Do Hair Plugs Work To Treat Baldness
Hair plugs is a term that is not used much anymore. Generally, you will hear the term hair implants or hair transplants when people describe this hair restoration procedure. Hair plugs was actually an apt term when this medical technique was first used for two reasons. Now, the procedures doctors used are so far removed from the idea of a plug that it is really a misnomer to use this term.
In the 1950’s, when hair transplants were first being used in this country, the surgeon would actually remove a round plug of scalp which still had good hair growth. This was taken from the posterior area of the head because men suffering from male pattern baldness do not generally lose their hair here. This plug would contain between ten and fifteen hairs which were still growing. The surgeon would next make an incision in the bald area of the scalp and insert this plug. He (surgeons at this time were almost always men) would then sew the plug in. It was a bloody, messy procedure which required quite a bit of recuperation time and left scaring. Also, the resulting hair growth did look like the tufts of hair that are plugged into a cheap doll’s head. Thus the two reasons this name stuck.
Fast forward fifty years and we now have a procedure that is cleaner, neater, and leaves no scarring. Direct hair implantation allows the surgeon to remove individual hair follicles, or natural grouping of two to three, and implant them into the bald area with no incision. A specially designed medical instrument is used which allows this manipulation. The surgeon now has complete control over the directional growth of the implanted hair which allows for a very natural look. Although the name is really a misnomer now, hair plugs do give a man suffering from male pattern baldness his hair back.