WOMEN DON’T HAVE HAIR TRANSPLANTS. ..DO THEY?
Transplants aren’t just for men – as this mother of two reveals in a story that will inspire every woman with hair loss
FOOTBALLER Wayne Rooney’s done it, so has actor James Nesbitt. They’ve both had hair transplants – and they have been so open about their procedures that it is now seen as a relatively easy fix for men with receding or thinning hair.
It’s a topic that seems to be firmly in the ‘men’s health’ camp – but it is also an option for women and can change their lives in just the same way.
According to cosmetic surgery group Transform, women make up a third of hair transplant patients, and there was a 41 per cent rise in inquiries between 2012 and 2013.
One of the growing number who have turned to hair transplant technology is Ellie Kidd, 38, who says the treatment has marked a new beginning for her.
Ellie, a clerical assistant from Kidderminster, Worcestershire, had a hair transplant in March 2013. The divorcee who has two children, Lewis, 14, and Macey, 11, says: ‘I’ve always had fine hair but it got worse after I’d had Macey and in photographs I’d notice the top of my scalp. I’d avoid being in pictures but occasionally something from a party would pop up on Facebook and I’d cringe. I’d comb my hair to try and disguise it but windy days were another big problem. Basically, I had zero confidence.’
When she was 32, Ellie’s GP diagnosed her with a deficiency of Vitamin B – essential for healthy hair – and Ellie was given injections of it every 12 weeks. But they were too late to prevent further loss.
After her GP told her that the most the NHS could do was provide a wig, she sought help privately and paid for £5,700 transplant surgery herself with help from her er parents. Andd she says: ‘It’s one of the best decisions I ever made.’
Ellie hopes s that her story will encourage other er women n who have e had transplants to tell theirs, to highlight that itt is a suitable treatment. ment.
Transplant ant surgeon Bessam Farjo arjo says: ‘Women and hair loss is still a taboo subject - and we still need to do a lot more to let ladies know surgery can help them in the same way it does men.’
A hair transplant is done under local anaesthetic and involves moving hair roots – usually from the back of the scalp – to the area where there is hair loss. The roots then ‘bed in’ to this new area and within three to four months they start growing normally.
Until 20 years ago transplants were done with what is called a ‘plug’ or ‘punch’ technique, in which surgeons would take tiny circles of skin containing about 20 hairs from the donor site and reimplanting it in the area of thinning hair.
‘It didn’t look natural,’ says Dr Farjo. Ten years ago a system called Follicular Unit Extraction was introduced in which smaller, indiv individual follicular units just 1m 1mm in diamete diameter are ta taken from t the d donor si site and im immediately implanted into the site of the thinning hair. Some surggeons, includin ing Dr Farjo, no now use a robot to help with this process, speeding it up.
Dr Farjo estimates that an average female pattern hair loss patient would require six hours’ work for a transplant, costing £6,000.
You do need to have enough hair to be able to transplant and if your hair is thin in the original site it will also be thin in the transplanted area. And in about five per cent of cases, the hair graft will not take hold.
Ellie’s transplant took place in Bromsgrove, at a hair restoration clinic called Ziering. ‘I was excited rather than nervous,’ she says. Afterwards she was given painkillers and five days later she returned to work. At about two weeks, the surrounding hair at the top of her head fell out. This is a reasonably common side effect with the hair going into ‘shock’ after the rigours of the operation.
‘I lost around a third of my existing hair. It sounds dramatic but I’d been warned it could happen and wore hats,’ says Ellie. ‘It started to grow back after a couple of weeks.’
Four months later she had her shoulder-length bob cut into a flattering short style. ‘The transplanted hair was spiky at first but now blends in with the rest,’ she says. ‘You’d never know to look at it that I’d had surgery.’