One of the colossal decisions that comes up in someone's life is what to do about hair loss. The most common of these problems revolve around male pattern baldness. Pattern baldness, while primarily a male condition, can also be found in women. This condition is exhibited by the thinning of the lateral sides of the forehead and or by a thinning crown. Although many people assume this is only a male problem that isn't quite the whole truth. Women, for a variety of reasons, can also be subject to the loss of their hair including pattern baldness. While this is essentially a cosmetic issue rather than a condition resulting from disease it is still a situation that can be successfully addressed by modern medical techniques. For those that wish to stop or completely reverse pattern baldness there are two hair transplant treatments that can address this issue and restore your hair. One surgical method that is widely used is called the strip treatment or the follicular unit transplantation technique; the other is the plug treatment or follicular unit extraction.The strip treatment consists of surgically removing a strip of your normal hair, generally from the back of your head and surgically implanting it in the area to be treated, generally in the front of the scalp in a male pattern baldness treatment. Prior to implantation the strip is divided into separate grafts to produce a new hairline. More than one graft may be needed depending upon the severity of the baldness and since this is a surgical procedure general anesthetic is used. Estimated recovery time for this procedure can be up to several weeks.The other method used in correcting this problem is the plug method or follicular unit extraction. This procedure is, by all accounts, much safer than the strip method as it does not involve surgery; therefore a general anesthetic is not required and recovery time is much quicker. The difference is that a special tool is used to extract individual hair follicles or plugs and place them in the area to be treated in much the same way as the strip method. Because this method is less invasive problems resulting from complications are kept to a minimum. The patient also does not require full sedation and as a result using the plug method only requires a local anesthetic. Additionally, the plug method offers minimal discomfort and much less patient downtime for full recovery.Of the two methods available the strip method is the most widely used and promoted hair transplant treatment. The reason for this is fairly simple; the plug method is or can be very time consuming, labor intensive, and costly. In addition the plug method requires special training and many doctors are just not that interested in investing the time or energy in learning a new procedure. This is, however, not the whole story. There are new technological advances both patients and doctors can enjoy and take advantage of such as the NeoGraft system that employs an automated follicular unit extraction technique and implantation system. This new technology allows for an automated hair transplant treatment, which translates into a shallower learning curve for the physician for hair transplant treatment and an added cost reduction of the procedure for the patient.
