Hair Transplant
Information about Hair Transplant Procedures

1st May 2008
Alex Wilson

It is getting more common for people to get hair transplant procedures as the methods keep improving. It is just less obvious than in earlier times when everyone could spot a person with bad hair plugs. Yet, there are still a few facts about hair transplant surgery that are not widely known.

1. A lot of men have balding issues. In fact, fifty percent of American men that are fifty years old or older are dealing with some amount of loss of hair. Hair problems in today's society beg to be conquered. Some do it by shaving their heads completely. Other people take the exact opposite route and have hair transplant surgery. Those who accept their baldness may have a healthy psyche, but they are slightly out of step with the rest of the world.

2. The procedure is permanent. If you decide you do not like the results, it is not as simple as taking off a wig to change your hair. You would have to go through many surgeries and your head may never look the same. This is why you should never accept any doctor's offer to do a few hair grafts and see how you like it before doing a full hair transplant surgery. Once you start, you are committed.

3. You need several days of rest afterward hair transplant surgery. Since the operation is so easy to endure, you might think that you can jump up and go right back to your regular activities. It is just your scalp after all, not muscle or bone. The truth is that you have many small wounds and you need to protect them.

4. Hair transplant can be a time-consuming commitment. Treatment can often last one to two years. Mega-sessions where thousands of grafts are done in one sitting help to shorten the overall time. However, the length of these sessions is often grueling.

5. Hair transplant surgery may be combined with other procedures. If you do not have enough hair, you cannot have a normal hair transplant surgery. However, there are other surgeries that can be used in conjunction with hair transplant to achieve similar results. The difference is that these procedures are generally more painful.

6. The grafts may not survive. Few surgeons will divulge to you the fact that hair grafts do not always survive after hair transplant surgery. The hope is that only a few will be lost and the overall result will not suffer. The reality is that is what usually happens.

7. Hair transplant treatments do not cost as much as you think. For example, you might reasonably spend $12,000 on a hair transplant. If you got it done at age 30 and died at age 70, you would have the transplant 40 years.

That would average out to $300 per year, or $25 per month. Many of the supposedly low cost treatments for hair loss cost much more than $25 per month. You would actually save by getting the hair transplant surgery done in the first place.