Mastering FUT Hair Transplants: A Comprehensive Step-by-Step Guide
FUT Hair Transplant: A Comprehensive Walkthrough
Technology has made giant strides in the hair transplant scenario. The FUT provides excellent hair restoration benefits and produces completely natural results. The results of a hair transplant are fairly life-changing, giving you a youthful appearance and significantly boosting your self-confidence. Let’s dive in to the specifics of the FUT.
Understanding FUT Hair Transplant
FUT is Follicular Unit Transplant and is a fairly commonly conducted hair restoration procedure. The follicular units are composed of 1 to 4 hair, oil glands, a small muscle, nerves and fine vellus hair; all these are transplanted. When the unit is preserved as a whole it promotes hair growth once transplanted. How the follicular units are inserted in to the scalp will determine the aesthetic outcome of your hair transplant procedure and whether the hair that grows will angle in the natural direction of your existing hair growth.
What is FUT Hair Transplant?
Follicular Unit Transplantation comprises of excising a long, thin piece of tissue from the donor area, i.e. the back of your scalp. From this tissue, individual follicles are removed using microscopic dissection. This procedure leaves behind a single, thin, linear scar.
Who Can Benefit from FUT Hair Transplant?
You’re a good candidate for FUT –
- The hair loss pattern is less predictable in younger people; thus the surgery is best done in those who are 25 years and above.
- FUT is specially beneficial for those who have grade 7 balding, wherein, lots of grafts will be needed to cover up the bald patches. In such cases, your doctor will opt for a combination of FUT and FUE so that there is a good graft yield as well as better coverage.
- Likewise, those who have a high follicle density benefit from FUT by getting better coverage.
- FUT is ideal to treat a significantly receded hairline.
The FUT Hair Transplant Procedure
The FUT will take between 4 to 8 hours. You will be given local anaesthesia that will numb your scalp, but you will be awake all through the procedure.
Pre-surgery Preparation
- Your doctor will ask you to stop Aspirin, Ibuprofen, and nutritional supplements for 14 days before the procedure.
- Do not drink alcohol 3 days prior to the hair transplant surgery.
- On the morning of your surgery, wash your scalp and hair well, but do not use any hair care product.
- Do not wear a T-shirt; wear a loose fitting shirt with buttons.
The Surgical Procedure
- Your surgeon will draw the surgical hairline and decide the site of hair extraction.
- The hair at the donor site will be trimmed to 2 millimetres.
- The surgeon will excise a strip of tissue with the hair follicles usually from the back of your scalp. The size of the strip depends on the number of follicles that you require to cover up the bald patches. The strip that’s extracted is approximately 1 to 1.5 centimetres.
- Thereafter, individual follicles are removed from the tissue, they are prepared for the transplantation and then they are implanted in to the bald area in a way that is mimics natural hair.
- The surgeon will close the donor site with sutures.
- An antibiotic and bandages will be applied to the scalp.
Post surgery Care and Recovery
- After the hair transplant, make sure you take all the medications prescribed by your doctor.
- Take the analgesics according to the schedule, do not wait for the pain to start.
- Relax on the day after the surgery.
- Leave the bandage and dressing on for 2 days.
- Make sure that when you lie down, your head is elevated; use 2 pillows to prop up.
- Do not lift anything heavy.
- Do not lean the head forwards over to pick anything off the floor or to tie your shoes for the first 3 days.
- Do not drink alcohol for 2 days after the hair transplant.
- If you develop swelling on the forehead and eyes, apply ice packs to ease it.
- If there’s heavy bleeding, apply steady pressure for 15 minutes. If the bleeding does not stop, get in touch with your doctor immediately.
The Advantages of FUT Hair Transplant
Natural Looking Results
FUT leaves you with a thin, linear scar that is about 1mm in thickness. The scar is not obvious and gets easily concealed with the surrounding hair, making it fairly undetectable. The hair is transplanted in groups of 1 to 4 hairs; this promises you a full, natural looking head of hair without making the surgery obvious. The outcome of the FUT depends on how the follicles are placed. The surgeon’s skill, experience expertise as well as his artistic abilities will determine how good the results are. Your doctor will plant each follicle in the right direction and angle, and the grafts will be distributed approximately. It is very important that you select an experienced surgeon who has great surgical know-how as well as artistic abilities.
High Graft Survival Rate
The hair is extracted from the middle section of the donor area where the hair is absolutely permanent. The tissue with the follicles is very carefully excised, thereby keeping the grafts robust, viable and in very high quality.
FUT saves time
FUT is a very quick process and the procedure is executed is hardly any time.
Cost Effective Solution for Hair Loss
FUT needs lesser time and fewer resources for excision, making it a very cost effective solution. FUT extracts more grafts in less time.
The Disadvantages of FUT Hair Transplant
Potential Scarring
An FUT leaves you with a visible scar. A linear scar will be left on the donor area because FUT includes a linear incision. The scar, however, can be masked with surrounding long hair. On the flip side, you can not keep the back of your hair short because the scar will be obvious otherwise.
Risk of infections
Rarely, infection is known to occur; there is pus formation and crusts develop around the surgical site. There will be pain and swelling. An inflammation of the hair follicles and bleeding may also occur. Seldom, losing sensation around the surgical site may occur.
Recovery Time Needed
With an FUT, the recovery time is fairly longer. A thin strip of tissue is harvested from the donor area; as a result, once the donor site has healed completely, the doctor will remove the stitches after about 12 to 15 days. Complete healing of the scalp takes about 4 to 5 weeks.
FAQs
Yes, a hair transplant is a permanent solution because the hair follicles that are extracted from the back of the head are permanent hair that are resistant to baldness and will grow naturally.
The transplanted hair follicles will take about a fortnight to get lodged firmly, 3 months to sprout new hair and 12 months to attain a head full of hair.
During an FUT, your doctor can harvest about 4,000 hair transplants.
Your doctor’s experience, the technique he uses, and the equipment employed greatly affect the results of the FUT. During the harvesting, there should be minimal damage to the scalp tissue and you should get good extraction rates. If your doctor is not experienced, there will be considerable damage and you will be left with few grafts.
The surgeon’s focus should be on quality, not speed. The number of grafts extracted per hour is determined by their years of experience and technical abilities.
Having a highly skilled doctor and a sound medical team makes a noteworthy difference in the length and outcome of your surgery.
Temporary hair loss is absolutely common after you’ve had a hair transplant surgery. It is normal for the transplanted hair to fall out about 1 to 2 months after the surgery; it happens due to shock. Once the shock resolves, the newly transplanted follicles sprout hair normally. By 3 to 4 months, your hair will appear healthy.
After you have had an FUT, after about 1 to 2 months, it is absolutely normal to experience temporary shedding of hair. Post that your hair will follow its normal cycle, and new hair will sprout where the follicles were implanted. Within 1 year, you will have a head full of hair! It is not at all likely that you will continue the pattern hair loss after the hair transplant, given the nature of the extracted follicles.
The strip of healthy hair-bearing tissue is excised from the back of the scalp which is the ‘permanent’ portion and your hair is programmed genetically to grow for life. The follicles are harvested and then implanted in to the bald patch which is the ‘non-permanent area’. Thus, the results will last a lifetime!
The transplanted hair grows well since it is not under the influence of genes anymore, not is it affected by hormones. However, the hair around the new grafts are still vulnerable to hereditary hair loss and can progressively thin out. Thus, your doctor will advice a comprehensive hair loss treatment plan help sustain the hair around the newly transplanted follicles.
- Do not touch your newly transplanted grafts for 7 days after the surgery.
- Ensure that you are having all the medicines prescribed by your doctor.
- In case there’s swelling on the forehead or around the eyes, massage the eyes gently and apply ice packs frequently.
- Visit your doctor in 15 days to remove the stitches in the donor area.
- Do not exercise for about a month after the procedure.
- Do not expose your scalp to direct sunlight for 3 months after the procedure.
- For the first 3 days after the procedure, elevate your head at 45 degrees from your bed.
Immediately after the surgery, the hairline and the recipient site will look like hair stubble once the grafts are transplanted. After about 1 to 2 months, the transplanted hair will enter the resting phase, and the hair will fall out – this is a natural phenomenon and you need not panic. The transplanted follicles will sprout new hair in the next couple of months. It will take 3 to 6 months for the hair to grow well and within 1 year you will have a thick, luxuriant mop of hair!
The scar from an FUT cannot be eliminated completely, however, there are a few ways in which you can make it less prominent. Usually, experts recommend a simple scar revision, or an FUT in to the scar, or a cosmetic treatment like scalp micro pigmentation help reduce the appearance of your FUT scar.
