Hair Replacement with Plastic Surgery

Besides hair transplant surgery, there are some other plastic surgery options available for hair replacement. Scalp Flaps and Scalp-Reduction are some of the procedures that are available as hair replacement options. But these usually are more appropriate for patients who desire a more dramatic change. Besides these options are only suitable for men's hair loss replacement, women generally cannot receive these procedures because they have a Diffused Hair Loss caused by slightly different mechanism of Androgenetic Alopecia than that seen in men.

Most plastic surgeons today are leaders in tissue expansion, which is a reconstructive surgery procedure used for repairing burn wounds and injuries with significant skin loss. As a hair replacement surgery procedure it has yielded dramatic results and allows significant coverage in a relatively short amount of time.

In this technique, a balloon-like device called a tissue expander is inserted beneath hair-bearing scalp that lies next to a bald area. The device is gradually inflated with salt water over a period of weeks, causing the skin to expand and grow new skin cells. This causes a bulge beneath the hair-bearing scalp, especially after several weeks.

When the skin beneath the hair has stretched enough, usually about two months after the first operation, another surgical procedure is performed to move the expanded skin over to cover the adjacent bald area.

Hair replacement systems or hair pieces are other hair replacement options. In some cases they are the best or the only replacement option when there is no donor hair available. Partial hair pieces can also give good results in some cases.