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Transplantation to the eyebrows is a procedure designed to restore growing hair to eyebrows that are overly thin, scarred, or completely missing. The absence of hair can be due to genetics, prior electrolysis or laser hair removal, overplucking, thyroid or other hormonal abnormalities, or trauma due to surgery, burns or other types of accidents. Some patients seek to have restored full, thick eyebrows, others a subtle thickening, while others to have a scar made less visible.
The donor hairs come from the scalp which, when transplanted into the eyebrows, continue to grow for a lifetime and therefore need to be trimmed typically once a month. To provide a natural appearance, the hairs are transplanted primarily one and occasionally two at a time, the natural way eyebrow hairs grow. This is a very delicate procedure, requiring perfect placement of these hairs into tiny (half-millimeter) incisions that are angled at just the right direction and positioned to mimic natural growth. The use of all-microscopically dissected grafts allows their placement into the smallest possible incisions so as to minimize scarring and damage to already existing hairs.
A procedure typically involves the placement of 50 to as many as 325 hairs into each eyebrow, depending upon the existing amount of hair and the desired size and density. Performed usually under a mild oral sedative, the 2 hour procedure is essentially painless, as is the recovery period. For the first 2 to 4 days after the procedure, tiny crusts are around each transplanted hair. By 3 to 5 days, other than some occasional mild pinkness which fades out by the first week, patients are able to return to normal activities without any sign of having had a procedure. Sutures that are placed in the donor area are dissolvable so there is no need to return to the office for removal. The transplanted hairs fall out at around 2 weeks, then start to regrow at 3 months, where they will continue to grow for a lifetime.
There are few risks with the procedure, and most are those associated with standard hair transplants. The donor site incision, usually 1 to 2 inches long, typically heals as a 2 mm wide incision, easily concealable with existing hair in the area. Occasionally a few hairs grow in less than the ideal direction- these few hairs can be plucked out if desired or sometimes trained to grow in just the right direction.
Dr. Epstein performs more than 150 of these procedures annually, and his work in this area has been featured in such magazines as Health and Elle.
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If you have any other hair transplant questions, about follicular unit grafts, or other hair transplant issues, please do not hesitate to contact us. |
