This is a basic article on how modern hair transplantation works, with a quick look back at the history of hair restoration to understand how far we are today. When a lot of my patients come to me, they just don’t know how a hair transplant works and what they need to do to maintain their outcome over time.
Back to the top. In Japan in 1939 and 1942, Okuda and Tamura discovered that hair transplanted to the back of the head to restore pubic hair loss would survive and grow. Due to the rituals of public baths in Japan and an illness in young Asian women suffering from pubic hair loss, this type of transplant has been shown to be an important step in knowing that the hair transplanted from an area of the body American to another would prosper and survive. . It wasn’t until the famous New York dermatologist Norman Orentreich in the 1950s that the hair that ran from the back of the head to the front of the head, where there is baldness, did not been lost. Time like the original hair there. He called this phenomenon “donor dominance,” which means that hair that is moved from the back of the head to an area with a genetic predisposition to hair loss will retain the properties of the donor hair and will not be lost. with hair loss. Time. It was the brilliant breakthrough we needed to know the results would continue to survive despite transplanting to an area prone to hair loss.
If you are wondering why the hair on the back of the head is not prone to hair loss? Well, God only knows. It doesn’t matter what it is. Think about the baldest man you know (who has not shaved the back of his neck). He still has a lock of hair there. Even the baldest man had a horseshoe on the back of his head. The only trick with a hair transplant then is to know which area is “safe” for the transplant, that is, which area is not lost over time as the person ages. This is one of the main reasons why a transplant from a person over the age of 20 can be problematic. We just don’t know how much hair on the back of the head will not fall out over time. We may also run out of donor hair to transplant the front of the head and achieve a natural result as more hair (which was not transplanted) falls out with age.
This judgment is really one of the main characteristics that separate an experienced hair transplant surgeon from a novice. Knowing who needs surgery (i.e. who is safe and who is not) is an essential prerequisite for performing a hair transplant safely. With the laws of supply and demand, someone who has a high density of donor hair, that is, there are a lot of hair follicles per square centimeter in the donor area, covers in many cases a great degree of baldness in a natural and impressive way. Careful use of the grafts by a surgeon in a good pattern distribution with good angulation allows the result to be both natural and dense when considering a particular person’s degree of hair loss and loss. of donor usable hair care hair.
The other question that is often asked is, “Will the transplanted hair be exactly like the other hair I have there that has not been transplanted? Will I cut it the same way as my other? hair?” “” The answer is a categorical yes. I further explain that in a hair transplant, the hair is simply moved from one side of the head to the other, like taking a flower from one pot and moving it to another. He will grow up in his new environment as in the old one. Although the number of hairs transplanted does not exactly match the hairs lost, the correct technique of the surgeon can make 5000 transplanted hairs (a normally large session) look like 50,000 hairs lost (the onset of hair loss at the point of where Baldness becomes visible.)