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An Impartial Journalist Researches

Hair Restoration Telegraph Resources


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/hair-transplant-faq-ten-common-questions-hair-loss-procedures/

1. How much will it cost?


There are three obvious variants at play here: where you go to get it done, who performs the procedure, and the size of the area you need treating.

First, location. Travelling abroad has become popular with men seeking this surgery on the cheap, with options in Thailand, Turkey and India. Unfortunately, as with almost everything in life, you get what you pay for. Better to save up for longer and get something lasting than run the risk of a bodge job, in my opinion.

Second, the 'who' question. In the Europe and USA, there are countless reputable hair transplant surgeons. Some will charge more based on longevity and reputation, their surgery’s location and how up to date the equipment is that they use. Others will charge less and be just as effective and this is where extensive research comes in. Do your research and weigh up all options. The more reading, the better.

Lastly, the treatment area. If you only need to resolve a thinning, receding hairline, the cost will likely be in the region of £5,000-£8,000. If your hair is a long way gone and you need the entire top sorted then it’s likely you’re looking at a couple of larger procedures, costing £10,000-12,000 each.

Top tip: Don’t fall for the false economy. See a reputable doctor that you can easily travel to after the operation if needed.



2. Who should I go to for my surgery?


The million-dollar question. Anyone you ask will have their own recommendations and horror stories but you really must do your own research and due diligence. I recommend spending twelve months researching clinics and meeting patients. There are only a handful of clinics I would trust with my own head, so don’t rush in.

Top tip: Start by researching the International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons (IAHRS.org), which will help you find suitable surgeons in your area. If you must travel further afield, say to a major city outside your local vicinity, do what it takes to feel a hundred per cent sure. Choosing the right surgeon for you is the most important factor in your decision making process.



3. How much will it hurt?


Honestly, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised. When you read about the procedure, it seems a tad gruesome – but the fact is, there’s no pain with the surgery, just a little discomfort. Think of it like getting a filling done at the dentist. You have anaesthetic so there’s no pain but you may not like being at the dentist.

The discomfort comes from being in the chair for up to ten hours for the entire process to be completed, though you will get regular breaks.

Post-op, you might experience some mild pain but nothing that your standard painkillers can’t manage for a few days, just like with any minor surgical procedure.

Top tip: No pain, no gain. But it’s truly nothing to write home about.



4. How noticeable will the scarring be?


Follicular unit grafting requires tiny incisions to the recipient area and any resultant scarring is generally invisible to the untrained eye. There will also be a small scar from the donor area at the back of your scalp, but it will be hidden under existing hair.

Top tip: Ask your surgeon to show you photos of his work, including scarring, before deciding to go ahead. Meet patients too.



5. How long before signs of growth are visible?



Hair growth is a slow process, even in a person who doesn’t experience hair loss. After you have the procedure, initial signs of growth can take anything from three to four months due to the hair’s natural growing cycle. Beyond that, it’s all gravy! As your hair starts to grow, the full effects will take around eight months. At one year post-op, you’ll see the full effect.

Top tip: Keep your expectations in check and remember that hair is a bit like money: you will always want more.



6. Will everyone know?


You’ll need a minimum of three weeks out of the loop – or you can wear a hat – due to the healing process, as the surgical area will be red and a little obvious. The area will be shaved down to provide an ideal surgical environment and to protect existing hairs.

After the procedure, the hair grows in very slowly but as time passes, you’ll probably have people asking if you’ve lost weight; they’ll notice ‘something’ but won’t be able to pinpoint the physical change in you, especially if you’ve only had minimal work done.

Top tip: No need to tell anyone. Lots of guys get away with no one figuring it out.



7. Will the results be permanent?


The hair follicles that are transplanted are genetically-resistant against baldness so they will, in theory, continue to grow over your lifetime. However ...

Top tip: You'll still notice hair loss on different areas of your head, and may choose to explore the option of another transplant procedure in the future.



8. When will I need the next hair transplant?


This really depends on you. A useful approach is to build a solid foundation ahead of surgery by stablishing your hairloss through medical treatment, with a drug such as finasteride. This will give you a sense of your hair's stability, and prevent against further loss. Consult your doctor as a first port of call.

Top tip: Hair loss is progressive, so keep one eye on the long term when considered a transplant.



9. How long will I need to rest?


You’ll generally only need to take it easy for a couple of days after the procedure. Take it easy while allowing your body to recover.

Top tip: Avoid over-exerting yourself and leave the gym, running and any sexual activity for at least ten days.



10. Will I lose more hair because of the surgery in the area?


When work is done in areas where there is existing hair, you could possibly lose some of those hairs. It’s called ‘shock loss’ and happens especially if the hair is weak and miniaturising (which is why you’re having the work done in the first place). If your hair is too weak, it may not return, but if it’s strong, then it’ll remain.

Top tip: Choosing the right surgeon is vital as their skill levels can vary greatly.

The Main Global Organisation

Ishrs International Society Of Hair Restoration Surgery

https://ishrs.org/media/faq/

1. Can All Hair Loss Be Prevented?

You may be wondering if you can use home remedies for hair growth or if there are any effective natural hair growth remedies. A healthy, nutritious diet is a great place to start; vitamin and iron deficiencies can be detrimental, so eating a variety of vitamin-rich foods is one of the best home remedies for hair loss. However, studies show that most home remedies have mixed results, so consider other options.

If your hair loss is genetic, home remedies for hair growth are unlikely to be an effective treatment for baldness (you are more likely to have success with approaches such as medication, laser therapy, or hair transplantation surgery). It is a good idea to ensure you have a healthy lifestyle (for example, by reducing stress, smoking, and alcohol consumption, which can all cause or exacerbate hair loss). Avoid websites offering miracle cures, since they are rarely effective.

2. Will Everyone Be Able To Tell I’ve Had The Procedure Done?

If you feel squeamish about surgery, you are probably wondering about non-surgical hair replacement options. Depending on the cause of your hair loss, you may find that improving your nutrition, reducing stress levels, and treating undiagnosed illnesses or vitamin deficiencies may allow your hair to grow back. However, if your hair loss is caused by alopecia, you are less likely to find success with these non-surgical hair replacement techniques.

There are two main medications used as a treatment for baldness: Minoxidil and Finasteride. Other hair replacement options include laser combs and laser therapy at your physician’s office, although these hair loss cures have varying levels of success from one individual to another. Finally, if none of this works and you are set on avoiding surgery, you may consider experimenting with flattering hairstyles or simply shaving off the rest of your hair for a stylish new look.

3. How Much Does Hair Restoration Cost?

How much does a hair transplant cost? Individuals considering hair transplantation surgery often wonder about hair restoration prices. To determine the hair replacement cost, you must first decide on the type of procedure you are considering.

Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) will typically cost more than strip harvesting, but often results in a more natural appearance and involve less scarring and post-surgical pain. However, there are advantages and disadvantages to both procedures.

When considering hair replacement cost, it is important to keep in mind the value of the surgery. How much does the hair transplant cost when compared to an artificial hairpiece, or the long-term use of medical treatments like Rogaine, Finasteride, and/or laser therapy? Moreover, because the results are permanent, many people view the surgery as an investment in their appearance and overall happiness.

4. How Do I Find A Reliable Hair Loss Doctor?

If you are experiencing hair loss and want to learn more about your options, the best place to start is to consult a hair specialist. A hair loss doctor can help you determine the cause of your hair loss and let you know about different options for treatment. But how do you find reliable hair loss doctors?

It is recommended to consult with hair loss specialists who are certified physicians; this will ensure that they are well-trained in the medical field and will be able to provide expert answers regarding your medical options, including surgery (Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) or scalp flap surgery), medical treatments (Minoxidil and Finasteride), and other options.

As with any other doctor, be sure that you feel comfortable talking openly your hair specialist and asking any questions you may have.

5. How Do I Make Thin Hair Thicker?

Many people with thinning hair wonder how to make hair thicker. Thinning hair remedies range from actions you can easily take in the comfort of your own home to medical and surgical thinning hair treatment. The best option will typically depend on the cause of the hair loss, so it is important to consult your physician.

Here are some steps to consider for how to make your hair grow thicker. First, determine whether your stress level or dietary habits may be affecting your health. Second, ensure that you are not suffering from any illnesses, such as a thyroid disorder or iron deficiency. Next, you may consider using medical thinning hair remedies such as Rogaine or Finasteride. Finally, if these options prove insufficient and you are still left wondering how to make hair thicker, you may consider laser therapy or hair transplantation surgery.

6. How Do I Regrow Hair?

Men and women experiencing hair loss will often wonder about hair regrowth options. Hair regrowth treatment will vary depending on the cause of your hair loss. Because the reasons for thinning hair vary widely, the solution may range from making lifestyle changes (such as reducing stress or eating a more healthy, nutritious diet) to treating existing medical problems (such as thyroid disorders or anemia) or seeing a physician to discuss medical treatments like Minoxidil (commonly known as Rogaine) or Finasteride.

Hair regrowth for men and women can be stimulated using hair regrowth treatments such as laser therapy or laser combs. If none of these treatments are effective, surgical options such as follicular unit extraction (FUE) are also available. Hair regrowth for women may also be affected by pregnancy, so if you are a pregnant woman experiencing thinning hair, know that this problem will resolve itself in time.

7. How Do I Stop Hair Loss?

Many people experiencing hair loss want to find out how to stop losing their hair, or whether hair loss solutions are available. However, it is important to remember that the most effective remedies for hair loss will depend on its root cause. In some cases, stopping hair loss may simply require a change in lifestyle, such as reducing stress levels, quitting smoking, or cutting down on alcohol. In other cases, the best hair loss solutions may be medical, with the use of drugs like Minoxidil (also known as Rogaine) and Finasteride. And still others find success using laser therapy or laser combs.

In all cases, if you are wondering how to stop losing hair, the best place to start is to see a physician to determine what is causing the hair loss and which option is likely to work best for your situation.

8. What Causes Hair Loss In Men?

Men experiencing thinning hair will typically wonder about the reasons for their hair loss. So why do men lose hair? The causes of hair loss in men vary widely, but alopecia – genetically inherited, male pattern baldness – is what causes male baldness most often.

Nevertheless, there are many other reasons for hair loss, ranging from illness (including thyroid disease and anemia), medications (such as chemotherapy), and lifestyle, including stress, exposure to chemicals or UV rays, smoking, or the consumption of alcohol.

However, all of these factors will affect different individuals in various ways. For example, not everyone who experiences stress or has a family history of male pattern baldness will be affected in the same way. Thus, in most cases, the best option for determining the causes of hair loss in men is to see a physician.

9. What Are The Most Common Reasons For Hair Loss?

There are many possible reasons for hair loss, ranging from genetic to environmental. One of the most common hair loss causes is genetics, resulting in alopecia or male pattern baldness (which occurs in women as well as men). Although alopecia causes cannot be prevented, there are several possible approaches to addressing this cause of hair loss, including hair transplantation surgery, medications, and laser therapy.

In other cases, the reasons for hair loss may be related to an individual’s environment or lifestyle. Hair loss causes may include illness or disease (such as thyroid disease or anemia), certain medications (including chemotherapy), or lifestyle factors like smoking, stress, alcohol consumption or exposure to UV rays or chemicals. The best way to determine the cause of your hair loss is to see your physician.

10. Can Home Remedies Cure Baldness?

You may be wondering if you can use home remedies for hair growth or if there are any effective natural hair growth remedies. A healthy, nutritious diet is a great place to start; vitamin and iron deficiencies can be detrimental, so eating a variety of vitamin-rich foods is one of the best home remedies for hair loss. However, studies show that most home remedies have mixed results, so consider other options.

If your hair loss is genetic, home remedies for hair growth are unlikely to be an effective treatment for baldness (you are more likely to have success with approaches such as medication, laser therapy, or hair transplantation surgery). It is a good idea to ensure you have a healthy lifestyle (for example, by reducing stress, smoking, and alcohol consumption, which can all cause or exacerbate hair loss). Avoid websites offering miracle cures, since they are rarely effective.

11. Do Non-Surgical Hair Restorations Work?

If you feel squeamish about surgery, you are probably wondering about non-surgical hair replacement options. Depending on the cause of your hair loss, you may find that improving your nutrition, reducing stress levels, and treating undiagnosed illnesses or vitamin deficiencies may allow your hair to grow back. However, if your hair loss is caused by alopecia, you are less likely to find success with these non-surgical hair replacement techniques.

There are two main medications used as a treatment for baldness: Minoxidil (commonly known as Rogaine) and Finasteride. Other hair replacement options include laser combs and laser therapy at your physician’s office, although these hair loss cures have varying levels of success from one individual to another. Finally, if none of this works and you are set on avoiding surgery, you may consider experimenting with flattering hairstyles or simply shaving off the rest of your hair for a stylish new look.

Top 5 Things To Know About Hair Transplantation

https://ishrs.org/2019/07/12/top-5-things-to-know-about-hair-transplantation/

1. Are your expectations realistic?


This isn’t usually one of the first things that patients think about. They’re focused on what they’re seeing on websites and dreaming about having results just as good as what they see online. The truth is, there are limits to what can be accomplished with surgical hair restoration and this is usually down to one reason, supply and demand. The concept of supply and demand is quite simple in the context of surgical hair restoration.

Patients have a supply of donor hair that is finite and it’s a non-renewable resource. This means that once it is transplanted to the area of loss on top of the scalp, the hair is not replaced or regrown in the area where it was originally harvested. When we look at the balding scalps of many hair transplant patients, they have lost a number of hairs on top of the scalp that exceeds the number of hairs available and growing in the donor area.

This means that the doctor performing the surgery has to decide how to create the biggest cosmetic improvement with a limited amount of hair. He simply cannot replace each hair that has been lost on a one to one ratio because that amount of donor hair does not exist. This is why when you’re searching through various hair transplant galleries, you won’t see patients that have advanced hair loss regaining full heads of hair with their teenage hairlines.

But what about cases where there is minor hair loss, such as hairline recession? Are there enough grafts to restore a full head of hair in these cases? Yes, there are, but if the patient continues to lose more hair then the hairs that were used to create a low hairline with high density won’t be available for creating coverage in the areas of new loss as the patient ages. This is why doctors with proper training will avoid being too aggressive as there will always be a chance that more work will be needed in the future. If that happens, as a patient, you don’t want to be in a position where no more donor hair is available to give even light coverage on the balding scalp.

2. How long will be before you can return to work?


There is no single answer to this question as it depends on what you do for work and which procedure you have. In general, the minimum amount of time a patient should wait before going back to work is one week if the procedure performed was FUE, and two weeks if it was FUT (strip). FUT can be more physically invasive as a procedure so it may take longer to recover. Because there is wound closure performed during FUT, most clinics also require patients wait up to one to two weeks to have their sutures or surgical staples removed.

However, there are other considerations to keep in mind. With FUT, you generally do not have to shave your entire head. If you have a FUE hair transplant, many clinics will require that your head be shaved, either in part or completely, to properly perform the procedure. The reason for this is that it provides the surgeon a clear field of view of the donor region for efficient and safe follicle harvesting. The recipient area may also be shaved for the same benefits of having a clear field of view. For FUT, usually it is only the immediate area of strip excision that is shaved.

This allows the longer donor hair above the excision to cover the sutures or staples used for wound closure and will help to hide the donor region for the first couple of weeks of healing. If your clinic does not shave the recipient region for graft placement then you might be able to return to work even sooner than one week due to the lack of any visual evidence that you had surgery. But, if your clinic does require the recipient region to be shaved, then this can delay your return to work due to the inevitable hair styling complications that you’ll experience. Whichever procedure you decide to have, ask your doctor about the recovery time and down time that you’ll experience.

3. How many surgeries will I need?


This is question that oftentimes goes unasked as the patient will assume that one surgery is all they need for life, and that they can forget about their hair loss once their dream result grows in. Sadly, this is rarely the case. In reality, hair loss is a progressive issue. This means that once you start losing your hair, you will continue to lose your hair, at varying degrees, throughout your life. This is not referring to your transplanted hair but rather to the native hair that you haven’t lost yet.

There are medical therapies that one can consider but even then, there are no guarantees that your hair loss will completely stop. The probabilities will vary from patient to patient but the general rule of thumb is to always consider your hair transplant to be your first hair transplant and to not be too greedy with your hair restoration ambitions. Remember in tip #1, your donor hair is a finite resource, so conserving some of your donor hair for the future is always the best route to take.

4. Will you meet with the doctor before your procedure?


This is a question rarely asked but it is important to know if you’re going to speak with your doctor or with a consultant. Hair transplant consultants are an important part of any hair restoration practice but they should not be considered the final word when having a hair restoration consultation. Only a licensed physician should present medical advice, much less surgical recommendations.

Consultants should serve only as an educator about the hair transplant procedure you are considering only and are invaluable for answering basic questions that pertain to the specific clinic you are considering. The advantage to having a qualified physician present your surgical recommendations is that the physician has a chance to visualize your case personally and only through their experience and training can a legitimate surgical plan be formulated.

5. Will a doctor or a technician perform your hair transplant?


This is one of the most important questions you should ask. This question has more to do with FUE procedures and not FUT procedures as only physicians can physically remove a donor strip. With FUE, there has been an explosion of new clinics worldwide due to the low financial and resource investment required to get started, and with this difference, more unscrupulous persons have seen the opportunity to cut corners.

The ISHRS strongly urges you to consider the ramifications that can come from having unlicensed medical professionals performing your hair transplant surgery. FUE hair transplant surgery is real surgery and comes with all of the potential downsides presented by any surgery. The question you should be asking yourself is: Would you feel safer with an experienced doctor performing your hair transplant surgery, or an unlicensed technician who may have little medical knowledge and training?
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