- Grafts or Follicular Units (FUs) are synonyms and refer to basic transplanted units of the hair follicles which produce hairs.
- Depending on the number of grafts to be transplanted, the FUE hair transplant takes approximately 4-7 hours.
- You will wear a patient’s gown, afterwards the medical team will shave your head and then start the operation. During the grafts extraction (harvesting) stage, you will be lying on your stomach or side. During the channel incisions and implantation stages, you will be lying on your back or assume a half-seated position. There are break periods for meals, refreshments and visits to the restroom. During the intervention, you may watch TV or listen to your favorite music.
Administration of Local Anaesthesia:
- The operation begins with the administration of local infiltration anaesthesia. We routinely use a specific device, jet gun injector which is needleless; this is a pneumatic injector which provides totally pain-free and comfortable local anaesthetic administration at the beginning of the surgery.
- We use combined short-acting lidocaine and long-acting bupivacaine as anaesthetic agents and mix them with epinephrine to prolong the anaesthetic effect, and also to minimize the bleeding during the surgery. The effect of the local anesthesia lasts about 12-14 hours. The surgery and the postoperative period is totally pain-free and comfortable.
The Micromotor-Assisted FUE hair transplant is performed in 3 steps:
1- a) Extraction (harvesting) of the FUs (follicular units or grafts) from the donor areas.
b) Temporary storage and processing/arranging of the FUs in a storage medium.
2- Opening the incisions (channels) in the recipient area (performed only by the lead technician)
3- Placement (implantation) of the FUs into the recipient (hair loss) areas.
1- a) Extracting the grafts from the donor area:
- The grafts (FUs) are the basic transferred units of hair follicles. FUs are individually extracted from the donor area using tiny, specially designed extraction punches. The diameter of the tips range from 0.6 to 0.85 mm.
- The holes in the donor area are fairly small, as a result, there will be a minimal scarring in this area and the wounds will heal very quickly.
- The harvested grafts are collected using microforceps with very delicate tips to prevent any tissue damage.
- Thanks to the Micromotor-powered equipment and our highly experienced and skilled team members of graft extractions, harvesting the grafts proceeds very rapidly and efficiently, which reduces the grafts storage period and provides full comfort for our patients.
1- b) Temporary storage of the FUs in a cooling storage medium:
- Then, grafts are arranged and aligned in the surgical pads and temporarily stored in a cool, sterile solution and placed over a cooling device which provides a moist environment and prolongs the storage time until they are implanted in the recipient area.
- The grafts (FUs) may contain single, double, triple and sometimes quadruple hair follicles. Accordingly, a 1000 grafts (follicular units) may hold and transfer 1500-2500 follicles (hairs) – this means that the average hair number is 1.5 to 2.5 per graft.
2- Opening the incisions (holes or channels) in the receiving area for graft implantation.
- The incisions is made using a very thin custom made blades with diameters smaller than the diameter of the graft extraction needles. Then, the grafts will fill the holes totally and a secure attachment between the grafts and their beds which is important for the graft survival is provided.
- The holes are opened in alignment with the proper growth direction of the hairs in a particular region of the scalp. Therefore, the natural growth direction and even the vertex whirl are provided.
- We also use sapphire-tip incision technique over the front hairline and anterior parts to provide a smooth and dense hairline.
- Opening the incisions standardizes the results of the hair transplants. Thanks to our lead technician Yesim having great experience and skills to achieve that, the procedure goes on smoothly and efficiently ensuring the persistently natural results.
3- Implanting the FUs into the preformed incisions:
- Using the very tiny microforceps and with great care and delicacy, the grafts are inserted into the holes in the proper direction (the hair roots inwards) and with care taken to place the surface of the grafts in the transplant area a little higher than the surrounding skin.
- Thanks to the expertise and skill of our team members who are specialized in graft implatations, our goal is always to ensure 99- 100% of the graft survival rates.
Dense Packing of the Hairline with Single-Hair Grafts:
- During the implantation of the grafts, the front hairline is filled densely with micro-grafts including single hair follicles.
End of the Operation:
- Finally, the last check-ups are done, the donor and recipient areas are cleaned with serum, then the donor area is covered with surgical pads and bandaged, whereas the transplanted area is left open. The patient is ready to be brought back to the hotel or home for rest. The postoperative period is totally pain-free and comfortable.
