You would like to have a better look via changing your hair and you are considering getting a hair transplant surgery. Hair transplant is a great solution to get your full hair back. Before deciding on your treatment you may need to check the below mentioned 7 things and decide only after you are knowledgeable.
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Is your donor area rich enough for hair transplant?
As you know, during hair transplants, your surgeon cannot create new hair follicles but they can change their place on the scalp. During the hair transplant surgery, the hair strands on the back of the head, between the ears, are collected and replaced on to the scalp. So for the extraction, the density is key, to know how many hairs can be collected. The first step to get a good result is having an efficient donor area. If you need 4000 follicular extractions to be transferred onto your scalp but you have 2000, it means you do not have enough follicular replacement for a full closure. So, the first thing to do, is to do a proper evaluation. In Global Medical Care, we do this control by using a computer aided system and then we get the opinion of 3 different doctors. Therefore our estimation accuracy is 98.7%.
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What is your stage and type of hair loss?
If the donor area is rich enough for your needs and you are above 20 years old, you may have this procedure. You do not need to wait to lose all your hair before doing it. Actually a hair transplant surgery will create new blood veins in your scalp and will slow down your current hair loss too. So, how much hair you lost or whether your hair loss stopped or not, aren’t factors affecting your hair procedure. The earlier you can get it, the easier you’ll overcome hair loss, the less bald you will be known by others and the higher chances you’ll have for a full hair restoration.
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Do you have any health problems that may limit the operation results?
If you aren’t healthy, you can still get this procedure done. But if some diseases aren’t under control (diabetes, heart, blood pressure, kidney failure, chronic diseases etc.), they may limit or eliminate the hair growth. In these cases, the best step to take, is to perform a detailed control by the surgeon who will be performing the surgery.
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Do you have realistic expectations?
Nowadays, it’s commonly seen that thousands of places offer a big change using great before and after photos. Please note that your results will be unique and individualized, so it hugely depends on your situation. Therefore any follicular hair transplant candidate shouldn’t think of his personal results via looking at another individual’s photos. A decent hospital and surgeon will clearly tell you what you can achieve afterwards. Latest research shows that even if enough follicular unit replacements (hairs) are collected, the majority of the hair transplants with more than 4250 grafts fail, as the scalp is not able to feed all the new hairs and grafts instantly. Thus you should not buy into dreams, if these are not realistic and doable.
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Do you know how to choose the right place for hair transplants:
Don’t forget that this operation is a surgical process where some of your follicular tissues are transferred onto another location on the scalp. Since the source of these follicular units are your own hair, you will, unfortunately, lose all the extracted grafts in a procedure done at a bad surrounding. The choice of hospital and surgeon is very important because this is an irreversible and irreparable situation.
You may find it illogical but our experience has shown us that even in some European hospitals and removed graft can be thrown away, as the operation takes too long and the surgeon is bored. Others lie about the number of implants used on the scalp. Although the person’s file indicates that 3000 implants were transferred on to the scalp, unfortunately, the result will not match the limited advancements over time. There is no way to compensate for an irreversible damage caused by a lack of follicle harvesting or throwing away the hairs after extraction.
Thus you need to have a deep knowledge on how to choose a hospital or surgeon for this operation. As this is a very detailed topic we liked to have a separate article for this. Please click here to read it.
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Do you know which is the right technique (DHI, FUE, FUT or others) to choose:
There are two major methods widely selected nowadays. FUE – Follicular Unit Extraction and DHI – Direct Hair Implant. None of these techniques are obsoletely better than the other. Both the FUE technique and the DHI technique have their own advantages and disadvantages.
With DHI, only up to 3500 follicles can be implanted at one time but the transplantation area should not be shaved. This means that, if the receiving area has major thinning, unfortunately, the results of DHI surgeries will not be enough for a full restoration. This step is generally advised for the candidates who require to just increase the density of their hair or for women.
Typically with FUE, up to 6000 grafts can be put on to the scalp in one session, but the full hair should be shaved.
Several people may claim that the DHI method can result in a better natural hair look than the FUE technique. They base this point of view on the fact that the hair direction can be defined in DHI and not with FUE. This is completely wrong. The growing angle of the hair can be defined in both FUE and DHI methodologies perfectly, if the surgeon is experienced enough. This is proven by our +40.000 patient count. When we compare DHI and FUE end results, we do not observe any difference.
Both have their own unique features for personal needs.These features never made one better than the other. In short, both techniques of transplantation were developed based on the patients’ conditions and needs. You can only get the most accurate information on this subject by consulting an experienced and qualified hospital and clinics, with doctors’ interpretations based on the hair photos you have taken. But we can easily give you guidance:
- If your hair is long, you do not have any balding areas and your aim is to increase the density of your hair, choose DHI.
- If you have severe baldness or alopecia on your head and you need to cover widely bald areas choose FUE.
On the other hand the system of hair transplant is constantly being renewed to improve the end result. The latest system surgeons use is “4 in 1”. With this method, which uses the latest grafting technology, the quality of the grafts increase, there is no scarring, bleeding is minimal, the team can place up to 60-100 hair unit per cm2 and up to 6000 grafts on a patient, whose donor area is suitable, so without several sessions a successful operation can be promised.
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Do you know about complementary treatments that change the results?:
It is medically proven that post procedure services will support the hair transplant and have positive effects on the future result. For example, the therapy called PRP or platelet-rich plasma, is a service which is performed by injecting the plasma taken from the patient’s own blood into the tissue. It can be used for aesthetic reasons such as skin rejuvenation, to minimize the look of a scar or just to support a hair transplant procedure. Especially after a hair transplant operation, the doctor has to do this when the canals are still open.
The decrease in some vitamins and values in our body may also affect the hair transplantation and minimise the potential of positive results. For this reason, hair transplant patients are recommended to use a product like biotin or multivitamins after their procedures. This way, the transplanted graft can hold within several days and heal a lot faster, and the fine baby hair formed by transplanted roots becomes stronger faster.
We strongly recommend any candidate to check these and learn more about the hair surgery steps before they decide on their operation, as these things are crucial to define your aptitude and will help you decide on the best solution for you.
