Hair Transplantation

General information

Hair transplant and formation happens inside the skin on a shelter that’s called a follicle. Average person has around 100 000 hair. This number can fluctuate depending on skin colour and structure. Each follicle grows 1-4 hairs.  This latest finding has helped in the development of the new hair transplant technique. The name for the new technique is Follicular Hair Re-growth (F.H.R.).

How many hairs do we lose in a day?

On an average day you lose 100-150 hairs, but luckily most of them will grow back in your healthy and intact follicles.

What is the life cycle of hair?

Life cycle is divided into three steps. First step is so called anagenic phase (Anagen growth) which has duration of 2-6 years. Next step is so called catagenic phase (Catagen non-growth) and it has lasts 2-6 weeks. During the catagenic phase the hair begins to split from the follicle. Last step is the telogen phase (telogen loss) that lasts 3-4 months. During that time the hair protrudes away from the root area, away from the new anagenic hair. The new hair will start to grow again What are the reasons for hair loss?

There are various reasons for hair loss:

• bacteria in the scalp

• stress

• poor nutrition

• factors based on heritability (in both men and women)

• hormonal imbalance

In several cases the persons have multiple reasons for hair loss as mentioned before, but in 95% of the cases the main reason is heredity within men and millions of women.

The first consultation  the first consultation is at City Clinic in Helsinki.  A doctor will tell you more about the operation and the area to be treated will be photographed. This way the doctor can assess the treatable area for the needed follicles. Consultation is free and it doesn’t commit you to anything.

Hair transplantation

Hair transplantation is a surgical technique that moves individual hair follicles from a part of the body called the ‘donor site’ to bald or balding part of the body known as the ‘recipient site’. It is primarily used to treat male pattern baldness. In this minimally invasive procedure, grafts containing hair follicles that are genetically resistant to balding, like the back of the head, are transplanted to the bald scalp.

FUE – a minimally invasive method in hair transplantation

Many potential patients shy-away from the traditional “strip method” of hair replacement because of the slow recovery time, the loss of feeling at the incision site, the tiny linear scar on the back of the head, or the amount of post-operative pain involved.

Our FUE technique (follicular unit extraction) is a minimally invasive method in hair transplantation. Unlike strip harvesting, the traditional technique (FUT) in which a strip of skin is removed from a donor site and cut into individual units, FUE uses an instrument to remove multiple groups of one to four hairs. The great thing about FUE is that there’s no linear scar.

In FUE hair transplant surgery, an instrument is used to make a small, circular incision in the skin around a follicular unit, separating it from the surrounding tissue. The unit is then extracted (pulled) directly from the scalp, leaving a small open hole.

This process is repeated until the hair transplant surgeon has harvested enough follicular units for the planned hair restoration. This process can take one or more hours and in large sessions, may be accomplished over two consecutive days. The donor wounds, approximately 1-mm in size, completely heal over the course of seven to ten days, leaving tiny white scars buried in the hair in the back and sides of the scalp.

How a FUE Hair Transplant is performed

On the day of treatment, the patient arrives at the clinic in the morning and the donor area is usually shaved. This allows easier access to the roots and individual follicles.
Local anaesthetic is then injected into the donor area to completely numb it. This ensures that the patient doesn’t feel any pain throughout the course of the treatment.

During the Follicular Unit Extraction or FUE hair transplant procedure, individual follicular unit grafts (hair groupings of 1, 2, 3 or 4 hairs as they occur naturally in the scalp) are harvested one at a time using a tiny punch typically ranging from .7 to 1 millimeter in size. Typically the patient’s hair in the donor area where these grafts are being removed is cut short so that the physician is able to see the patient’s scalp.

The treatment area is then numbed with local anaesthetic, and the hair that has been extracted will be replanted using miniscule instruments and meticulous attention to detail on the part of the doctor. Each hair is replanted in the same direction as the surrounding hair to ensure a totally natural result.

When all the donor hairs have been transplanted the treatment is complete.

The treatment is carried out under local rather than general anaesthetic, eliminating risks and downtime associated with other hair transplant procedures. And, because the treatment is minimally invasive, there is no detectable scarring and, in most cases, patients are able to return to work the next day with permanent results.

Results

You will be able to see the outline of your new hair line immediately after treatment. 6-12 months later, the transplanted hair will have re-grown fully and the bald patch or receding hair line will have disappeared. The results are totally natural-looking and permanent.

Contact us

We will gladly take the time to offer you a professional, extensive and realistic consultation. The first consultation at The City Clinic is always free and noncommittal. Contact us now.