Facial hair is often a concern for many men who want to join in the latest trend of impressive goatees and well-groomed beard and moustache.
Thankfully, recent technological developments have made beard, moustache and eyebrow transplants much quicker and simpler and more readily available to those who want to be able to grow a full and thick beard and moustache.
What is Facial hair transplant?
Facial hair transplant is a surgical method which implants the hair to areas where facial hair development is thin or missing.
It can be done to restore the beard, moustache, goatee as well as the sideburns or for that matter anywhere that hair is desired even if the hair has never grown in that area before.
It can also conceal acne scars or injury marks.
What is a Beard and Moustache Transplant?
The first thing that crosses your mind when you hear the word Beard and Moustache Transplant is, “Is it really possible??”
Yes, surgical hair restoration of the facial hair is now a reality thanks to advance medical procedures.
Talking about advance medical procedures, Turkey is among the top countries preferred by tourists due to economical healthcare rates and high quality services. Additionally, even beard transplant has gained significant popularity in Turkey. To know further about Beard transplant in Turkey Click here.
The beard and moustache transplant is a procedure somewhat like scalp hair transplant which includes extracting hair follicles from back or sides of the scalp called donor area and implanting the hair according to the requirements of the person on the beard, moustache and chin area of face using Follicular Unit Extraction method or Follicular unit transplantation.
The extraction of hair follicles can be done on any part of the body where there is enough hair to extract like chest.
What is the procedure for Facial Hair Transplant?
Pre-operative assessment
- Donor Area: First, the doctor will inspect the donor area to look whether there is enough hair to use for beard and moustache transplant. Then, he will discuss with the patient about his desired density for facial transplant. If the patient wants his facial hair to look like a 3-day long beard and moustache or prefer having high density, then the physicians will use the grafts with more than one hair follicles.
- Beard and Moustache Hairline Designing: Hairline designing is to know the required number of hair follicles for extraction on the donor area. The following is the process to know the number of follicles to be removed:
- Once finishing the inspection of the donor area, the physician designs the beard and moustache line area according to the needs of the patient and the defined symmetry.
- The physician will design the most natural looking beard and moustache line and keeping in mind the patient’s requirement.
- The doctor will design in such a way that as it progresses downwards towards the jawline it gets denser and the densest part of the beard is going to be the area around the jaw line.
- While it will look faded out towards the neck as the physician will prefers to implant less on the neck area.
- Once the beard line is fully designed on the cheeks from both the sides the physician will concentrate on the mouth and chin area.
- Sometimes, people have patches and gaps in the beard which need to be filled out.
- After finishing the design, the physician will show the patient a picture of how his beard and moustache will look like.
- Anaesthesia: Surgery starts with local anaesthesia which usually takes about five to ten minutes and the effect of it will last for 4 to 5 hours.
Beard and Moustache Harvesting:
The second part of the beard and moustache transplant procedure is extraction of hair follicles. There are two types of methods in the extraction of hair follicles for Beard and Moustache/Facial Transplant.
- Follicular Unit Extraction: Follicular unit extraction (FUE) beard & moustache transplant works by directly extracting the hair follicles from donor area usually from the back and sides of the scalp where the density of hair is high. Using a tiny semi-circular incision the follicles will be extracted that have one to four hairs in each that are ready for implantation.
- Follicle Counting: The Physician will count the number of hair follicles and the kind of follicle grafts require for the natural result and density are counted.
Beard & Moustache Hair Implant:
The implantation process starts with final adjustments to the beard and moustache line so that it looks exactly as the patient desires. The extracted hair follicles are implanted into the beard & moustache area as per the design.
- Anaesthesia by Using Field Block on Face: The local anaesthesia which blocks Peripheral nerve is given around the most arches and the beard and moustache area so that the patient is pain-free during the implantation.
- Methods Beard and moustache Implant:There are two types of methods in the implantation Process.
- Hair grafts are implanted by Stick & Placement Method in which the needle and forceps are used to insert the hair follicles into the skin.
- First with the help of needle the physician will make holes and simultaneously with the forceps he will insert the hair grafts in the middle pole of needle.
- After inserting the hair grafts inside the mid pole of the needle, the needle is drawn back in such a way that the hair grafts are implanted into the skin. Another method is making slits on the face with the help of 18-gauge needle.
- In these pre-made holes the physician will insert the hair grafts into the skin with the help of forceps.
- The physicians will also maintain a good density of hair while implanting the hair follicles.
Post Beard & Moustache implant
Once the implantation process is done the physicians will wash the implantation area with antibiotic solution to disinfect the entire area.
After that once again, the entire area is washed with saline to remove any extra particles. And then the physician will apply ointment.
How much time will it take for the entire Beard Transplant procedure?
For the entire Beard Transplant it will take 6-8 hours for 2000-2500 hair grafts in total this includes pre-surgery workup like consent, surgery area plan and hairline markings, hair trim, antimicrobial shampoo, local anaesthesia, Hair graft extraction, lunch break, graft implantation, dressing, medicines and after operation instructions.
Duration for regrowth of implanted hair?
As far as the recovery period goes, the first 5 days after the procedure the transplanted area must be kept dry.
Generally, the tiny crusts around each graft will typically fall out after 4 to 6 days
Later, after 1 to 2 weeks the transplanted hairs will fall off. Then the new hair will start to re-grow after around 3months and they will continue to grow for a lifetime.
You are advised not to do grooming or touching as much as possible in order to allow the transplanted follicles to rest in their new location.
What are the Side Effects of Beard and moustache Transplant?
- Swelling on the implanted and donor area. However, it can be reduced by applying an ice pack on the donor area and with care and patience the implanted area will naturally heal.
- Losing sensation in the surrounding areas of implantation.
- White scars in the donor area where hair follicles are extracted through FUE method.
- Tenderness (sensitivity of pain) around the implanted area
Most of the above-mentioned side effects will naturally heel after 5-7 days of surgery by following suggestions from the physician.
