How To Groom After Eyebrow Transplant Surgery

Regardless of whether you have had an eyebrow hair transplant procedure or not, the ‘cutting method’ is preferable to the ‘plucking method’ because you will retain hair density within your desired eyebrow zone, says Dr Rhett Bosnich, Hair Transplant Surgeon of Melbourne and Sydney, Australia.

Dr Rhett Bosnich MBBS, ABHRS, FFMACCS, an internationally renowned Hair Transplant Surgeon, of Melbourne and Sydney is one of the few Hair Transplant Surgeons in Australia performing eyebrow transplant surgery in Melbourne, called Newin Institute. He is one of the only surgeons capable of performing eyebrow transplant surgery using either of the two common harvesting methods: FUG (donor strip incision) and FUE (ultra-fine punch).

“Eyebrow transplant surgery may appeal to you because you have thin or non-existent hairs from years of over-plucking over the years. A skilled eyebrow hair transplant surgeon can reconstruct your brows whatever your age, face shape or eye shape, however, you do need to know how to groom and look after the following the procedure.” says Dr Bosnich. “For the bet results, transplanted hairs usually come from the scalp rather than other parts of the body. So they will continue to grow quite quickly and regular cutting is required for optimal maintenance.”

 “Whether you have had an eyebrow transplant or not, when grooming the browsthe ‘cutting method’ is preferred over the ‘plucking method’ because this allows you to maintain hair density within your desired eyebrow shape.” He says. “One should never pluck individual hairs out of your desired eyebrow zone. These hairs are far too precious – especially if they have been transplanted. You should reserve the plucking method for stray individual hairs that fall outside the actual eyebrow shape you want to maintain.”

Dr Rhett Bosnich and his team have been performing eyebrow transplant surgery in Melbourne for many years. Dr Bosnich regularly attends workshops by fellow ABHRS Surgeons, so he continues to hone his skills and techniques, including Hollywood eyebrow transplant surgeon to the stars: Dr Sara Wasserbauer of San Francisco. The majority of eyebrow transplants that Dr Bosnich performs occur in his Melbourne Hair Transplant Clinic, but the occasional surgery is performed in Sydney. Most interstate patients are quite happy to travel to Melbourne to ensure the best surgery. It’s an investment you can’t skimp on and ongoing post-surgical maintenance and grooming is part of retaining that investment.

“We summarise our guideline for grooming after eyebrow transplant surgery into 6 steps. Firstly, if you have chosen surgery to fill-in prexisting eyebrows that are a little on the thin side, then you may have some stray hairs in the upper eye lid area. It’s okay to pluck these up to your desired eyebrow zone. Anything within the desired eyebrow zone should be cut with scissors. Take a clean eyebrow comb or wand and brush downwards. Carefully trim a little of the excess length. Next, brush the hairs upwards and once again trim a little of the excess. You can repeat these steps until you are happy with the look, but always compare left and right sides to ensure they match.”

Dr Bosnich also recommends gently massaging the eyebrow area once the transplanted follicles heal. He says that although they implant the follicles with careful consideration to angulation, depth and direction of hair growth, some training is required to assist obtaining the final result several months down the track.

“Long gentle strokes from the inner corner to the outer corner with a little wax or gel can help train the direction of growth of hairs and keep them in place during the working day. It doesn’t hurt to apply it at night, too if you can.” Says Dr Bosnich.

The duration of an eyebrow transplant procedure is not very long – about 4 hours, butthe length of surgerydepends on how many grafts are required to be transplanted to restore your eyebrows. Usually about 150 follicles per eyebrow is enough for a really great result. Prices vary depending on the size of surgery, but are on average around $4000.

For more information and a personal consultation please contact Dr Rhett Bosnich on 1300 360 764

Ongoing Medication after Hair Transplantation Surgery – Is it necessary?

Hair transplantation surgery as everyone knows delivers fantastic results as long as the patient is deemed a suitable candidate and that the transplant is performed by a very experienced and qualified hair transplant surgeon and an experienced team of technicians.

One thing that some patients never think about when deciding to have a transplant is the potential of losing more of their existing hair over the long term. These people come in with the mentality of, “I just want to have one really decent hair transplant and to never have to worry about hair loss again!” Let me first say that in some cases this is possible. If a patient in their 60s that has been losing hair slowly for 40 years comes in with only a small to medium sized balding area in their frontal hairline or crown, they could transplant this area at a reasonable density per cm. The Surgeon can also work an extra half inch into their existing surrounding hairs to allow for the small amount of thinning that is expected to occur over the next 20 years. In this scenario, based on the patients older age, their history of very slow hair loss and the fact that the existing regions are still very thick, such a patient could get away with just the one hair transplant procedure during their entire life. The act of preserving existing hair with ongoing medication would also not be necessary in this scenario. However this does not represent the “typical” patient…

The typical patient is usually in their 30s or 40s and has lost quite a noticeable amount of hair during the previous 5 years. They generally have the common sense to understand that the chances of having less hair on top in 5-10 years from now if they do nothing to treat their hair loss, is close to a 100% certainty. Therefore medications such as finasteride ordutasteride are discussed by the Doctor during the consultation process and expressed as an important step in maintaining long term happiness after a hair transplant.

The two questions that the surgeon will ask himself when assessing a potential hair transplant patient are:

1. Will this patient be happy with their decision to have proceeded with a hair transplant when they come in for their 12 month check-up?

2. Based on their hair loss history and the treatment plan that I can recommend, will they still be satisfied with their head of hair in 5 or 10 years from now?

Let’s examine in detail what these two questions mean:

1. The level of satisfaction and happiness the patient shows at their 12 month check-up directly relates to the variables that affect outcome. This means that if they have had a large number of grafts (such as 3500 grafts instead of 2000 grafts) placed into a moderate sized area; they have thick hair diameter that is wavy; Existing hairs still remain within the thinning region to complement the transplanted hairs and treating the thin area now gives them a complete head of hair, their satisfaction level will be at a 10/10.

However if the patient had 2000 grafts placed into the same area; Their hair diameter was naturally fine, and it was already known that they really would have needed 4000 grafts to come out looking complete, they are more likely to have an overall satisfaction level of around 6/10. The patient would certainly look better than before but when comparing themselves to the before and afters of patients that have naturally thicker hair and bigger surgeries in the vicinity of 4000-5000 grafts, they would feel a little let down. So point 1 basically indicates how many hair transplant variables work in their favour.

                                                    

Point 2: Whether or not the hair transplant patient will still be satisfied in 5 or 10 years from now comes down to their ongoing rate of hair loss. If for example the patient is 24 years old and already within the moderate to advanced stages of hair loss, they may be deemed suitable for surgery by the Doctor. The surgeon may determine that the patient requires 4500 grafts and that he can comfortably obtain this graft number in one session. Therefore based on this the Doctor can feel very confident that the patient will be happy with their result after 12 months have elapsed.  However due to the fact a large amount of hair was already lost by the age of 24, it indicates that significantly more is due to follow in the future. At this rate of shedding how much will theylose by the time they are 30, 35 or 40 years of age? How long will it be before the remaining regions thin out and they require a second transplant?

In this scenario ongoing Hair loss treatment in the form of finasteride or dutasteride is essential to maintain long term happiness. As these medications have been proven to minimize shedding in more than 90% of users, they are a great way to delay (or possibly to prevent) the need for a second hair transplant in the future.

So in conclusion, is ongoing medication recommended after hair transplant surgery? The answer is YES in most cases. This is because the amount of hair a hair loss sufferer can experience during their lifetime is way more than the amount of permanent hair they have available within their donor region to replace through repeated hair transplants.

If you are to ever have a hair transplant you need to also ask yourself whether you want to feel happy for a short time or a long time after the procedure. If you want to remain happy for many years after investing a large amount of capital into your hair transplant, then the recommendation would be to use ongoing medication to remain looking and feeling great as much as possible.

Should you wish to receive a hair loss assessment in Melbourne or Sydney feel free to call us on 03 9693 9200. 

Hair Transplants – what can they be used for?

Most people realise that hair transplant surgery is most commonly used to treat males who are suffering from Male Pattern Hair Loss (MPHL) or androgenetic alopecia. However, hair transplants are often used to treat other things like –

- Occasionally Female Pattern Hair Loss (FPHL)

- Brow lift scars

- Hair loss that has resulted from a face lift

- General scalp or facial scarring (traumatic or surgical)

- Eyebrow hair loss (from over plucking, trauma, scarring, loss due to medication, and genetically thin/fine eyebrows)

- Cleft lip scars in adult males

- Patchy beards in males

Dr Rhett Bosnich has been performing hair transplant surgery for 8 years and has performed over 3000 hair transplant procedures. He performs hair transplant surgery for a number of different conditions – not just hair loss. But to do this he has had to undergo specialised training in a variety of techniques so that can apply his hair transplant skills using the correct surgical technique to achieve a good patient outcome.

At Newin Institute, Dr Rhett Bosnich and his technical staff perform manual and motorized FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction), FUG (Follicular Unit Grafting), combined FUG and FUE hair transplants and BHT (Body Hair Transplant). This enable Dr Bosnich to treat many of the less common conditions that require hair transplant surgery.

PRP for Hair Loss – What many do not know…

PRP (platelet rich plasma) treatment has been around in the medical world for more than 25 years. In recent times it has become a very popular and effective method of treatment for sport injuries (relating to chronic pain in the knees, ankles, shoulders and tennis elbow) as well as facial skin rejuvenation.  PRP is typically performed by extracting 10-20mls of blood, centrifuging the blood  and then extracting the plasma (which carries the platelets) and injecting the PRP into the relevant area.

In only the last few years, hair loss clinics have begun offering PRP treatment to help maintain and potentiallyincrease the thickness of a person’s existing thinning hair. The problem is that these clinics follow the same generic PRP treatment plan (as if they are treating sore joints) and end up achieving very limited (or no) results when it comes to combatting hair loss. The patient, due to their own bad experience ends up convinced that PRP does not work for hair. There are a number of things many people are not aware of when it comes to PRP for hair loss. Below are 6 key points: