All you need to know about Hair Transplant: Pre-operative care, Post-operative care, and Procedure

Hair transplant is a surgical procedure that involves removal of the hair follicle from one part of the body called the donor’s site and transplanting it to any other part of the recipient site which is mostly the scalp. This procedure requires transplantation of grafts that are genetically resistant to baldness. This is a minimally invasive procedure. The procedure is usually done on the scalp, chest, beard, eyelashes, eyebrows or even for pubic regions. Hair transplant helps to fill scars caused due to accidents or surgery and sometimes to fill in scars caused during a previous transplant.

Guidelines for hair transplant:

• Qualified physician: The physician must have finished his post-graduation training in dermatology. The doctor must also be appropriately trained and experienced.
• Facility: The clinic must be well equipped so that it can handle any emergency during or after the procedure of hair transplant.
• Obtain a pre-operative consent before the procedure.
• Brief the recipient about the procedure.
• The patients with a good donor site hair growth are preferred.

Pre-operative care:

• Go for a pre-operative check-up, which helps the doctor to analyze the scalp of the patient.
• Brief the patient about the procedure along with its advantage and complications to the patient and get the consent form signed by the patient before the procedure.
• Determine the hair density with the help of folliscope 
• Avoid medicines that cause bleeding, alcohol or smoking tobacco before the procedure.

During the procedure:

The scalp is first cleaned with a shampoo and then is treated with an anti-bacterial agent before a hair transplant. Local anesthesia is then applied. Remove the follicles from the donor site carefully to make sure its viability and avoid transection. The hair follicles grow at a certain angle and are removed at that angle. The process of removal and transplantation of hair follicles is harvesting. The two most common technique in for harvesting are:

• Strip harvesting is the most common method to harvest hair follicles mostly extracted from the posterior part of the skull where the hairs are dense. Each hair follicles are taken separately out and implanted carefully. This type of hair transplant leaves a linear scar at the donor site of the scalp which is easily covered by the hair.
• Follicular unit extraction is a time taking procedure but gives a very natural look. It is very useful when hair transplant is done in larger areas. This type of procedure does not cause any scars. The drawback of this type of transplant is that it is a very expensive procedure.

Other procedures are:

• Follicular unit transplant
• Robotic hair transplant

Post-operative care:

• Start shampoo after two days of hair transplant to avoid the formation of scabs.
• Get the semi-permeable dressing changed at least once daily.
• Avoid exposure in sun for at least ten days after the transplant.
• To prevent post graft infections, take antibiotics.
• Eat healthy food

Complications:

• Bleeding
• Swelling of scalp
• Infections
• Itching
• Hair loss
• Unnatural looking hair tuft