Hair loss can happen for any number of reasons.
While many men are often affected by male pattern baldness, the result of genetics, hair loss can affect women as well. Not only is the hair on the top of your head at risk, so is facial hair and your eyebrows.
Aside from male pattern baldness, hair loss can also be caused by alopecia (an autoimmune disease that causes hair to fall out in patches), hormones (natural hormones such as pregnancy or medication with hormones in them such as birth control), thyroid issues, nutritional deficiencies and even stress. When hair loss strikes, it can greatly affect your self-esteem.
Hair transplants have helped to give those who have suffered from hair loss their hair, and their confidence, back. Transplants have been refined over many years to the successful, minimally invasive procedure it has become today.
What is a Hair Transplant?
A hair transplant is a procedure in which hair follicles from one part of your body (referred to as the “donor site”) are moved to the part of your body - scalp, eyebrows, face - that has suffered hair loss. The procedure has been around for decades, and has changed a lot, refining the process to what it is today.
The Earliest Known Transplant
The earliest known hair transplant was documented all the way back in 1822, by a medical student and his teacher in Germany. Hair was moved from one area of the head to another. While they called it a success and stated that it would help aid those suffering from male pattern baldness, there were very few mentions after their experiment of other transplants, at least until the 1900s.
The Beginning of the Modern Transplants
Modern hair transplants began in 1939, with a process developed by a Japanese dermatologist, Doctor Okuda. His technique, known as a “punch technique” came about from wanting to restore hair lost due to injuries and burns. This particular technique involved taking patches of skin that contained hair follicles and moving them to small holes in the damaged areas. Another dermatologist in Japan made the size of the grafts smaller just a few years later.
Development in the United States
It wasn’t until the 1950s that the techniques developed in Japan made their way to the United States. Doctor Norman Orentreich performed the procedure in 1952, and his study was finally published seven years later. In this study, he coined the term “donor dominance,” which states that the transplanted hair still exhibits the traits of the area from which it was taken, rather than those of the area to which it was transplanted.
Doctor Orentreich used 4-millimeter graft sizes, which are particularly large, and as a result they didn’t look quite natural. However, this size was still used up through the 70s and early 80s, and became known as hair plugs, which took on a negative connotation.
In the later portion of the 1980s into the 90s, micro and minigrafts came to be, refining the process significantly. Micrografts were used to soften the hairline while minigrafts filled out the rest of the area. More grafts were done in a session, as opposed to the larger, yet less, grafts of previous years.
Follicular Unit Extraction
The most modern technique, developed in the 1990s, is extremely refined. Doctors harvest individual hairs, a process known asfollicular unit extraction(FUE), using a small punch tool with a very small diameter and a micro motor. The hairs are then transplanted to the areas where hair is desired. Both the donor site and the receiving site are numbed with a local anesthetic and the procedure doesn’t require any incisions or sutures. The procedure allows for very detailed work and natural results without any scarring or pain. FUE became the procedure of choice in the early 2000s and is now considered to be the “gold standard” of hair transplant procedures.
Hair transplant procedures have developed greatly over many decades. Doctor Serkan AYGIN uses the latest techniques to ensure that his patients receive results they are truly satisfied with. If you are experiencing hair loss and are considering a transplant, contact the Doctor Serkan AYGIN Clinic today to schedule your consultation today.