What Is a Hair Transplant?
Like good health and youth, most of us take our locks for granted — that is, until they’re gone. For many people, a hair transplant can help bring back what looks like a full — or at least a fuller — head of hair.
If thinning up top or going bald really bothers you, the procedure can be one way to feel more confident about your looks. But first talk with your doctor about what you can expect during and after the surgery.
Hair Transplant Surgery is a type of surgery that moves hair you already have to fill an area with thin or no hair. Doctors have been doing these transplants in the U.S. since the 1950s, but techniques have advanced a lot in recent years.
You usually have the procedure in the doctor’s office. First, the doctor cleans your scalp and injects medicine to numb the back of your head. Your doctor will choose one of two methods for the transplant: Follicular Unit Strip Surgery (FUSS) or Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE).
With FUSS, the surgeon removes a 6 to10-inch strip of skin from the back of your head. They set it aside and sews the scalp closed. This area is immediately hidden by the hair around it.
Next, the surgeon’s team divides the strip of removed scalp into 500 to 2,000 tiny grafts, each with an individual hair or just a few hairs. The number and type of graft you get depends on your hair type, quality, color, and the size of the area where you’re getting the transplant.
If you’re getting the FUE procedure, the surgeon’s team will shave the back of your scalp. Then, the doctor will remove hair follicles one by one from there. The area heals with small dots, which your existing hair will cover.
After that point, both procedures are the same. After they prepare the grafts, the surgeon cleans and numbs the area where the hair will go, creates holes or slits with a scalpel or needle, and delicately places each graft in one of the holes. They’ll probably get help from other team members to plant the grafts, too.
Depending on the size of the transplant you’re getting, the process will take about 4 to 8 hours. You might need another procedure later on if you continue to lose hair or decide you want thicker hair.
Expectations and Recovery
After the surgery, your scalp may be very tender. You may need to take pain medications for several days. Your surgeon will have you wear bandages over your scalp for at least a day or two. They may also prescribe an antibiotic or an anti-inflammatory drug for you to take for several days. Most people are able to return to work 2 to 5 days after the operation.
Within 2 to 3 weeks after surgery, the transplanted hair will fall out, but you should start to notice new growth within a few months. Most people will see 60% of new hair growth after 6 to 9 months. Some surgeons prescribe the hair-growing drug minoxidil (Rogaine) to improve hair growth after transplantation, but it’s not clear how well it works.
New Study Links Long COVID to Hair Loss and Reduced Libido
In 2020, society was forever changed when countries around the globe shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The shutdowns attempted to lessen the overwhelming impact of the initial variant on our healthcare systems and protect vulnerable individuals against this novel disease. Over two years later, we have made significant progress in our understanding and ability to fight COVID. Although many of us are familiar with the acute effects of the disease, thousands of people around the globe have also experienced considerable long-term symptoms of the disease, known as long COVID.
What is Long COVID?
Long COVID, also known as post-acute sequelae of COVID-19, encompasses a broad range of health problems and adverse symptoms that can last substantially longer than the typical two-week period. The clinical definition is not entirely clear at this point since it is such a new condition. The World Health Organization classifies long COVID as symptoms that persist longer than 12 weeks after initial infection, while the US Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) classifies long COVID as symptoms that last longer than four weeks. These symptoms include:
- Fatigue
- Difficulty breathing
- Cough
- Heart palpitations
- Chest pain
- Difficulty concentrating
- Sleep problems
- Change in smell or taste
- Depression
- Lightheadedness
- Headaches
- Fever
New Study on Long COVID
A new study was recently published to better understand the symptoms and risk factors for long COVID in patients who experienced a mild form of the disease, meaning they were not hospitalized. The large-scale data analysis had a test group encompassing 486,149 people in the United Kingdom with a reported history of mild COVID-19 and a control group of 1,944,580 adults with no recorded evidence of a COVID infection. The study took place from January 31, 2020, to April 15, 2021, marking an early stage in the pandemic before vaccines were widely available.
Study Findings
The research study discovered that the test group was more likely to report a span of 62 different symptoms to their doctor at least 12 weeks following their COVID infection. After taking into consideration factors like age, weight, and pre-existing health conditions, the results stayed consistent, meaning the symptoms were likely due to long COVID.
Certain symptoms reported to the participants’ doctors were expected, such as flu-like symptoms like loss of sense of smell, shortness of breath, and fatigue. However, the study also found that patients in the test group reported hair loss and reduced libido, which was not anticipated since these are not flu-like symptoms.
The results of the study indicate that long COVID can be characterized into three distinct groups:
- Broad spectrum symptoms: represents 80% of patients and includes fatigue, headaches, and pain
- Mental health and cognitive symptoms: represents 15% of patient and includes depression, anxiety, brain fog, and insomnia
- Respiratory symptoms: represents 5% of patients and includes shortness of breath, cough, and wheezing
The study also suggests that the prevalence of long COVID is potentially as low as 1% in those who have been infected with COVID 19. However, since most of the population could be infected with this disease at some point, 1% could represent an extraordinarily high number of patients. Long COVID is a highly complex condition, and this study is instrumental in gaining a better understanding of the disease.
Hair Regeneration Therapy
With Hair Regeneration Therapy we treat hair loss and lost density with soft tissue injectables directly into the scalp. Our Hair Regeneration solutions are non-surgical options that have shown to regrow hair when used as directed. This procedure for hair loss involves the injection of our Human Cellular Tissue Product. Our Human Cellular Tissue products are derived from birth tissues recovered at the time of a healthy birth. Prior to delivery, mothers are carefully screened and tested to ensure there is no risk of disease transmission. The donation process causes no harm to the mother or her newborn. After the cells are injected into the scalp (no IV injection), hair regrowth may begin at around the 1 month mark, peaking in about 4-6 months. Our Human Cellular Tissue is ordered and delivered with FedEx overnight to our office, arriving on dry ice. The package is opened in front of the patient and mixed with PRP, and then injected into the scalp. The entire process takes about 1.5 hours. Patients can go home the same day without any issue. Our treatments have proven to be effective in treating different hair loss conditions, including:
- Male Androgenetic Alopecia (male pattern baldness)
- Androgenetic Alopecia (female pattern baldness)
- Cicatricial Alopecia (hair follicles are destroyed and replaced with scar tissue)