When you arrive on the morning of your procedure you will be greeted by one of our staff members. You will be asked to fill out some basic forms while your doctor and surgical technicians prepare for the hair transplant surgery. A technician will take your blood pressure and make sure you have followed the pre-operative instructions carefully. Although rarely needed, you may be offered a mild sedative. You will then be led into one of four state-of-the-art procedure rooms. Hair transplant procedure rooms are designed specifically for hair transplantation, facilitating optimal efficiency and patient comfort.

Before the hair restoration surgery begins, your doctor will review your previously discussed goals and expectations and work with you to determine the most effective use of your donor hair. The doctor/patient review is an integral part of the process: the doctor will listen to your wishes and ideas, take them into account, and make suggestions based on thousands of successful hair restorations. The procedure will not move forward until you feel completely satisfied with the approach and design you and your doctor have agreed upon.

Hair transplant surgery begins with injections of local anesthesia into the donor area. The anesthesia will ensure that you feel no pain. The physician shaves a horizontal section on the area of permanent hair growth, that is, on the sides or on the back of the head. Then, he surgically removes the shaved strip of skin, usually about 0.6 inches (1.5 cm.) wide and between 5.5 inches and 7 inches (14 cm. and 18 cm.) long, and sutures the edges of the resulting wound.

Once the shave strip removal is completed, your physician will close the donor site with surgical grade stainless steel staples or invisible stitches designed for cosmetic surgery. While your physician is closing the donor site, technicians will begin separating follicular units of 1 to 3 hairs sections With the aid of stereoscopic dissecting microscopes.

Once this initial phase of your hair restoration is completed you will be able watch TV and walk around to stretch your legs or use the washroom. One of the technicians will bring refreshments for you while other staff members prepare the procedure room for the second phase of your hair restoration surgery.

For this part of the procedure, you will be seated in a comfortable, reclining procedure chair. As the hair transplant doctor creates recipient sites -small incisions that will receive the donor hair- you can watch a movie or read.

Recipient sites are created using the lateral-slit technique, this is the only surgical technique that mimics the alignment and distribution of hair as it occurs in nature.

After the initial recipient site incisions are made, two technicians will begin to place the first wave of grafts. All technicians that place grafts have undergone a vigorous training program to ensure accuracy and consistency.

Once the procedure is finished you will be presented with an after care post-operative package and care instructions. This package consists of various medications such as an anti-biotic, mild pain killers, and other assorted items to make your post-operative healing time go as smoothly as possible.

The healing process starts immediately. The patient's own blood clot seals the graft in and forms a crusted area on the surface. The smaller the recipient's sites (the slits or needle sites where the follicular units are placed) the faster they close up. The crust can fall off between one and two weeks.

If the new hair does fall off with the crusted part, it will still keep growing. If we go by the textbook, the new transplanted hair makes its way out of the scalp surface 12 weeks after the surgery.

During the healing process no bandages are required. After the crusts have fallen off, the skin surface is pinker because there is brand new skin. There might be some hairs continually growing from the day of surgery, but most of them are under the surface of the scalp making their way up to the surface, That process is completed in 12 weeks (for a first time transplanted area) and up to 16 weeks (for a multiple time transplanted area).

There is usually no down time with the new follicular procedures because the trauma to the scalp is minimal and healing is very fast. Patients not engaged in heavy physical activities could resume work the following day after the surgery.

You may wash your hair as soon as 48hrs after the surgery but very delicately in the grafted area.

Please be aware that the pressure of the shower head could dislodge the grafts, therefore, we recommend using a bowl full of water and making it fall gently on the grafted area. No rubbing or any traction should be applied. Dry the area with a soft wash cloth by just gently pressing, not rubbing.

The area from which the grafts were obtained should be cleaned more vigorously. This will help in the healing process and facilitate the suture or staple removal.

After a transplant, many patients are afraid of losing hair that was already there. It could happen, but if it does, it is only a temporary condition as the hairs will regenerate in several months. One reason for hair loss is transplant shock. Transplant shock is when you lose hair in an area where hair is newly transplanted. This hair all grows back within 8-9 months. Another reason for the appearance of less hair after transplants is that when the surgeon is making the recipient sites, he could be cutting adjacent hair very close to the scalp. That hair grows back immediately.

Hair transplantation lasts forever, it is permanent.

Scars at the grafted sites are a thing of the past. Scars in the donor area are minimized by the new techniques we have today. They are not visible unless you buzz your hair extremely short.

Hair transplant surgery could take anywhere from 3 to 5 hours depending on how many grafts the patient needs.

With the method of dense packing, we try to give the patient the most hair the first time around. There are also other factors that come into play, such as the patient's own hair density, that will determine how many surgeries are necessary for a certain result.

Usually two surgeries could be sufficient to obtain a great result, although we try to give the best result with just one surgery.

The number of transplants needed may vary from one person to the other. Even though the number of 'real' hair is important, the way it actually looks is also important; this depends above all upon the degree of contrast between the hair and the skin, the average thickness of the hair, the number of hairs per follicular unit, and the hair's undulation. It is also very important to take into account the available hair on the donor area.

In order to present you with an adequate estimate of your needs, you will have to send us a set of pictures showing well-lit close-ups of your head from all angles: front, back and above. See photo guidelines

So that we can provide the most accurate assessment possible, submit digital photos or scanned print photos

• Use bright, natural room lighting. Do not use a flash.
• Shoot from a distance of 3 - 5 feet.
• Ensure that the area you are shooting is in frame and in focus.
• Photos must not exceed 4MB (4,000kb) each. Please resize photos that exceed this limit.
• Acceptable photo file types are jpg or jpeg.
• If your photos exceed our size restrictions, Download PhotoResize800.exe (Windows only) and Save it to your desktop.

The PhotoResizer icon (pictured left) will appear on your desktop. Simply drag and drop individual photos or folders containing photos onto the icon and PhotoResizer will create a resized copy automatically. If the original photo is named myphoto.jpg, PhotoResizer will create a resized copy named myphoto-W800.jpg.

Provide photos showing the following angles:

The top of your scalp

This gives us an overall view of your hair loss situation. The top view is important as it helps us determine the amount of existing hair loss and possible future hair loss.

Left and right profile

The profile is very important in assessing the needs of our patients. The profile helps us understand the extent of hair loss.

The back of the scalp

If possible, include a photograph with your donor hair pulled up either with your hand or with a comb. This helps us determine your donor density.

Front hairline

We need to be able to understand how your existing or new hairline frames your face. This is imperative for the review process. If possible, take some time to draw your hairline on your scalp to show us where you would like to have it placed. This helps us to understand your desires and expectations from the procedure.