Hair Transplantation Recovery

The length of Hair Transplantation Recovery period can vary depending on the type of surgery you choose and the size of the procedure. So there are a few things to consider and plan to ensure your recovery period is a positive experience says Hair Transplant Surgeon and Cosmetic Physician of Melbourne, Dr Rhett Bosnich.

“Today’s surgeries are capable of delivering many more grafts in a single session than was previously possible in years gone-by. This is great for the hair transplant patient because it means less sessions are required to deliver their final result in hair loss treatment.Hair transplant patients of today also get to appreciate the almost undetectable results when first doing their research and choosing the right clinic that is purely and fore-mostly dedicated to Hair Transplantation alone.” says Dr Bosnich. “Larger-sized surgery also means, though that there are a few things for them to consider regarding the Hair Transplantation Recovery period so they can plan and be prepared, thereby minimizing distress and anxiety.”

Dr Bosnich says that there are a few common side-effects of surgery that can influence such things as timing of your surgery – you may wish to take some annual leave from your job, or utilize Christmas holidays or public holidays to minimize the amount of sick leave you use

“The following things are minor, but could be enough for you to consider whether or not to remain housebound, alone or have a friend or family member with you during your recovery which can be up to 14 days depending on the effect,” says Dr Bosnich. “For example, facial swelling may be possible in people who have their frontal hairlines heavily worked on because oedema (fluid from inflammation) can track down the forehead to the eye area for a few days. If you don’t want certain people to know you’ve had surgery, you may wish to forewarn them that you’ll be “out-of-town” for a while, and simply just remain housebound for a week until the swelling resolves.”

Dr Bosnich also says that other effects can be experienced to you may wish to plan ahead for and these include: wound healing (tiny scabs form in the area of transplantation in the first few days – patients are encouraged to wait for about a week before they can start to massage them off according to strict instructions); bruising; temporary numbness and tenderness of either the donor area or the recipient area; tightness at the back of the scalp for those who have large-sized strip surgery; temporary redness during the wound healing phase that can be disguised if necessary with hair or cosmetic product; temporary ingrown hairs/pimples as the new hair push through the scalp.

Call +61 3 9693 9200 for a personal appointment with Dr Rhett Bosnich in Melbourne, Sydney or Internationally for a confidential discussion about your suitability for hair transplant and planning your surgery.

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. 

Cosmetic Surgery and Optimising Recovery

We have known for a long time that optimising your surgical results involves maximising your physical recovery, and now there are even more ways to help yourself during the post-treatment phase of cosmetic procedures, saysCosmetic Surgeon, Dr Rhett Bosnich, Fellow of the Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery (FFMACCS).

Dr Rhett Bosnich is the owner and Medical Director of the Newin Institute in Melbourne and Sydney, and is one of Australia's leading Hair Transplant and Cosmetic Surgeons. He is a leading Australian authority in surgical hair transplantation and is also at the forefront of cosmetic regenerative medicine for anti-ageing, hair regrowth and facial skin rejuvenation.

“It is clearly common-sense that cosmetic surgery, no matter how small or large, is a form of physical trauma and stress on our body.” Dr Bosnich says. “Recovery from physical insult due to surgery should address multiple factors including boosting the immune function to prevent adverse infections, ensuring adequate energy stores to assist with enduring surgery and the metabolic processes of tissue healing, psychological aspects and replenishing and maintain essential nutrients in the body to assist with tissue repair and regeneration.”

Dr Bosnich is a highly trained and experienced Hair Transplant Surgeon, Cosmetic Laser Surgeon and Regenerative Physician. He is one of the few Cosmetic Surgeons in Australia who is nowalso offering a holistic approach to post-surgical care by offering peptide management programs to target the changes our bodies experience during the recovery phase of cosmetic surgery. The aim is to maximise the body’s ability to heal faster, deposit stronger, more flexible tissue during wound repair, boost immune function and metabolic processes, and address psychological aspects to receiving cosmetic surgical treatment.

“In the past few years there has been a strong evolution from just the basic “no smoking, no alcohol, keep up the fluids and fibre, and increase your mobility guided by pain…”” he says. “We have even moved beyond incorporating vitamins and minerals and diet advice (pre- and post-surgery), as well as naturopathic herbal remedies and photo-therapy with LED devices to stimulate regeneration. Now we are looking at peptides to boost immune function and quality tissue repair.”

“Peptides and regenerative medicine are safe under the correct supervision, so people wanting to maximise their recovery after cosmetic surgery, cosmetic medicine and anti-ageing treatments can now look to combining PRP with peptidesfor quality options,” Dr Bosnich says.

Dr Bosnich is one of the few Cosmetic Surgeons in Australia who also has a special interest in regenerative anti-ageing through the use of peptides, PRP and Stem Cell technologies.

For more information please contact Dr Rhett Bosnich on 1300 360 764