If you (or someone you know) are losing hair in the front of your head, or on the top (classic male pattern baldness) you have likely heard of many ways to remedy this. First, there are the home remedies such as different shampoos or different diets. For the most part, these things don’t work. Then there are prescription products including oral and topical preparations such as minoxidil (Rogaine) or finasteride (Propecia). These can be helpful though some formulations have undesirable side effects, and they tend to only work as long as you are using them. If you stop, you’ll lose the progress you’ve made. After this comes laser (some studies show some improvement with red or blue laser lights) and injection of PRP or PRF which may help prevent some hair loss and even improve density somewhat.
However, if you want to truly restore a missing hairline the best solution is hair grafts. But, if your hair is falling out, why would hair grafting work? Why won’t those hairs fall out too? And, why can’t we move hair from one hairy person to another less hairy person?
The answer has to do with the nature of hair. Your friend’s cells have different antigens on them than your hairs have. These antigens are unique markers that identify a certain type of cell or protein. This is a way for your body to recognize what belongs there and what doesn’t. This is the same system that allows us to develop immunity to viruses and fight off colds. So, unfortunately, your body would recognize a hair from someone else’s body as foreign and reject it. (You may be thinking, then how can people get heart or kidney transplants? The answer is, you can get another person’s organ or tissue if you take powerful anti-rejection medications that lower your immunity and can put you at risk for cancer and serious infections. So, while you could possibly get hair from someone else, it wouldn’t be worth the risks.)
Fortunately, we can get hair from your own body where you have it in excess and move it to where you need it. This is because the hair comes from your own body and is called a homologous graft.
Homologous grafts are things like fat grafting where we take the grafts from one part of your body to move to another. Homologous graft can be dermis, fascia, cartilage, and/or hair. One very interesting fact is that homologous grafts retain the properties of where they came from regardless of where you put them. This means that if we take a hair from the back of the head (where hair doesn’t fall out) and move it to the front of the head (where hair does fall out) the transplanted hair retains the ability to persist.
We can also move hair from other parts of your body, like face, or other places where you have hair you don’t want to places where you want it. If the hair was destined to stay it will stay, and if the hair was destined to go it will go. So, by moving the good ones we can get a great result.
The procedure is all done in one seating. We select a site to provide hair (typically the back of the head) and remove those hairs one by one under local anesthesia. Then, the hairs are carefully placed with magnification and fine instruments exactly where we want them. There are no large incisions, no stitches to remove, and no need for too many follow-up visits. Once the hairs are moved they’ll start to regrow roots in their new location and become permanently integrated. Over time they’ll grow like the rest of your hair and will need to be cut and styled, just like all the rest.
If the answer to baldness is Absolutely! Then it’s time to email or call TSC to book your consultation today!
