A long time ago, baldness in men is a fact of life. It seemed that there was nothing that men can do about it.The hair replacement was made through wigs and there was no discussion on possible surgeries. Nowadays, there are already better surgical techniques used by increasingly skilled surgeons. They are getting more eye-pleasing results and thus more men are considering surgery as a solution to hair loss.

Surgeons before use “primitive techniques” to cover balding hair. That’s because it was what’s available at that time. Now, surgeons have learned to create a much more natural-looking hair line. This is done by using modern cutting instruments to cut either small slits or holes in the scalp to receive transplanted hair. The transplanted hair are then distrubuted to the rest of the scalp.

Nevertheless, while there are numerous types of surgery, modern techniques shows that there are two main categories in hair surgery namely transplantation and scalp reduction.

Transplantation involves moving hair from densely covered sites on the sides or back of the head to bald areas of the scalp.

The key to success, explains Anthony Santangelo, president of the American Hair Loss Council, is to have appropriate areas on the back or sides of the head from where the hairs are to be removed and placed in balding areas. Otherwise, patients can’t expect ample coverage. In the cases for women, they generally lack good donor sites because their hair loss is diffuse. This makes transplantation impractical for them.

The major improvement in hair transplants is with the micrografts or minigrafts. “You’re looking at one to two hairs shot into the head with a needle,” Santangelo says. “It achieves a very, very fine, natural-looking hair line. The significant difference there is you need a lot of hair to do that.”

In this process, larger round plugs of seven to ten hairs are used. The line grafts, which shifts strips of nine to 12 hairs, are also common.

Modern transplantation can use prosthetic fair fibers. However, this was banned by the FDA. According to Stephen Rhodes, acting chief of FDA’s reconstructive and plastic surgery, implanting such artificial hair can cause adverse reactions such as infections. Natural hair donor is greatly advisable and safe.

Aside from transplantation, hair surgery also includes scalp reduction. If male-pattern baldness has left you with too much balding area to cover, you may benefit from this procedure. This process includes surgical removal of large sections of a bald scalp. Extenders and expanders, elastic devices placed under the skin to stretch the hair-bearing scalp regions on the side of the head, have been used as a complement to reduction surgery.

Another surgical method, under scalp reduction procedure, is the flap technique. This involves rotation of hair-bearing scalp areas from the sides or moves those areas from the back forward. So far, the flap technique has the highest complication rate. Bleeding, scarring and infection can occur from surgery. But when using this techniques, there are remedies to lessen such effect. This includes knowing what size flap to use and how to enhance blood supply to the region resulting to minimal visibility of scars.

An expert surgeon should be able to advise which technique is appropriate for the balding case of men and women. Certain consultations of the cause and effect of each technique are usually discussed before the actual procedure is done.