What to Expect If You Are A Woman Getting A Hair Transplant
Hair loss can be hard for anyone who is suffering from it. But for women, it can be even more stressful than it is for a man. For the most part, hair loss is socially acceptable in men, but for women, it can cause a loss of self-esteem. It can affect relationships, work, and enjoyment of life.
We see a lot of women with hair loss here at the Toronto Hair Transplant Clinic. We do our absolute best to make sure that we take every possible approach to help them restore the hair that they have lost. A hair transplant is, of course, the best option for restoring hair, but there are some things that you should be aware of before the procedure.
What Causes The Hair Loss?
The most common cause of hair loss is called androgenetic alopecia, or female pattern baldness. Alopecia is just another way of saying “baldness”. Androgenetic means that the baldness is caused by your androgens and is a genetic and inherited trait. The cause of this type of hair loss comes from a conversion of testosterone into dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT is what causes us to lose hair on the top of our head.
For men, we start balding from the frontal, temporal areas, and the hair recedes until we also start to lose from the crown. Eventually the two bald areas meet in the middle of the scalp for full maturity of baldness, also called a Norwood 7 on the Norwood Scale. (This is the most common way to rank stages of hair loss in men).
Donor Area
The hair at the back of the scalp is not affected by the DHT that causes the hair loss at the top of the scalp. Therefore, the hair at the back of the scalp is used for a hair transplant. We use the follicular unit extraction (FUE) method to take the grafts from the back of the head. Each graft contains a hair follicle and can have anywhere from 1 to 6 hairs in it. However, for us to get these grafts, it is absolutely necessary that we shave a “window” of hair in the back of the head so that we can properly harvest these grafts. So for most women, this means that it will definitely have an effect on your hairstyle. We do our very best to shave that area in a way so that it can be covered up by the surrounding hair. If a woman already has fairly long hair, it is very possible to keep that area covered until it grows back in. If a woman does not have sufficient hair to cover up that area, she will need to be prepared to have this area exposed and plan a strategy to cover it. We also work with top salons and stylists to come up with a plan ahead of time to make this a very achievable possibility. We have used extensions, scarves, hats, and different hairstyles to disguise the area until it has time to grow back in. It may seem very overwhelming, but we offer a lot of support to make this a “non-issue” for you.
