| Dr. Randall S. Sword is a member of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery. Here the Doctor has answered some of the common questions Bizymoms visitors have about Hair transplant.
Q. What is hair transplant?
A. Hair restoration surgery basically is taking a strip of scalp of half inch wide and a couple inches long to 12 inches long depending upon the amount of grafts we use. We then sew up the strip we take out into the hair line and you barely see the scar because your hair is hiding that. We take out the strip and divide it in to few 100 strips and then into few 1000 strips and each graft is 1, 2, or 3 hairs only and we make a 1 to 2mm on line and I then take these grafts one at a time which is about 1, 2 or 3 hairs and insert them in the grafts we do. The scabs would be up for about a week to 10 days and the scabs fall off and stitches come out in about 10 days and the grafts would probably grow, at the end of 3 months they begin to grow out, we allow it to grow out for a year and we say if we need to do it again, if necessary. These grafts all work, they grow virtually. It’s your hair, it's not hair like your hair, you have many different hairs in the body, you get hairs in your arms, beard, eye brows, eye lashes, nose hair ear hair, all of such kinds of hair on your body. So we take it from the back of your head till your ear which is permanent hair and then we take the strip out again and split it up in to pieces and then we put them in, one at a time.
Q. Who can do it?
A. Virtually any adult who has serious hair loss; I don’t like doing it on young men or women in their early teens or late teens or early twenties just because we don’t know the extent of the loss and they have to have a good donor. Having a hair transplant work well, I touched on earlier the strip is taken from the back and the hair seems to be permanent there. A hair loss is a genetic process and almost everybody does have a few problems such as thyroid, iron deficiency where hair loss is genetic. Men and women both lose hair. Men lose hair in the front and the corners and the back and women lose hair in the central area right just below their hairline.
Q. What are the new hair restoration treatments available for men and women?
A. Well there really is nothing new; well what is new for men is Propecia, which is Finasteride. It’s a pill you take once a day and that seems to prevent hair loss in men about 90% of the time or unless it brings them back, now women has Rogaine balm which they have to put on maybe twice a day in the front where they are losing it.
Q. Do you provide free consultation for clients who need to keep your information with them?
A. Yes, I do provide free consultation, the patients really don’t have any information, I can look at their hair and tell them.
Q. Should medication be taken after hair transplant surgery?
A. Generally no, it’s a little sour for a couple of days, that’s all. The stitches in the back we give something for pain, something for sleeping, something for swelling and that’s all about it. For men I do recommend prepicia, that’s all, I don’t recommend rogen except on few of the women.
Q. Do clients need a bandage after a surgery?
A. No, they do not need, it is very rare that I put a bandage after surgery.
Q. When can clients expect to see results?
A. After about 3 months for the hair to begin to grow, but really to get evaluated about 6 months to a year because the hair only grows half inch per month, so it takes time to get a styling like. So for men it is about 1 year and for women because they have a lot of hair already, so if they notice a difference they will notice a slow thickening effect, that is why we take before and after photos and they can see the difference.
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