hair transplant recovery time and what that means for day to day life while the new hair is growing. Of course the majority of this concern comes from the horror stories when doctors were just starting out developing the hair transplant techniques that would be used to increase hair growth for balding men. At that time, in the 1950’s, micro-surgery was in the distant future and the only way to transplant hair was to actually remove sections of scalp and then sew this entire section into the balding area. This was really a major surgery and required an extensive recuperation time. This is much more advanced now with the new procedures that have been perfected.
The biggest change to hair transplant surgery recovery time is the changes in how the hair follicles are harvested from the donation area that is at the back of the head. As I said above, it used to be that the surgeon would actually cut out a round plug of the scalp with ten to twenty hairs still growing. A fairly major incision would then be made in the scalp where the balding was taking place and the plug of scalp would be inserted into the incision and then sewn up. This left a round hole at the back of the head which then also needed to be sutured shut. Since several of these plugs would need to be utilized to get hair coverage it was necessary to close up many of these holes in the scalp. As you can imagine this left many ugly wounds and the patient ended up with bandages for many days. Also, the insertion point required several sutures so there would be a major wound spot at each of these areas also. Basically the patient looked as thought he had been in battle.
As the permanent hair transplant procedures became more advanced these wound areas decreased in size. Now when a patient receives the hair loss transplants there is hardly any wound at all where the individual follicles are inserted. The doctor uses a specially designed medical instrument which creates the incision point in the scalp and also inserts the hair follicle at the proper orientation. No longer does hair transplant regrowth look like tufts of hair sticking up every which way. Instead, the surgeon will insert the follicles in such a way that the resulting hair shafts growth will follow the directional growth of the surround hair. This give a very natural and unnoticeable look to the hair transplants.
The wounds from the removal of the hairs has also been drastically reduced for the standard hair loss transplants that are removed from the scalp in a larger group. The team will now remove a latitudinal strip at the posterior area of the head and then individually remove the follicles and their associated support structures. Once the follicular unit is prepared it will then be transported to the surgeon who will do the actual hair implantation process. The wound where this strip is removed is very small and easily sutured shut. The hair growing above the line naturally falls down and covers it hiding the small scar from others. The tiny scar line can also be lessened by the use of scar softening applications.
The newest type of hair transplantation is the follicular unit extraction method. This actually has a very competitive hair transplant cost. This method uses a medical device that actually removes the follicular unit from the scalp along with all supporting structures without an actual incision. Instead, the device leaves only a very small pin prick size hole that heals within a few days. The surgeon then can implant the hairs in the exact opposite manner with which they were removed. This of course gives a very short recovery time.
Please don’t be misled by the old scary stories of the original hair plugs. You do not need to worry about anything close to the wounds those patient’s received. The new methods offer a hair transplant recovery time measured in days not weeks.