FUT Hair Transplant

FUT Hair Transplant, otherwise known as Follicular Unit Transplantation or strip harvesting is an alternative hair transplantation technique to the Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) procedure more commonly performed here at The Private Clinic.

In some cases, patients may not be suitable for a FUE Hair Transplantation procedure in which case a FUT procedure may be suggested as an alternative.

A FUT Hair Transplant procedure involve the surgeon transplanting thousands of grafts within one session by taking a strip of hair from the back of the scalp and then transplanting the follicles into the affected areas.

To find out more about FUE Hair Transplants click here

Treatment

You will firstly have a local anaesthetic injection to numb the scalp before starting the procedure. A strip of hair will then be excised from the back of the head, sometimes the side of the scalp could be considered too. The donor area is then closed with stitches and the skin strip removed is cut into individual grafts by an experienced team of technicians.

Once the new hair grafts are ready, the surgeon will have made tiny incision sites ready to insert the new hair grafts which will help to restore a natural hairline, increase the density of the hair and reduce the appearance of balding.

Downtime

Straight after your procedure you will leave with the effects of the local anaesthetic still present, as this starts to wear off you may feel a little uncomfortable but you will have been provided with pain relief. You will need to take great care of your incision by keeping it clean and dry to ensure faster healing.

You will not be able to shower for the first 24 hours and it is often recommended that washing the hair should be avoided until at least day 2 after the procedure and even at this point it should be more of a rinse avoiding any scrubbing to the scalp.

The recovery time associated with a FUT Hair Transplant is a little longer than compared to other techniques due to the healing of the linear scar at the back of the head. Scabbing may start to occur after 2-3 days post procedure and overall swelling may be present 4-6 days after the procedure.

After a week the swelling should have reduced and the newly transplanted hair may be showing signs of starting to grow and after 12 days these hairs will now be rooted in place so you will be able to return to washing your hair as you did pre-hair transplant.

After this time, you may go through a process called ‘shock loss’ which is where your transplanted hairs may start to shed but this is just your scalp making way for new and stronger hair follicles and it can take up to a month to get to a stage where your new hair follicles are ready to start growing again.

2-3 months in, you will begin to notice the new follicles growing as fine hairs and after 6-10 months this will gradually increase and you may notice a change in texture. In a years’ time you will be able to see the final results and start to be able to groom the hair and experiment with hairstyles.

Results

The final results of a FUT Hair Transplant can take anywhere from 8 months to a year to settle.