This has long been an area of some questionable infomercial remedies — spray-on hair anyone? But Dr. Kearney now offers the state-of-the-art in hair restoration. It’s called NeoGraft. This new method transplants healthy, functioning hair follicles into the thinning or balding areas. NeoGraft regrows hair in thinning areas without pills, creams, or anything but your own hair follicles. Dr. Kearney is excited to add NeoGraft for his patients.
Hair transplantation was never very good
Hair transplantation has been performed since the 1950s, but techniques have come a long way. Formerly, an entire patch of “bald resistant” hair from the back of the head was removed and transplanted in its entirety on the balding area. This created two problems. First, when the skin on the back of the scalp was stretched back together and stitched, it created an unsightly scar where hair would not regrow. This scar could be seen when the person was swimming and in other situations. Second, the transplanted hair patches looked unnatural.
Relocating a patch of hair never was a good solution. NeoGraft changes everything. With NeoGraft, Dr. Kearney uses the follicular unit extraction (FUE) method for hair transplantation. This involves taking individual follicles from the back of the scalp and transplanting them into the balding areas. The result is natural looking and effective.
How is FUE done?
In follicular unit extraction, the back of your head is first shaved and then numbed. This is the area where your hair is still growing normally and isn’t prone to balding. Dr. Kearney then removes hair follicles one by one from this area using the NeoGraft device. This penlike device gently rotates around each particular graft in a cylindrical shape. It uses pneumatic pressure to remove the hair follicles smoothly and uniformly. The NeoGraft system precludes Dr. Kearney ever needing to touch the follicles with forceps, so there isn’t any damage by pulling and twisting. The harvested hair follicles are kept in a canister equipped to lightly mist them with sterile saline solution on a regular basis until it’s time for transplantation.
Next, the areas where you need hair replaced are cleaned and then numbed. Each recipient site is created with a special tool to the exact specifications of the graft. Dr. Kearney then inserts the hair grafts into the created holes to the precisely measured depth. As you would assume, this is a time consuming process, taking anywhere from four to eight hours.
When will the hair start to grow?
After about two to three weeks, your transplanted hair will fall out, and this can freak out a patient. But this is simply the follicles’ reaction to the trauma, and it is perfectly normal. Of your transplanted follicles, around 60 percent will successfully take hold and start growing new hair within six to nine months.
Interested in filling back in thinning or balding areas? Call Dr. Kearney at (858) 677-9352 and set up a consultation for NeoGraft.
