Baldness is an old problem that goes back many centuries and former generations always tried to find a solution. For a long time perukes meant the best way to hide baldness. As technology developped hairless people received good news: a brandnew technique was invented called hair transplantation. At the beginning surgery was a terrifying process and success rate was not too promising. But as time passed new modern techniques were developed so that more and more people are willing to go under knife and forget about baldness for a lifetime.
Still many of us live their lives without hair as operation always has a certain risk factor. It needs a lot more refinement to attract more patients. On the other hand many alternative treatments have been developed to hide bald spots on the head but none of them proved to be ever lasting. Hereunder we will talk about some up-to-date hair transplantation surgery techniques that are widely used to treat baldness.
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FUT vs FUE – Strip harvesting versus follicle unit extraction
One of the most common techniques of hair transplant is strip harvesting. In this technique you need to find a donor who can be any person with good hair growth as new hair strips are removed from the donor side. First the surgeon has to examine the donor site precisely to find green areas. Green regions are those scalp areas that have the best hair growth due to good blood supply. The following step is strip harvesting which is the most crucial part of the surgery: after marking green areas, the surgeon harvest the strips from donor site by a single, doubled or tripled bladed surgical scalpel.
It is very important to keep the follicles alive to reach success. If the follicles are damaged during the operation the transplant will not be successful or it may even cause infection after surgery. That is why it is quite a crucial intervention including more risk. Comparing other alternatives available in the market it is a low cost treatment therefore exercised popularly worldwide. Donors also do not need to worry as they will gain back hair on harvested areas.
Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) is a different procedure from strip harvesting. It is a more advanced and more accurate process that needs more micro hair transplant tecnological expertise. During the surgery individual follicle units are harvested from donor site and then they are implanted in the patient’s scalp. It gives you a fairly natural look and nobody ever tells wether it is real bunch of hair or transplanted one.
It is a costly and time consuming procedure but has more success rate compared to the former type of hair transplant. You will notice hair growth after a month or two and complete hair sprouts come out in a year time. The most risky and scary thing if your follicles die before sprouting. If a follicle dies at one pore, the same pore can never give a sprout anymore and becomes infertile forever. That is why it is extremely important to follow the prescribed rules of post surgery care including the use of medicated scalp care products.