Although the first tries at transplanting hair took place about 120 years ago, transplants were not really effective until less than ten years ago and there is a good argument for claiming that it is not even as long ago as that.
120 years ago, the transplants did not last at all. 80 years ago, eyebrow transplants were moderately good. 50 years ago, results were erratic and even 20-30 years ago, hair transplants looked like clumps of scrub grass on a garbage plot of land
All this has changed with micro grafting and at long last, hair transplants are looking natural. The micro grafting technique of transplanting hair is fairly new and is really just one of a assortment of new techniques that are being used these days.
In the past, hair was transplanted in clumps of 15-25 hairs, but now hairs are transplanted individually and in pods of three or four, which is the natural grouping for clumps of hair. Micro grafting therefore makes hair transplants appear realistic for the first time.
Hair lines were highly problematic to make look real, but now that surgeons can implant so few hairs at a time, it is possible to literally draw a hair line on a head and fill in behind it. This even allows the recipient to pick a hair line.
Micro grafting is a godsend to transplant surgeons but there is another method known as lateral incision which makes fewer hairs cover a greater area by lying flatter in an even more natural way than only micro grafting would allow. Lateral incision techniques have only been with us since the early 2000’s.
In fact, there are numerous grafting techniques ranging from micro and mini grafts to quite large grafts of five by one inch strips of skin and there are different ways of inserting the follicles or skin graft. There are lateral incisions, vertical incisions, T-cuts and a number of others.
A welcome consequence of contemporary micro graft hair transplant surgery is that the wounds take less time to heal. In fact the time has been halved to about seven days, although the number of grafts that a patient can endure in one sitting has been raised from 800 to between 1,000 and 2,000.
The number of sessions needed obviously depends on the amount of work needed to be done, but most middle-aged men suffering from ordinary male pattern baldness will need two to four sessions in order to look as if they have a decent, but natural head of hair for their age.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on numerous subjects, but is at present involved with hair treatment for dry hair. If you have an interest in hair loss, please go to our web site now at What is the Best Hair Regrowth Product?