Hair transplants have been used for treating male pattern baldness since the 1950’s but the original work on the procedure was done in Japan during the 1930’s. At that time the emphasis was on facial hair transplants and a lot of work was done with changing the shape of eyebrows by implanting hairs which came from the scalp. It really wasn’t much of a leap to go from adding hair to increase the size and thickness of eyebrows to inserting growing hair follicles into the bald spot on a man’s head.
The procedure is quite simple in theory. The hair restoration surgeon will remove living hair follicles and their support structure from the scalp where there is still thick hair growth and then implant them into the balding area. For men, the loss of hair does not usually occur at the back of the head so it is easy to find hundreds or even a few thousand hairs in this area which can be removed and then transplanted into the scalp so they will grow for years to come. This fact is not true when talking about hair transplants for females because women usually will have hair thinning over their entire head instead of in patterns like we see with males.
Originally, an entire section of scalp was removed first from the donor area and then each individual hair follicular unit was removed from this scrap and prepared for implantation. This made the hair transplants costs very high because it required a team of medical associates to remove the individual hair follicles and prepare them for insertion. A new technique now allows the hair restoration surgeon to remove the follicular unit directly from the scalp and then insert it into the bald spot. This dramatically decreases the cost because the doctor now only requires one assistant. Also, there is no longer any scarring because no part of the scalp is removed. This new direct hair implant procedure has revolutionized the process.
If you are on the other side and have too much hair you might want to look into Schools For Laser Hair Removal.
