stop hair loss

Every hair loss newbe starting to conduct his own research into the most effective hair loss treatments has got one thing in the back of his mind – to find a pill that would be harmless in terms of its potential side effects but effective in regrowing lost hair. Topical applications are less desirable due to uncomfort of using them let alone hair transplantation. By the time he gets to the next stage of identifying the most suitable treatment he understands that a topical application would be a necessary component of any hair regrowth strategy. It is only after many hours of tedious hair loss research and dissapointnents with some ineffective treatments that he acknowledges the fact that hair transplantation is the only way of restoring his old glory naturally.

So let’s cut the long story short – why don’t we realise right away that the only way is the proven hard way. The best that the hair restoration science has to offer today are two FDA approved medications for maintaining and in some lucky individuals also regrowing some of their lost hair and hair transplantation. Hair transplantation or hair surgery is at the moment the ony ultimate method of restoring lost hair due to the hereditary factors. Hair transplantation has many limitations though. It is not suitable for alopecia areata patients, it does not work too well for women who are usually suffering from diffuse form of hair loss and it is not suitable for patients who have thin hair in the back of their head. However, for the most male patients hair restoration, abstracting from the pain and the cost involved, is the ultimate hair restoration option available today as transplanted hair is permanent; it is your own genetic material and therefore looks natural and feels like your own. And it can cover your bald area in a few weeks, which no other permanent treatment can achieve.

The currently available medical options for regrowing lost hair in people suffering from hereditary forms of baldness are limited to relatively few products which are most effective in the early stages of baldness. Once you have lost a substantial portion of hair due to hereditary factors or an accident, such as a burn, the only remaining option is to replace the missing hair. Your options can be either of a temporary nature, such as the use of various hair systems and hair loss concealers, or a permanent surgical solution. Hair transplantation happens to be the most effective way of surgical hair replacement and the only permanent solution that delivers satisfactory results.

Hair transplantation surgery consists in transplanting your own hair from the back of your scalp to the balding area. The core limiting factor of hair transplantation is the shortage of donor hair and, therefore, many patients do not make a good candidate. The suitable hair transplant candidate should have a high hair density in the back of the scalp, his hair should be wavy and thick, his scalp flexible and the contrast between the colour of his hair and scalp should not be too great, and he must be in good physical condition. Women often suffer from a diffuse form of hair loss and, therefore, do not make very good hair transplant candidates. Hair transplant surgery also cannot be performed on patients suffering from unpredictable forms of hair loss such as alopecia areata.

Given the chronic shortage in the supply of donor hair, the hair transplant surgeon must be able to utilise the little hair he can use to create the optical illusion of a full head of hair. This presents one of the biggest risks in hair transplantation, as it can every so often happen that the patient does not like the final result. Although you can usually arrange for another hair transplant session, some damage can be irreparable. Other risks and side effects occurring during and after hair surgery include excessive bleeding and scarring, the lengthy healing of wounds, the transaction and eventual death of many implanted hair follicles, post transplant shock hair loss, which, though temporary, can affect your newly-implanted hair as well the hair in the donor area, scalp numbness and tension and the further progression of hair loss post surgery, which can lead to unnatural patterns of baldness. In one recent study, which evaluated the experiences of 425 hair transplant patients who had undergone 533 hair transplant procedures in total, it was determined that about 5% of the patients experienced complications either during or after surgery.

Hair transplants can cost around ten thousand dollars, depending on the technique used, the location and reputation of the clinic, the extent of hair loss and the number of hair transplant sessions needed to achieve the desired effect. However, sometimes it is impossible to estimate the final cost, which represents another risk you take when deciding on hair surgery. Given the pain, time and cost involved, it appears necessary to educate oneself prior to signing up for hair transplant surgery. The hair transplant industry is a fast-growing segment and the quality and affordability of hair surgeries are improving, so do not let anybody push you into hasty uninformed decisions.

Halting and reversing hair loss is to many of us a distant dream. However, there are existing options for replacing lost hair and some of them may seem surprisingly effective even to the most sceptical hair loss sufferer. The three main methods of hair restoration include surgical hair restoration, non-surgical hair replacement and therapies for regrowing hair using pills and topicals. The core technique of surgical hair restoration today is hair transplant surgery, whereas wigs, hairpieces, hair thickeners and hair loss concealers are the popular aids used to replace the lost hair by non-surgical means. The non-surgical camouflage is obviously the fastest and the least expensive method of replacing lost hair, though not too popular, as many people believe that wigs and concealers cannot withstand rain and wind and do not look natural enough. In spite of this common prejudice, some of them are extremely resistant to external influences and can appear very authentic. Hairpieces and concealers are often the only option of restoring lost hair for people suffering from non-hereditary forms of hair loss such as unpredictable alopecia areata.

Hair transplantation is the most expensive method of restoring lost hair but also the most satisfactory solution that brings back your youthful appearance quickly and naturaly. It can only be used in people suffering from hereditary baldness and burn patients. Candidates are required to have sufficient hair density at the back of their scalp and many women suffering from female form of hair loss with its typical diffuse balding pattern do not meet this condition. Hair restoration surgery has made great strides in the past twenty years or so with the introduction of the two main techniques used today - follicular unit transplantation and, more recently, follicular unit extraction. These advances in hair transplantation techniques enable the grouping of hairs very close together, which gives today’s hair transplants a completely natural look. The main weakness of hair transplant surgery, besides the cost and the pain involved, is the limited supply of donor hair and the need for multiple surgery sessions to achieve the final change. Furthermore, patients have to commit themselves to the use of finasteride or any other adequate hair loss therapy for the rest of their lives to prevent further loss of hair in areas adjacent to the transplanted area.

Topicals and pills do not, despite significant scientific advances and the discoveries of recent years, provide satisfactory hair restoration results yet. The two most frequently prescribed hair loss drugs, finasteride and topical minoxidil, can be effectively used to reduce hair loss in many patients but their ability to regrow lost hair is insufficient. Their effectiveness generally declines sharply in the later stages of the balding process. There is no existing medicinal or natural hair loss remedy that can deliver adequate visual results comparable to either hair transplant surgery or non-surgical hair replacements such as wigs and concealers. Although there are some promising medicinal hair loss drugs currently under development, mainly in the area of genetic research, the ultimate pill for baldness is not expected to become commercially available within the next fifteen years. Other advances in hair science, such as hair multiplication, often called hair cloning or the generation of new hair follicles in wounds, also hold out some promise but it appears that hair transplant surgery will in the next ten to fifteen years remain the most popular method of hair restoration.

The first hair transplants were performed in Japan back in the 1930s. In the old days of hair transplant surgery relatively large pieces of skin of four millimetres in diameter, the so called punch grafts, were transplanted from the back of the scalp to the frontal balding area. Hair transplantation technology has evolved tremendously since then and today’s hair transplants can give you a completely natural look. This is largely due to the miniaturisation of hair transplants, which now contain only one hair follicle (holding between one and four hairs) and are less than one millimetre in diameter. These tiny, single follicle grafts are then implanted into the needle-made incisions in the bald area. Today’s technology enables dense packing of hair follicles, which gives you a completely natural-looking frontal hairline. Gone are the days of “pluggy” grafts that made you look like a toothbrush.

The two main technologies that are used today are called Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT) and Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE). The main difference between them is in harvesting hair follicles. The FUT is the older method, using strip harvesting, when a linear strip of skin of up to 20 centimetres long and 1.5 centimetres wide is removed from the back of the scalp and the opening is then sewn closed. This strip is then placed under special dissecting microscopes and cut into small grafts, containing just one follicular unit each. Such follicular grafts are then implanted into the bald area. The advantage of this method is its high yield, measured as a percentage of the follicles that are successfully transplanted into the balding area. This yield is around 98%. The greatest weakness is that it leaves the patient with a linear scar at the back of the head. The FUT is less expensive than the FUE and is used when a large area needs to be filled with transplanted hair in one single session.

The FUE technique uses a micro-extraction technology to harvest individual hair follicles that can be directly implanted into the small needle-made poke holes in the bald area. The FUE technique is the latest technology, introduced in 2002. Its greatest benefit is the fact that it leaves the patient with only tiny scars at the back of the head, which are barely visible with naked eye, and the healing time is significantly shorter than with the FUT, due to the small size of the wounds. However, this method cannot be used to cover large areas in one session and it is more expensive. Additionally, its yield is much lower, due to the transaction of many follicles, and since the supply of donor hair is limited, it cannot be used in patients whose hair loss has progressed above NW4 level.

Potential future surgical hair restoration techniques, such as hair multiplication and the generation of new hairs in wounds of hair-free skin, should help solve the problem with the limited amount of donor hair. It seems that hair transplantation will in the long future only be used for frontal hairlines and, therefore, the follicular harvesting should manage to provide a sufficient supply of hair implants. However, none of the aforementioned potential future techniques is expected to become commercially available before 2012. Therefore, the immediate future probably lies in improving the harvesting methods of the FUE in order to improve its yields and make it financially more affordable. The FUT with its strip harvesting, which started a revolution in the hair transplant industry less than two decades ago, may become history in the not too distant future.