The whole procedure is done under local anesthesia where the patient is conscious all the time. There is no pain at all during the procedure. We recommend that you pre order any movies or songs of your choice or bring your own entertainment along to keep yourself busy.A strip of haired skin is taken surgically from the back of the head, starting above one ear to the other. This step needs patience, which we have abundance of, as the stroke of the surgeons hand can make a difference of about 500 grafts.We ensure that the trauma to the tissue and the hair root is kept to a minimum by carefully maneuvering our incision between the hairs rather than over them.
The width of the strip varies from 1 cm to 3.0 cm, so does the length. The resulting defect is closed using the finest stitches which may be absorbable or need to be removed depending upon the patient’s preference. The stitches are applied in such a manner that the hair come out of the resulting scar. This is known as biwedged trychophatic closure. It is ensured that the skin removed is not too much to cause discomfort later and not too less to reduce the number of grafts. This is the time when the patient has to lie face down for 45 minutes. It is a little uncomfortable for some patients but most of them sleep during this period. We have especially imported prone pillow for this part that makes patient comfortable during the procedure.
There is minimal bleeding during the procedure, nothing that we cannot handle. The strip is separated from the underlying tissue so that vessels and nerves are not damaged. Only one layer of the scalp is removed leaving the rest intact. In our hands, there is no danger of damaging any nerves or vessels during the procedure. There is no chance of introduction of any infections as the procedure is done with disposable and sterilized equipment, and full aseptic methods are used.
The Strip thus removed is divided by a team of experts into small slices known as slivers. High magnification is used during the procedure. This reduces the damage to the grafts. These slices are again transformed by expert hair technicians into grafts using maximum effective magnification to avoid shearing. A graft may contain any number of hairs ranging from one to five, at an average; there are three hairs per graft.