Excessive hair loss or androgenetic alopecia causes significant distress since it brings a negative image to the person affected by it. Aside from the social stigma baldness has, it also brings to most people a sense of insecurity and maybe even shame. However, nowadays there modern science has introduced a lot of measures and treatments to help relieve the hair loss problem. But one of the most popular and controversial is hair transplants.
Hair transplant surgery has been around for a while now, resulting to more advancement into the practice. This procedure is made possible by taking hair grafts from a donor site, usually at the back of the head, and then it is transplanted to the balding area.
But the use of synthetic hairs for hair transplant was also introduced. Synthetic hair transplant uses artificial copolyamide fiber, or more generally known as monoacrylic, polyacrylic, and polyester, which was deemed to be safe. However this was not the case when it comes to other countries, especially in the US.
The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) did not approve of its use way back in 1983 because the study that was done was not enough to substantiate the claim. There were only a few participants, making the outcome less extensive and unreliable.
Other reasons why these synthetic hair grafts continued to be unwanted is because it provides a risk to the patient's health because it is biologically incompatible. In addition to this, cosmetic and medical experts consider the marketing of these grafts to be fraudulent. First they claim that the company provided inadequate and deceptive information by not clearly stating the risks involved.
So how is it really done? Basically what happens is that the patient will have several synthetic hair grafts that has metal or plastic ends which goes into the scalp. An incision is made on the recipient site on which the lower end of the synthetic hair grafts are to be implanted. The incision will then be closed and overtime the skin will heal around the hair grafts also assisting it to be kept in place.
The limitation to this is that these hair grafts will always have the same length forever. You cannot decide to either grow or cut your hair. Mechanical and environmental factors such as frequent combing, some styling, shampooing or strong winds can cause these hairs to be dislodged, making them more unreliable to be able to stay securely on your head. Some hair grafts might even break off therefore it needs to be replaced.
But one of the most serious problems that results from a synthetic hair transplant is any incidence of infection. This can lead you to have very bad scalp problems, such as scarring, or worse - losing all your other healthy hair such as experiencing extensive shock loss after the surgery. This type of problem needs to have rigorous treatment to clear up your scalp from any traces of infection.
Today there are still companies who continue to push with the use of synthetic hair transplant surgery, by slowly penetrating European and Australian market. New studies were made with more participants, then showing a 2-year follow-up which showed better results. However organizations such as the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery refuse to endorse such products for use, stating that it should be the regulating authority of that country who should decide.
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