Trent at Pink is the New Blog (a native of Michigan and a friend of mine) has a post on Brendan Fraser's recent appearance at a movie premiere. Has he had some hair transplants?
Way back when, plastic surgeons would treat bald areas by moving large amounts of skin (with the hair attached) from one part of the scalp to another. This left unfortunate scars, and is only done sparingly today.
This technique was followed by hair "macro" grafts. This procedure is probably where the term "hair plugs" originated from. Plastic surgeons would transplant hairs from one part of the scalp to another, in groups of maybe 5-10 hairs at a time. While this prevented the large scars of the previous surgeries, it often left people looking like they had "doll hair" with visible plugs.
The newest techniques involve "micro" grafts, where hairs are transplanted one or two hairs at a time. To my knowledge this leaves the most realistic result.
I can't stand doing hair transplantation though, as it is one of the most tedious of all plastic surgeries. We basically cut out a strip of hair from the back of the head and cut out each hair follicle one by one. These hair follicles are placed into small needle holes made in the bald areas. It takes a couple hours, as each hair is placed one at a time. I've heated each time I've done it. I found that whenever I put one hair in, two others would pop back out and fall on the floor. What a pain!
Thanks for reading.
Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:
