Keep your hair on! How medical hair restoration can give you back your confidence

By Gabby Hyman
Learning & Life Columnist

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Premature balding, hair loss -- whatever you want to call it -- chances are good that if you have it, others have referred to it more cruelly. Being bald in our culture can mean that people judge your outside in a way that can hurt you on the inside.

Premature balding can affect your sense of self-worth, your career, and your romantic ambitions. It can send you off the deep end in a series of desperate sprees to change how you look. Many see medical hair restoration only as a last resort. In fact, medical transplant surgery can be the quickest path to a full head of hair that lasts your lifetime.

Why We Lose Hair

At any given time, our bodies lose up to 150 strands of hair a day. It's just the give and take of natural cell loss and regeneration. The medical term for pattern baldness is androgenetic alopecia, a condition caused by heredity, aging, and levels of testosterone in the body. It is the most-common cause of male pattern baldness, and it affects some 40 percent of American males.

Individuals with a genetic predisposition to alopecia produce a hormonal byproduct called dihydrotestostrone (DHT). DHT in the body causes hair to thin and then fall out completely. The worst part is that DHT also blocks renewal of active hair follicles in the scalp. For men who produce DHT, once they lose their hair, they usually lose it forever.

Medical hair restoration involves the transplanting of your own hair from a portion of the head, known as the donor area, that does not produce DHT. These transplanted hair follicles are not affected by hormonal byproducts - they grow and renew themselves, allowing growth of fresh, healthy hair at the crown of the head where hair growth had become impossible because of the ravages of DHT.

Male pattern baldness occurs initially at the hairline and works its way backwards across the crown. Many men use hair-thickening agents like Rogaine®, or medicine like Propecia®. Although these agents can help thicken hair, if you have alopecia and produce DHT, they won't restore the body's ability to grow new hair once the follicles are rendered non-productive.

Through a consultation, you can determine the severity of your hair loss. Depending on the results - The Norwood Scale, for example, operates on a scale from one to seven - you can decide whether hair restoration is right for you.

Gone Today, Hair Tomorrow

If you decide on a medical hair transplant it helps to know that medical hair restoration has been performed, improved upon, and perfected for more than 40 years.

Most men who are experiencing hair loss yet have healthy hair in the back of the head are strong candidates for hair transplantation. Medical Hair Restoration surgeons use a microsurgical technique that employs micro grafts, consisting of one, two, and three follicular units. These are transplanted from the donor area to the balding area at varied angles and directions so that the hairline resembles naturally growing hair.

The Hair Replacement Process

At your first appointment, the transplant physician evaluates your medical and family history, the degree and rate of your hair loss, and takes stock of hair treatments you have used previously. Using a qualified medical hair replacement surgeon is key. These physicians are not only skilled in the grafting process; they also know how to arrange the grafts in the most aesthetic manner to give you an attractive, natural head of hair.

The transplant is done in an outpatient facility. To begin, strips of skin containing hair and follicles are removed from the anesthetized donor area. These are separated into individual grafts and the transplanted to the balding areas. The surgeon works from front to back. The surgery will take anywhere from 3 to 6 hours, and you can return home afterwards. You can go back to work as early as the day after surgery, and resume most activities immediately.

After a three-month resting cycle, the transplanted hair begins to grow naturally, unaffected by DHT. The transplanted hair reaches maturity in a year and continues to grow throughout your life.

Pattern baldness may be inevitable, but you don't have to consider it a lost cause. The medical hair replacement procedure can restore your natural hair -- and your confidence.

About the Author
Gabby Hyman has created online strategies and written content for Fortune 500 companies including eToys, GoTo.com, Siebel Systems, Microsoft Encarta, Avaya, and Nissan UK.

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