When a person suffers hair loss from an accident, burn, birth defect, tumor removal, or even from a former facelift performed elsewhere, Dr. Barrera has extensive experience helping those patients return hair to areas where it has been lost. This is known as reconstructive hair transplantation.
What Is Reconstructive Hair Transplantation?
While many people seek to remove more and more hair as societal norms change, losing hair in certain areas can make a person self-conscious. For instance, if a man suffers a burn on his face and loses a patch of hair that would otherwise be a part of his beard, that can be an issue. Maybe not first thing in the morning, but surely as the day progresses into five o’clock shadow. Plus, he won’t want to grow any facial hair with this missing patch.
Facelifts performed by less experienced practitioners can also lead to hair follicle death along the incision lines made in the hairline at various spots around the face. The sideburns can be particularly problematic.
Other areas where Dr. Barrera returns hair in reconstructive transplants are sites such as the mustache, eyebrows, even the eyelashes.
How Is Reconstructive Hair Transplantation Done?
The method for hair transplantation is the same as when Dr. Barrera performs transplantation to fill in thinning areas on the scalp due to male or female pattern hair loss. A donor strip of scalp is taken from the back of the head. This strip is usually only 1 cm wide by 5-20 cm long. This depends on how many grafts Dr. Barrera feels he will need to transplant. The incision is carefully closed with small sutures to minimize the scar at the donor site.
Dr. Barrera then separates the donor strip into individual grafts, each with from 1-4 hairs in it. He makes tiny entry holes for each graft and places them one by one into the area where hair has been lost. Once these grafts settle in, they will begin to grow hair again. This will return the hair the person formerly had, and there’s nothing artificial because the grafts are the patient’s own hair. They are simply relocated.
Do you have specific hair loss that you’d like to address? Call Dr. Barrera at (713) 468-5200 to schedule a consultation for reconstructive hair transplantation.
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