Hair Transplant For Men: U-FUE, The Unshaven Transplant, Can Let You Keep Your Hair Locks 'Untouched'
A receding hairline often plagues many men who realize the inevitable truth — male pattern baldness (MPB). When a man begins to see some degree of hair loss as he gets older with age, he will most likely try a number of methods to conceal hair thinning. MPB accounts for more than 95 percent of hair loss in men, with two-thirds of American men losing a moderate amount of hair by age 35, says the American Hair Loss Association. Hair loss is strongly correlated with a man's work and social life, often causing physical and emotional distress to the point of trying to reverse the life-long process.
With approximately 86 percent of hair loss patients who turn to hair restoration surgery are men, the industry has seen enormous economic growth in the U.S. with 101,252 surgeries performed in 2011, according to the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS) survey. While a hair transplant usually involves the shaving of the scalp, a new procedure — U-FUE (Unshaven Follicular Unit Extraction) will allow you to save your locks and sport luscious hair too.
U-FUE Versus FUE Hair Transplant
Dr. Thomy Kouremada-Zioga, a leading hair transplant surgeon who brought her practice from Greece to the UK, provides the U-FUE, the unshaven hair transplant for clients who wish to keep their locks "untouched" by surgery, reports the Daily Mail. This new innovation in hair loss treatment will give men peace of mind, since the technique will not require them to sport a shaven head for a few weeks until the hairs grow.
Unlike the current standard in hair transplantation, follicular unit extraction (FUE), U-FUE allows the patients to keep their original hair in the same style and length while getting the procedure. For an FUE surgery that is considered to be a large treatment, the donor area is required to be shaved to allow the harvesting of the greatest number of grafted hair follicles, says True & Dorin, the "Hair Loss Doctors" of New York, New Jersey and Boston. The most complicated of FUE transplants takes a duration of four to five hours for 2,000 hairs while a U-FUE can take an additional 90 minutes since the surgery will only transplant a few hairs in one single day, reports the Daily Mail. However, the length of your hair transplant surgery is contingent upon how many follicular unit grafts are transplanted.
Success Of U-FUE
The new procedure came about when Kouremada-Zioga experimented on small, unshaven sections of the scalp. Known as having performed the highest number of FUE hair transplant surgeries in Europe, she has "perfected the method of transplanting without the need to shave the donor area, offering that option when suitable, and making it easier for a patient's treatment to go undetected," says the Private Clinic of Harley Street.
Her method has provided Lewis Aldous, 27, with much needed relief. "I have quite a conservative office job in the Civil Service, and I didn't feel I could just go back with a skinhead, so this was perfect," he told the Daily Mail. "Otherwise I would have had to take weeks off to wait for the hairs to grow."
A hair transplant is usually most effective once a person's hairline recedes and thus has permanent hair loss. There is no need to pull out your hair wondering if the procedure will work, since the chances of long term follicle survival is 98 to 100 percent.
If you wish to have long, luscious locks like Fabio without a hair transplant, read more about FDA-approved treatments that can manage and prevent hair loss here.