Now men can have hair transplants using hair from their chest

July 25, 2014  19:37

From Wayne Rooney to Gordon Ramsay, thousands of men now undergo a hair transplant each year in a bid to get thicker locks.

The process can be painstaking - and often involves removing healthy hair follicles directly from an area at the back of the patient’s head where the hair is usually plentiful.

This 'excess' hair is then transplanted onto areas where the hair is thinning or receding - usually the crown - a technique known as Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE).

But until now, there has been little available for men who are already thinning all over - meaning they are either deemed unsuitable or the transplant is barely effective, Daily Mail reports.

Now a new technique is using a mix of head hair and that from other parts of the body - most commonly the chest.

However hair on a man's head is quite different from that on their chest.

It is thicker, curlier and more wiry. So the final result would be unnatural looking and undesirable. That is why doctors say in every instance they would want to keep hair used from the chest to a minimum.

An FUE procedure can last many hours, depending on the number of hairs which require transplanting. 

The average transplant costs around £10,000 or £2.50 a hair. For chest hair the price rises to £5 per hair. 

The patient can leave the clinic immediately after treatment. For around a week following treatment the head and the donor area may appear red and may be slightly swollen in places.

During this time the patient should not take part in any rigorous exercise or sporting activity.

The patient will also experience a period known as ‘shedding’ following the procedure.

This is where the superficial hair follicles, which have been transplanted, fall out of the head, enabling the roots to embed and settle in their new location and go on to grow healthily.

How long this period lasts for, and the number of hairs which are shed, differs from patient to patient.

 

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