Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The Truth About Hair Transplants

By Gugu Martini

Because of increasingly improving methods, it is becoming far more common for people to have hair transplant procedures. Many people feared getting the procedures in the past, because they were not well done and you could see obvious hair plugs on people who had undergone them although this is rarely true anymore. The process is still not widely understood however and only a few facts are known to people.

Many men - a full 50 percent of all American men over 50 - are dealing with some kind of hair loss. Some men shave their heads completely, as they feel this is the best way society gives them to deal with their hair loss. Other men decide instead to undergo hair transplant surgery. Some go with the desire to stay au natural with their baldness, though they are considerably behind the rest of the world by making this choice.

Many people do not understand the significance or permanence of having a surgical procedure. For the individual that is planning one of these treatments, they should understand that they will change the look of their head forever and they will also require many surgical treatments to get the desired look. You're stuck with the procedure once you begin.

It is not true that you can immediately return to your old active routines after hair transplant surgery and many people do not realize this because the surgery is so simple to endure. You might also think that it is just your scalp after all, not muscle or bone. What you must realize is that the protection factor following such a surgery - that causes a large number of tiny wounds - is immense.

Every patient considering hair transplant surgery should be aware that it is a procedure that will take a long time to complete - up to one or two years. These are known as mega-sessions and can require the installation of thousands of grafts in one sitting. The commitment required for these sessions is grueling in and of itself, often requiring a serious amount of time to be performed.

Along with hair transplant surgery, you may have to have other treatments so if you do not have enough hair, you cannot undergo the normal treatment. However, there are other surgeries that can be used in conjunction with it to achieve similar results. Unlike the traditional treatment, these procedures can cause a great deal of agony.

Though there are few surgeons that will tell you, you should be aware that the grafts you have in hair transplant surgery may not all survive. Surgeon's hope that more grafts will survive than will be lost, making the result a positive one. Unfortunately, many grafts do not survive, despite all concentrated efforts.

You can expect to pay around 12,000 dollars for hair transplant surgery, though this is not as expensive as you might believe. If the average person has the procedure done at 30 and dies at 70, then they will have spent 25 dollars per month, or 300 dollars per year on the treatment. Many "low cost" treatments for hair loss cost much more money than per month. You would actually save by getting the surgery done in the first place. - 16036

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