Dead Man Walking - What length would you go to for a full head of hair?

Hair loss effects people from all walks of life and for the most part everyone has had to decide to live with it. Of course there are the famous methods of cure, like Rogaine and Propecia. The success of these products are limited and the use of them is either a monthly or even daily application. In the case of Propecia it is a pill that you have to take faithfully. Surgery is the next option available to those that are willing to spend the money and go through the pain and healing.

Hair transplant surgery has had it’s ups and downs throughout history. Although not actually given the credit, Japan actually performed some of the first hair transplant surgeries in the world in the 1930s. They were replacing people’s eyelashes. True hair transplantation that attempted to treat baldness in men, happened in the late 1950s. A New York dermatologist named, Orentreich transplanted what are called grafts and proved that the techniques can in fact work. You can learn more about hair transplant technologies, methods and history at this well put together article at no other than Wikipedia here.

With all of these experiments and breakthroughs in hair transplant technology, there were still obvious flaws and complaints. In fact, people still have a bad stigma about hair transplant technologies and often are afraid to get anything done because they don’t want terrible looking hair plugs. With previous hair transplant techniques called hair plugs in layman’s terms, hair was literally transplanted in what would seem like a plug in a circular pattern in strategic places on the scalp. When the hair began to grow out on the patients head, their hair often ended up looking unnatural because the hair was coming from central and circular locations, which was where the plugs were transplanted. If having a Barbie head full of hair is appealing, this technique was for you!

Things improved in the later part of the 1980s when surgeons started getting more artistic and detailed with the placement of hair plugs. The hair plugs advanced to tiny hair follicle collections that had anywhere from 1 - 4 hairs. The placement of these follicles was more specific and could better mimic the way natural hair would grow. Later in 2000 - 2003 surgeons started to use a more specific technique called a lateral slit that would allow the hair to lay and grow much more natural than any previous method.

Surgery has improved and potions and pills have also improved. For the most part however, the hair regrowth and transplant industry has been plagued by shoddy products and scams galore. If someone is pitching to you that your hair follicles are malnourished, you have poor circulation or your hair follicles are blocked, you can steer clear of these goofy antics. To see a list of the top 10 hair loss scams just head on over here. With all of these scams sucking people in and taking their money science has been focusing on more and more scientific methods to try and reduce hair loss. One promising technique that isn’t a scam, is hair multiplication and stem-cell hair root growth. Both of these methods use different scientific techniques to take hair and multiply the roots and follicles in the lab and then have them transferred to the patient.

The news was abuzz in the last two years with another controversial surgical technique that could become more commonplace and have implications to the hair transplant industry. A woman named Isabelle Dinoire received a full face transplant and now two years later is showing success in having a more normal life than was never thought possible. The face transplant was done from a human cadaver onto Isabelle’s severely disfigured face due to a dog attack. One of the scientific breakthroughs that makes this possible is advancement in immunosuppression therapy that is very strict in use and cannot be left out of the equation.

After the success of the complete facial transplant, a well known surgeon in the U.S. was approved to do a full face transplant in the United States. Maria Siemionow, works for the Cleveland Clinic and was interviewed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in 2005 about the groundbreaking news here. Since that interview Ms. Siemionow has been working on other surgical methods that build on some of the breakthrough techniques learned from doing the face transplant surgery.

Maria Siemionow is looking to help reawaken the hair transplant industry after learning useful techniques from face transplant operations and research in immunosuppressant drugs. Currently when patients use immunosuppressant drugs they can find themselves taking highly toxic drugs over a lifetime and still have lapses in success. As recently covered in an article by USA Today found here, breaking research by Siemionow and her team at The Cleveland Clinic has made immunosuppressant drugs seem like a more viable option for the future. Current research on animals shows that a person’s time-frame for taking immunosuppressant drugs could be reduced to only a week to keep their transplants from being rejected by their bodies.

The most shocking method being discussed by none other than Maria Siemionow and her team, is a full human scalp transplant. The first swing at this idea is not for the cosmetically challenged individuals that need a better head of hair to go with their new Ferrari, but a more practical use for people that have been badly burned or involved in some type of traumatic situation damaging their hair. Regardless of the current application of this hair raising innovation, this paves the way for rich or determined men to once again have a full head of natural hair.

The question is very apparent at this point, at what lengths of hair are people willing to go to have a full head of hair again. Does the thought of having a corpses well groomed head of hair give anyone the creeps? The hair that would grow from your hair at any moment would have been groomed, cut and even colored by another person for 20, 30 or even more years. The compliment, “I love your new hair style” would come to mean greater and more bizarre things.

If you’re dealing or have dealt with hair loss and you have opinions on this issue we’d like to hear from you. Whether you’ve been smearing Rogaine on for years, buying the latest gizmo and gadget to massage your clogged follicles you deserve to have your good and bad story told. If you are a working surgeon in the hair restoration industry we want to know your feelings on this issue and if you feel it’s even the slightest bit creepy.