What Are Hair Transplant Procedures and Steps?

What Are the Hair Transplant Techniques?

It is a surgical procedure involving extracting hair follicles from the back of the head or another part of the body and implanting them on the hairless area. This procedure is also used for the hair transplantation of beard and eyebrows. There are two types of the hair transplant: Follicular Hair Transplantation (FUT) is a hair restoration technique, also known as the strip procedure and Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) is a type of hair transplant done by taking individual hair follicles from your skin and moving them to another part of your body where hair's thinner or absent.

Hair transplant with FUE Technique can be done in a single or several sessions according to the number of grafts needed to be implanted. It is a manual and a time-consuming process, but it gives a very natural look without leaving no scars or marks. Also, it is considered as a cost-effective process for both for the doctor and the patient regardless of the long operation time it might take to finish the surgery.

What Are the Steps before hair transplant?

1. General examination and tests

There will be a general health check and blood test to make sure the Patient is suitable and able to undergo such an operation. The Norwood scale is used to detect the extent of male pattern baldness. The possible outcomes may include Norwood 2, Norwood 3, Norwood 4, Norwood 5 and Norwood 6.

2. Meeting with the surgeon and determining the number of grafts.

First, there will be a meeting and having your hair examined by the surgeon. At this step, one may think “how many hair grafts do i need”. The surgeon is going to determine the number of grafts needed to be planted in the bald areas. The surgeon is going to discuss and design the frontal hairline that fits the patient's face.

How to prepare before hair transplant?

Patient should do and avoid the following before hair transplant surgery:

• Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol at least one week before the surgery.
• Stop taking any of the blood transfusions (Aspirin) at least 3 days before the surgery.
• Avoid any excessive work and stress.
• The patient should avoid having any heavy meals the day before the surgery.
• The doctor might give the patient other special advice as well upon his medical examination. And having a good night sleep the day before surgery is preferred as well.

What are the Hair Transplant Steps?

1. Preparing Donor area for Hair Transplant surgery

Before the hair transplant surgery is started, the donor area must be cleaned and prepared by washing and shaving down its hair. This process will be done by one of the medical team of your surgery. Once this process finishes, the donor area is going to be given a local anaesthesia.

2. Extracting follicles from the Donor area.

With the help of a micro punch tool, the follicles will be removed from the donor area, and it will be preserved in a special solution until transferring them into the recipient area.

3. Preparing the Recipient area

The surgeon will make a number of tiny incisions in the Recipient area where the extracted follicles will be inserted later with the help of a special small and sharp hair transplant tool named K.E.E.P. (Koray Erdogan Embedding Placer). This process generally takes approximately 1 to 2 hours depending on the number of grafts.

4. Planting the extracted follicles

The grafts will be inserted into the incisions by using a special tool one by one until all follicles are planted in the areas as it is planned before the surgery. After that the area will be cleaned and bandaged the area for recovery. During the previous steps there might be given breaks to make sure the patient is comfortable and relaxed.

5. Getting rest

After the previous steps are done, the patient can leave and go home to rest until the next session following the operation. The patient should not do any hard-physical activities and should get rest. The necessary medication (painkillers etc.) will be given by the doctor to be taken. Instructions will be given to patients in order to understand how to treat his recently planted grafts and how to wash hair in a way that would not harm the planted grafts and to make sure the process is completely successful.

Rehabilitation time

Hair transplant by FUE technique is a non-invasive surgery and its rehabilitation time is very fast. The patients will wash their hair every day once a day with cold water and shampoo and lotion provided by Asmed Clinic. Nevertheless, the scalp needs to be protected from sun. It is possible to go back to their normal life and activities after 10 days of the surgery. The final results should not take much longer than 9 months to 1 year to be seen. It is always preferred to keep the doctor aware of hair growth progress during this period.