A hair transplant involves moving skin that is growing hair from one part of your scalp to another part of your scalp where hair is no longer growing. The process is similar to the type of grafting that is used to treat burns and other skin damage. In order to achieve the most natural-looking results, your surgeon will transplant the hair in naturally-occurring groups or “follicular units.” Once the hair-growing skin has been moved to the balding area of the scalp, the hair is expected to continue to grow.

Are You a Good Candidate?

Cosmetic surgeons agree that the best candidates for a hair transplant are individuals who have experienced noticeable hair loss on the top of the head while still maintaining healthy hair growth along the sides and back of the head. These are the areas from which your plastic surgeon will harvest the “donor” hair and move it to the area in which the hair loss has occurred.

Hair on the sides and back of the head tends to be more resistant to male pattern baldness and is more likely to grow through the entirety of a man’s life. By moving this hair to the top and front of the head, a surgeon can deliver not only hair that looks just like (because it is) your natural hair, but will also grow in a natural way.

Benefits

The latest hair transplant techniques offer extremely natural-looking results. Rather than the “hair plugs” that became easy fodder for sitcoms in the 80s and 90s, surgeons now use variable sizes of hair grafts applied with state-of-the-art precision instruments to mimic your hair’s natural growth patterns.

Hair loss, particularly when it occurs prematurely, can have a significant impact on your self-esteem. According to the American Hair Loss Association, most men who’ve experienced hair loss are extremely unhappy with their situation and would be willing to do almost anything to change it.  Hair loss can make men feel that they are perceived as less strong, less energetic, less successful and less attractive to women. Many believe that their lives would be better if they had more hair. A youthful hairline again can make you feel as though you’ve been given back your youth—you are likely to have more confidence in social situations, feel more attractive, and in general, experience an enhanced quality of life.

Hair restoration may also have some surprising social benefits as well. Studies show that hair loss is often associated with negative stereotypes. You may be perceived as weaker, less successful or older than you really are. Although attitudes toward baldness are changing, most men who undergo hair transplant surgery believe that they are perceived in a more positive light following the procedure.

Risks

Hair transplant surgery is generally safe, and, in most cases, is highly effective. However, the procedure is certainly not without risks. As with any type of surgery, there is a possibility of developing an infection. Infections are rare and most frequently occur when the patient doesn’t follow the doctor’s instructions for post-surgical home care. If an infection does occur, it can usually be treated with a course of antibiotics.

A less physically significant but still troublesome risk is the possibility of unexpectedly slow or sparse hair growth in response to the surgery. If this occurs, your surgeon will likely recommend repeating the procedure to see if he or she can achieve a better result. No one knows why some hair transplants fail in this way, but it is important to follow your doctor’s instructions for at-home follow-up treatment in order to give yourself the best possible chance for successful continued hair growth.

Scarring, though your surgeon will make an attempt to minimize it, can be an issue with hair transplant surgery. Whether or not you will have visible scars depends on a number of factors—the skill of the surgeon, the placement of the excision in the donor areas, and your own ability to heal.

Changes in pigmentation (darkening) in the area of the transplant are possible as well, and are more common in patients with darker skin. Because of this possibility, your doctor may advise you to take extra precautions with regard to sun exposure for some time after your procedure.

The Bottom Line

Hair transplant surgery has come a long way since the days of visible plugs and social stigma. Today’s surgical techniques make it possible to get a full, natural-looking hairline in a single procedure.

It’s a big issue with men (half of American men experience hair loss), and it can also be a big issue with women – maybe even bigger, you could argue, because women aren’t popularly thought to experience hair loss.

The aging process: it’s one of the key causes of hair loss – at least in men. But with men heredity is a big player, too. It’s not exactly true (scientifically) that a man will inherit his maternal grandfather’s hair condition. But hair loss somewhere in the family can be a good sign of what’s to come.

For women, hormonal changes can cause hair loss.

Other hair loss causes include the following:  Thinning of the hair; alopecia areata (when the immune system attacks hair follicles); and scarring alopecia (when the hair follicles burn out and poof disappear).

What are hair loss treatments?

A number of surgical procedures can restore hair where it no longer exists, or where it is markedly thinner than other parts of the scalp.

What’s called a scalp flap is a popular option to treat male pattern baldness.

But there’s a new alternative to the clumpy transplantation procedures of the (fairly recent) past: it’s called micro hair transplantation, and it basically restores hair to the bald scalp much in the same way as large plugs. What’s different is that instead of those bulky transplants, micro hair transplantation takes individual micro-grafts of hair – literally single hair follicles, one by one – and transplants them in the bald scalp.

You can also get a scalp reduction, which involves the surgical removal of hairless scalp, followed by the pulling together and stretching of scalp that is rich with hair growth.

With scalp expansion, expanders filled with a saline solution are placed under the scalp. The saline expands the tissue. Stretched-out scalp tissue can make it easier for a surgeon to later perform scalp reduction.

If you’re looking for a more minor, or modest, addition of hair to bald places, you can benefit from punch-grafts, mini-grafts, micro-grafts, slit-grafts, and strip-grafts. But if you’re looking for a more significant, fuller treatment to baldness, you may want to consider flaps, tissue-expansion, or scalp reduction.

Micro skin grafts are the most popular treatment because their results look most natural and it’s virtually impossible for others to notice them. This is because, as noted above, they involve grafting single follicles at a time.

And, yes, the cost. It’s quite a range — from $3,000 to $15,000. Depending on the treatment you choose, of course.

Who would want to go through with this?

It’s pretty easy to understand how and why men feel self-conscious when they lose their hair. Hair is a symbol of virility and youth. So imagine how women feel when they experience hair loss!

Plenty of men (and women, too) are unfazed by their hair loss. Believe it or not, but many men actually derive confidence from baldness because they are proud of the aging process. Go figure.

Nonetheless, hair loss treatments are certainly sought after: The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery found that in 2008 surgeons performed 18,062 hair transplants.

The pros and cons:

A few pros and cons:

• Hair loss treatment can result in a boost in self-esteem.
• But no surgery can be expected to be perfect, and hair transplants are no exception. Numbness can persist in the donor and recipient areas of the scalp. It’s usually expected to go away in three months, but it can remain for six months to a year.
• The skin on the scalp could discolor.
• Some patients don’t even have enough hair to donate to their own bald scalps.
• And hair restoration procedures and drugs aren’t covered by insurance.

The bottom line:

There are many different types of hair loss treatments designed for men and women. The cost can be pretty high, and each procedure comes with its own list of risks. But it just might be the way to get back that youthful sense of confidence.