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February 2007

City plastic surgeons can give you a hair-raising experience


From Ujjain to West Asia, the young and the balding are descending on the city to get hair grafts done

It may seem like a hair-raising experience, but doctors point out that a skillfully carried out hair-transplant surgery can produce results that are so natural that even the stylists cannot detect them.

And believe it or not, a few plastic surgeons in Pune are involved in the tedious job of ‘follicular hair-transplant’.

Says Dr Vishwanath Jigjinny, a plastic surgeon who has performed at least 50 such surgeries over the last three years, “Hair-transplant as a ‘hair-restoration’ procedure is advancing very fast.

New techniques have made it possible to transplant hair from smaller donor areas. This involves replacement from the donor area of the scalp to a recipient area through intricate surgical hair restoration procedures.”

But if you assume that most clients include bald middle-agers from Ujjain to West Asia, you’re in for a surprise. Surgeons promise they have their share of young IT professionals and budding NRI businessmen too.

“Hair transplantation is the surgical removal of hair from a certain area of the scalp and its relocation to a bald or a thinned area. What we do is create a hairline,” says Dr P Sahasrabuddhe. “And instead of putting bunches of hair which look unattractive we undertake the tedious job of transplanting single strands.”

In fact the micro surgical blades like the size of hair grafts have become even smaller and enable the surgeons to safely make more tiny graft incisions in a given area.

Surgeons are then able to ‘densely pack’ select areas with as many as 40-60 follicular unit grafts per square centimetre. This improves both the naturalness and fullness of hair that can be achieved from a surgical hair transplant session.

So the tedious job is undertaken by an expert team of doctors that includes plastic surgeons and dermatologists.

It lasts for four to five hours and is undertaken under local anaesthesia. The patient can relax, read a book, even watch television while the team performs its job.

“We don’t increase the number of strands of hair. What we do is redistribute hair population to cover the bald head,” Jigjinny points out.

While it is critical to choose the right hair loss treatment, doctors aver that it is a highly skillful job. Jigjinny explains why:

“We cut out a strip of skin that has hair follicles and stitch it back. The wound is closed and then the strip is cut into individual pieces under a microscope. Later, multiple holes are made on the area in the front part of the head and then the strips which has the hair follicles are inserted.”

While the entire bald patch cannot be covered in one surgical session, more sessions are conducted on the patient’s demand.

Even if the cost of the hair transplant for one surgical session is estimated at an approximate Rs 60,000, doctors reckon there are takers.