What To Expect During a Hair Transplant From Beginning to End?
Surgical
hair restoration is an outpatient surgical procedure
that allows individuals to leave the same day. The
length of the procedure depends on several factors.
This includes the donor harvesting technique, The size
of the surgical team, implantation of the follicular
units, how many graphs the patient is receiving for
the day and the experience of the surgeon and his or
her staff. In this article, we will go over what to
expect during hair transplant surgery from beginning
to end.
Donor Harvesting
Follicular Unit Strip Surgery (FUSS) is a donor
harvesting technique that is performed by removing a
strip of donor tissue from the sides and back of the
scalp. The donor tissue is then dissected under
microscopes and transplanted into tiny recipient
incisions made by the surgeon in the balding/thinning
area. Generally,
the donor harvesting portion of strip surgery can be
performed within a few hours depending on the amount
of grafts that are being transplanted.
Follicular Unit Excision is performed by removing the follicular units
one by one with the use of a small punch. This
surgical technique is more time consuming because the
grafts must be delicately extracted one by one;
depending on the amount of grafts that must be excised
the procedure can take several hours and sometimes up
to 10-12 hours.
Number of Grafts Needed
Another
important factor to consider is the amount of grafts
that need to be extracted and transplanted.
Individuals with minor hair loss can have a small
procedure over and done with on only a few hours.
Conversely, individuals with extensive hair loss
require a large donor harvesting with thousands of
grafts being extracted. Generally, larger surgical
sessions can take up to 8-10 hours maybe more
depending on the hair transplant surgeon/clinic.
Hair Restoration Goals
Lastly,
it is important to factor in the pre-surgery
consultation that includes the surgical plan for the
day and long-term strategy or master plan. In some
cases, some patients do not have the opportunity to consult hair transplant Surgeons face to face, This is because they’re travelling far distances to have
surgery. In these circumstances, surgeons usually take
an hour before surgery to go over the goals and to
ensure the patient’s expectations are realistic and
can be met through surgery. At this time, patients are
able to ask their surgeon specific questions regarding
their procedure and what they can expect after
surgery.
Generally,
after the face-to-face consultation and masterplan is
discussed at great lengths and in detail. The
physician’s surgical staff and technicians will take
the patient to the surgical room and trim or shave the
donor area depending on the harvesting technique. At
this time, patients are able to again discuss the
hairline placement and ask for the surgeon to be more
aggressive or conservative depending on their goals.
The consultation process can add 1-2 hours to the
procedure time overall.
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