Hair implants have been the method of choice for men with male pattern baldness for years. Originally, in the 1950’s when the procedure was first used to treat hair loss, the procedure was not really all that successful. At that time there were no techniques that could really match the needed fine manipulation of the individual hair follicles. The hair restoration surgeon was forced to resort to removing entire chunks of scalp from an area with good hair growth and then implanting these entire pieces into the skin where the balding had occurred. This causes two problems. One, there was scarring where the scalp chunks had been removed and, two, the hair that was transplanted did not look natural at all. The hair was inserted into little islets that gave the appearance of a person sticking their finger in a light socket.
Over the years these methods have been improved upon until we get the state of the art in hair restoration surgery which we have reached today. This most advanced method, known as follicular unit extraction, gives the best hair implants results we have seen by far.
The follicular method, FUE, involves actually manipulating individual hair units instead of using entire section of scalp at a time. This alleviates both problems that were experienced with the original hair implants. By removing individual hair follicular units, the surgeon does not need to make incisions in the donation area. Instead, he or she uses a specially designed medical instrument that can remove the hair follicle and all supporting structures directly from the skin. He or she then inserts the individual unit into the scalp at the bald area. By dealing with one hair at a time the doctor can match the directional growth of the surrounding hairs which gives the appearance of natural looking hair growth.
It is no wonder that hair implants are now the procedure of choice for men who can afford any hair restoration method available.
