Hair Restoration Blog

Q:

When can I go back to work after my hair transplant surgery?

A:

This is one of the first questions that come to mind when people are preparing themselves for a hair transplant surgery.  The down time after a hair transplant has a lot to do with the type of work that you do, whether or not you can use a hat, how sensitive the issue of your hair transplant is and whether or not you want to keep it a secret.

Generally, we at our Los Angeles center of US Hair Restoration would like to bring patients back for a hair wash after the first day of their hair transplantation.  I like to make sure that they are given a professional hair wash with our special technique and teach the patient how to wash his or her hair for the first few days after hair transplantation.

Patients may have some swelling and redness on the transplanted and forehead area for a few days after their hair transplant surgery and the swelling after hair transplant may last up to 4 to 5 days.  Patients can use a hat for the first few days to cover the red and swollen area on forehead.

The redness and swelling may spread down to the level of the eyebrows or even eyelids in more extensive hair transplantations.  The swelling is generally completely gone by day 5 or 6 after hair restoration surgery.  The degree of swelling has to do with the size of the hair transplant surgery and the number of grafts.  Larger surgeries (over 2500 grafts) generally create more swelling, but small surgeries may not have any detectable swelling.

The other issue is the presence of hair after hair transplant.  Patients will have short hair (0.5 to 2cm) on transplanted areas for two to three weeks after their hair transplant.  They fall out in about 90% of the patients after their hair transplantation within 3 weeks after hair implantation.  Patients should be back to where they were before their hair transplant in about 3 to 4 weeks.  At that point, there should not be any swelling or redness, staples or sutures must be removed and the transplanted hair follicles will have gone into their resting phase.

It’s been almost 7 and 3/4’s of a month now since my hair transplant surgery with Dr. Mohebi at the Encino office.
It’s been pretty tense working on the computer for extended hours the last few months, so I wanted to get a full body massage to relax, specifically including the face and head.

Would getting a head massage risk loosening the implants?

I figured it might be good to help increase circulation.

Sincere thanks

A:

The new hair that could be seen after months 3 are considered permanent and they are completely part of your scalp.  Anything that may remove your own hair can affect transplanted hair too.  If you pull transplanted new hair, the hair shaft may come out but the active part of the follicle stays in and can generate another hair in a few weeks.

Increasing circulation of scalp during a scalp massage, however, is not proven to increase the quality and quantity of your native or transplanted hair.  Today in age, we know that people do not lose hair due to lack of blood circulation or oxygenation in scalp.

Enjoy your massage,

–
Best,

Parsa Mohebi, M.D.
US Hair Restoration
16661 Ventura Blvd.
Encino, CA 91436
Tel: 818-788-8363
www.ushairrestoration.com

Happy New Year! Last year was a year of great accomplishments for our group, and I have a lot to share with you in this blog. We are proud to be able to continue our research in hair loss and hair restoration and be active at the medical meetings at an international level.  I am also proud that our articles were published on Hair Transplant Forum, the most prestigious journal of hair restoration surgery.

Two of our articles, Psychology of Hair Transplants and How to assess scalp laxity, were published on this journal as their cover article within the last year.  I have to appreciate Dr. William Rassman, Medical Director of the New Hair Institute, who coauthored me on those articles and also Dr. Jae Pack who helped us with the technical aspect of our invention: Laxometer.

I presented a lecture on Psycho-social impacts of hair restoration surgery on men at an annual meeting of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS), which is the most important event in the hair restoration society.  One of the medical equipment companies is working on producing the Laxometer, which was invented a year ago and was perfected within the last year.  Laxometer is a device that can help hair transplant surgeons to increase their precision in harvesting hair and making hair transplant a safer procedure for patients.

Beside our achievements in hair restoration, we have expanded our Encino Medical Spa to be able to provide many more cosmetic needs of our patients under one roof.  Our hair restoration offices in Encino, Beverly Hills and Orange County facilitated the access of the patients to our services for residents or Southern California.  We also provided great travel packages for the patients who traveled from other states or other Countries to take advantage of our quality services.  I have to thank Niki and Rey and other medical assistants for coordinating this process and making our procedures as smooth and pleasant as possible.

Last year has been a financially challenging year for America and many other countries.  We at US Hair Restoration succeeded at reducing rates of our procedures while maintaining our high standards.  We also offered a variety of low rates and 0% interest financing for hair transplants for qualified patients to make our hair transplant procedures more affordable.

I am glad that I found many new friends last year, people who I personally admire for their willingness to become a better person inside and out.  I appreciate my colleagues for referring their patients and friends to us and our previous patients who could not stop bragging about their new look after the procedures that they had with us.

Have a great Holiday,
Parsa Mohebi, MD
Medical Director
US Hair Restoration and USHR Medical Spa

Dr. Mohebi,

These eyebrows deserve your attention!

It is Friday evening and we are finishing a large FUE (follicular unit extraction) case in our Encino, California hair transplant clinic.  I was going over my letters and I found this picture that was sent from one of my patients. My patient has such a great sense of humor. He recently had an eyebrow hair transplant procedure with us.  I found this letter amusing and I wanted to share it with the readers of our hair restoration blog.

Hello,

I underwent surgery in mid-October and remember well the directive to keep the sun off my head. My question is whether I can use a tanning bed without damage or threat of damage to the transplant area if a use a bandana.

You have had your hair transplant for about two weeks now and you were wondering whether or not a tanning bed can damage your newly transplanted hair implants. What we generally recommend to our patients after hair transplant surgery at US Hair Restoration is to avoid sun exposure to the transplanted areas of the head for at least 6 months after their hair transplants. Sun exposure can slow down or stop the growth of normal, existing hair or even damage the hair follicles. The same issue may be seen with newly transplanted hair after a hair restoration surgery. Sunlight has many different components besides the visible light including ultra violet and infra red lights. We do not know for sure which components are more responsible for hair follicle damage but for this reason I prefer to treat tanning beds the same way. If you can cover your head completely to block the exposure to the light, I do not think that you have to avoid tanning beds.

The article “Surgeon Restores Patients’ Hair, Self-Confidence” was recently published in the popular newspaper of “The Beverly Hills Courier” based on the interview with Dr. Parsa Mohebi, medical director of US Hair Restoration.

Here is a summary of the article, which mostly focuses on the psychological impacts of hair restoration on men. Dr. Mohebi also discussed some of the new methods of hair restoration that is offered by the Beverly Hills Office of US Hair Restoration. Here is how he goes:

Nothing looks better than a full head of hair, and one of the best people to provide it is Dr. Parsa Mohebi, medical director of US Hair Restoration.

Mohebi specializes in several hair-transplant procedures:

• Follicular Unit Transplant (FUT) is the gold standard of hair-transplant surgery, Mohebi said, giving very natural results. A strip of donor scalp is removed and the follicles are prepared under microscopes and distributed in the bald area in the natural direction and orientation.
• Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE), also called non-invasive hair-restoration surgery, uses special biopsy devices to extract individual follicular units without having to remove a strip of skin; so there is no linear scar.

“Not everyone needs non-invasive surgery,” Mohebi says. “But people who want to shave their head in the future for any reason may consider FUE because there is no visible evidence of surgery on the back of their head. There’s nothing to suture, and the small dot wounds are not detectable a few days after surgery”.

• Mohebi also specializes in eyebrow transplants for both men and women.
• As testament to his skills, he also repairs bad or “pluggy” transplants, performed by other doctors. “We do several repair hair transplant surgeries a month,” he says.

Mohebi spends an hour with each new patient and does a microscopic evaluation of the scalp and a miniaturization study of the hair to predict future hair loss. “That way we’re not limited to the obviously bald areas, but we can transplant hair to where the patient may lose hair in the future. With the technology we have now, there’s no reason for anyone to experience hair loss.”

As a fellowship-trained hair-transplant surgeon, Dr. Mohebi continues research the latest high-transplant techniques and his writings have been presented and published in both national and international medical-society publications.

The article continues with discussing the published research on the psychology of hair transplant in men, which was finished last year: Dr. Mohebi’s latest article was the cover story for Hair Transplant Forum International, considered the most important journal in the field of hair restoration, on The Psychology of Hair Transplants. From research in Europe, we know that people with hair loss are prone to anxiety, depression and other psychological problems; we tried to see if we can reverse that with hair restoration surgery.

He evaluated 200 patients after surgery in eight criteria, and saw improvements with FUT in terms of happiness, youthfulness, energy levels, self-esteem and self confidence, future outlook and impact on their career and sex life. The results were amazing and improvements in all eight criteria were statistically significant. The authors, Dr. Mohebi and Dr. Rassman concluded that using the new techniques of hair restoration patient can drastically improve all of the psycho-social impacts of hair loss.

The reporter then set aside US Hair restoration from many other hair transplant clinics by several factors by referring to Dr. Mohebi’s comments on following the latest standards of hair restoration surgery and the fact that things have changed significantly recently in the field of hair restoration. What was done five years ago is not acceptable today. We have the most experienced technicians; and everything is done under a microscope to get the highest yield of hair.

Then there’s the customer service. “The day of the hair transplant procedure is a big day for patients,” Mohebi said, “often six to eight hours. Patients are usually amazed at how smooth and pleasant the day is.

Patients are given mild to moderate sedation and numbing medication for the donor and recipient area. Once the scalp is numb the strip of skin is removed and the wound is closed. The next step is to prepare hair grafts under microscope. While grafts are being made by experienced technicians of US Hair Restoration, Dr. Mohebi is designing the hair line and makes the sites according to the natural direction and distribution of hairs.

Since the newly placed follicles are so fragile, patients return the next day to get their hair washed professionally, given special shampoo and taught how to take care of their hair at home. “After five days, no special care is needed,” Mohebi said.

Ten days after the surgery, patients return to have the donor site checked and staples removed for those who had them. Hair starts growing after three months, and is long enough to style and comb after ten to twelve months. The third follow up is at 10 months after the procedure.

Severe baldness may require more than one surgery, usually spaced at least six months apart. “With megasession hair transplants we can do 4,000 grafts in one day. That significant number is a help to patients with a high class of baldness. We can get a higher stage of restoration with fewer sessions of transplants.”

Continuing to pioneer in the field, Dr. Mohebi is the inventor of the Laxometer, a device to measure the laxity or mobility of the scalp. Laxity of the scalp is key in determining the size of the donor strip so that enough can be removed for bigger cases, and the wound can be closed without too much tension and the scaring will be minimal.

To help people stay abreast of all that’s happening the field of hair restoration, and to answer questions (he’s heard from Europe and China) Dr. Mohebi maintains a hair restoration blog, ushairrestoration.com/blog.

The office of US Hair Restoration in Los Angeles was visited by Patrick Hennessey - President of Media Visions, Inc. and publisher of the Hair Transplant Network.com, the popular and highly respected online community that guides hair loss patients to find the best hair transplant center for their hair restoration procedure.

Here is a summary of what he observed during his one day visit of US Hair Restoration:

• I expect Dr. Mohebi will become well known in the coming months and years online for his quality follicular unit grafting.

  

Mr. Hennessey spent one day in the Los Angeles office of US Hair Restoration. He observed a hair transplant surgery too. He commented on the dedication and skill of Dr. Mohebi and his surgical staff:

• Dr. Mohebi impressed me as being passionate about his work and dedicated. He has succeeded in attracting a skilled and experienced staff. On the day I observed surgery in his office two of the medical technicians on duty had 13 years experience and a third had nine years experience in hair transplantation. He and his experienced staff have the capability to do sessions exceeding 3,000 grafts.In addition to performing state of the art follicular unit hair transplantation, he also performs FUE (follicular unit extraction) with sessions up to 1,500 grafts a day. During my visit they performed a 1,948 follicular unit graft session to restore the patient‚Äôs hairline. The 1,948 grafts consisted of 319 ones, 1,541 twos and 85 threes and 3 four hair grafts for a total of 3,678 hairs.‚ÄùIn the past Dr. Mohebi has had a strong interest in researching hair growth, hair multiplication and wound healing. He currently collaborates with academic centers on studies on hair growth, gene therapy techniques and hair multiplications.Dr. Mohebi uses 20 gauge needles to make tiny graft incisions as small as 0.7mm. He told me that he intentionally zig zags his donor excision slightly so that the thin donor scar is harder to detect even under close examination. He uses a double layer closure when he feels it is needed to minimize any potential scaring. He uses staples of the external suture.
  

To see the pictures and read more on Pat Hennessey’s trip to Los Angeles Hair Transplant Center of US Hair Restoration you can see the page on visit Dr. Parsa Mohebi in Los Angeles in Hair Transplant Network.