by Men’s Health UK
So, you’re losing your hair.
You’re not alone. According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, male pattern baldness affects around a third of white men under 30, increasing to around 80 per cent of men over 70 (it’s less common amongst black men, and occurs later and more slowly in Asian men).
Men are losing their hair at such an alarming rate that recent statistics, published by the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery, show that hair restoration procedures are up 60 per cent from 2014.
If you’re considering joining the thousands of men who have already undergone the procedure, we have some bad news for you, they can be extremely costly and painful.
According to the NHS, a hair transplant in the UK can cost anywhere between £1,000 and £30,000. That’s a lot of money. But is it worth it? If the rich and famous are anything to go by, then yes. Wayne Rooney has famously admitted having a hair transplant, and the likes of David Beckham, Matthew McConaughey, Sylvester Stallone and most recently Manchester City footballer David Silva have all apparently defied the ageing process and grown more hair as they moved into middle age. Well done, chaps.
“If I give any advice,” says rugby league scrum half Luke Gale, “it’s get it done. I wish I’d have had it done two or three years earlier if I’m honest because I’m that impressed with the results.”
Despite Gale’s advice, hair transplants aren’t for everyone and there’s a lot of questions to ask before going through with one. So we’ve complied a complete guide to hair transplants. Below you’ll find answers to everything from how they’re done and how much they cost to whether it’s worth going abroad to get one done.
Hair Transplants: The Procedures
A hair transplant is a procedure that involves transferring hair from an area unaffected by hair loss (the donor area) to an area where the hair is thinning or is entirely bald. If you have absolutely no hair on your head then a good hat is a more appropriate option than a hair transplant. Sorry.
For those who are eligible, there are two different methods for performing transplants: follicular unit extraction (FUE) and follicular unit transplantation (FUT).
Follicular Unit Transplantation
For FUT, a doctor would remove strips of tissue from the donor area, and, once extracted, cut these strips into individual follicular units. Tiny cuts are then made in the scalp for the follicular unit grafts to be carefully placed into, which can leave some scarring. Sounds lovely.
Follicular Unit Extraction
FUE is the modern approach to hair transplants and is usually favoured by patients because it leaves less obvious scarring. For FUE, individual hair follicles are extracted directly from the patient’s donor area, which is typically the back of the neck, and then moved to the hair transplant site using a specialist micro surgical needle.
Whatever surgery you choose, the transplanted hair will usually fall out within 2 to 3 weeks after your surgery, so you’ll be stuck with a bald head for a while. You should start to notice new growth within a few months, and, according to WebMD, most people will see 60 per cent of new hair growth after 6 to 9 months.
Follicular Unit Extraction: A User’s Opinion
FUT is the option Gale went for. He explains how the procedure is split into three separate stages, starting with the individual hair follicles being extracted.
“You kind of go face down into a chair and then they pluck around 3000 hair follicles individually out of the back of your head, so they drill down the root and then the assistant will come and pluck them out,” says Gale.
You can hear the actual piercing of your skin and your skull
“You get numbing injections, so that bit wasn’t that bad. Still, it’s two hours and when you come up your eyes are filling up and your face is swollen. It’s like you’ve been punched in the face.”
Once the hair has been extracted the surgeon must then create somewhere for the hair to go, so if you’re having around 3000 hair follicles inserted into your scalp, as Gale did, then 3000 incisions will have to be made. Unsurprisingly, Gale describes this process as “the worst bit by a country mile.”
“Literally you’ve got to be pricked like 3000 times in the front of your head,” says Gale. “They told me to bring headphones and said this is the moment you want to put them on because you can hear the actual piercing of your skin and your skull, which is the most unpleasant bit. There were a couple of times where I had to say ‘Look, can you put more anaesthetic in because I’m feeling it’, so that by far and away was the worst bit.”
Stage three is the part where the surgeon puts the hair into the holes that have just been made, and you’ll be pleased to know that having suffered through the first two stages Gale describes the third stage as a “doddle”.
