Long Hair Transplant
Long hair transplant is transplanting grafts with a long hair shaft. This is very different than
unshaven hair transplants where the transplanted grafts do not contain a long hair shaft because donor hair was shaven before the graft was harvested.
Transplanting hair is not like planting a tree when the tree continues to grow from when it was planted, it is more like planting seeds so that a new plant is created in time. When a follicular unit graft is transplanted onto its new site, the piece of skin dry up and create a scab and the short piece of hair shaft together with the dried piece of skin all come of within a few weeks leaving a bear scalp until new hairs are created with 6 to 12 months. Wether the transplanted grafts contain a short hair shaft or a long hair shaft does not change the healing process and the final outcome.
So what is the point in doing a long hair transplant and how can it be done?
- It allows for being the preview of the result during and after the procedure. This is why some surgeons refer to this technique as the ‘preview long hair transplant’. The hairs seen on the scalp are temporary and will come off with the scabs within a few weeks after surgery.
- It allows for camouflage of the recipient site until healing occurs so that the scabby phase is not directly visible.
- FUT Hair Transplant is clearly the best method in doing a long hair transplant because it does not require shaving the donor hairs.
The downside to this method is that it is very labour intensive and therefore the amount of hairs transplanted per session can go down to about 50%. It can be a useful method in patients who are seeking a small to medium size hairline transplant and would like to camouflage the surgical appearance of the recipient area until wound healing occurs and all scabby hairs come off. For example, a female patient wanting to lower the hairline 1 to 2 cm could have a fringe-cut look right after surgery using this method.
