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Hair Plugs vs Hair Transplants: How Technology to Combat Hair Loss Has Evolved

All You Need to Know About Medical Hair Restoration and Replacement

If you are frustrated by hair loss and want to find a way to replace your hair, you’re in luck. Modern medicine gives you better options than ever before. In fact, medical technology has advanced so much that you may not be familiar with the current terminology. To help you through the thicket of terms such as hair plugs vs hair transplants, hair implants, follicular unit extraction, and hair transplantation, we’ve written the following brief guide.

Hair Plugs

The term “hair plug” is outdated in the medical world, but it still prevails in common language. A hair plug is essentially a small round piece of scalp that gets removed or punched out from the back of your head. Each plug contains 20 or so individual hairs. In a transplantation method dating back to the 1950s, these pieces would then be “plugged” into the balding area of the scalp.

Note that hair plugs are not fake hair. They are made from your own real hair. However, they resulted in a “fake” appearance due to their size and the gaps in between. You might compare the hair plug look to rows of pansies planted at the entrance of a neighborhood – too evenly spaced and regular to look naturally-grown.

Hair Implants

The term “implant” is often falsely used when people refer to hair transplants. But what an implant really means is the insertion of fake, synthetic hair, into the scalp. Given the long time it takes for your hair to grow, the idea of implanting strands of already long hair has a certain appeal, particularly for women.

However, the pros and cons of synthetic hair implants are nothing to concern yourself about, since they are banned in the United States, given the risk of infection and inflammation. They are not FDA-approved, and given that modern hair transplants are so easily achievable using real rather than synthetic hair, it is no great loss to the world of cosmetic surgery.

Modern Hair Transplants

Hair plugs are actually a form of hair transplant. But what we mean today when we talk about a hair transplant is a much more evolved procedure. Instead of removing plugs of up to 20 hair follicles, today’s hair transplant technology lets your surgeon remove individual follicles, also called follicular units.

As you can imagine, transplantation of these follicular units makes for a much more even look of the newly transplanted hair, allowing it to blend in naturally. It also makes for better healing of the donor site. Instead of the polka-dot appearance of a scalp where hair plugs were removed, the donor site of a modern hair transplant patient is indistinguishable from any other area of the head within just a week. The patient just has to wait for the small red pinpricks to fade that the transplantation device leaves behind. After that, a hair transplant from an experienced surgeon or technician looks completely natural.

Hair Plugs vs Hair Transplants

Needless to say, modern hair transplants are far superior to their precursors using hair plugs. Both are similar in that they do the basic job, which is moving healthy hair to areas of your scalp where hair no longer grows or has started to thin noticeably.

But if you’re like most everyone else, the basic job isn’t good enough for you. That would be like riding a tractor to work. Yes, it gets you there, but not fast enough, and with terrible discomfort. It’s the same with your hair: You don’t just want your hair to grow again, you want it to grow in such a way that it looks completely natural. You don’t actually want anyone to know you’ve had a hair transplant.

This is precisely why the latest hair transplant technology is so revolutionary. It gets you the hair growth you need in an easy, minimally-invasive procedure, and it makes your hair look as if it’s always been this full, without any of your friends and colleagues the wiser.

Types of Hair Transplants

As we’ve discussed, hair plugs are one type of hair transplant, but they’re massively outdated. However, even modern hair transplant methods have their differences.

The two main procedures on the hair restoration market today are Follicular Unit Extraction and Follicular Unit Transplantation. You may have heard of the terms FUE and FUT. An FUE transplant takes individual follicles of hair, extracts them from the thickest areas of growth, and reinserts them into the recipient areas you’ve previously outlined with your hair restoration technician or surgeon. All this is achieved with a wand operated by pneumatic pressure. Beyond the slight discomfort of these follicles being pulled from your scalp and then embedded again, this procedure is not very taxing. There is no trauma to surrounding tissue, no surgery, no stitching or stapling, and no scar.

An FUT transplant is performed in a similar way. It also uses individual follicles of hair and has them inserted into the recipient area. However, the method of extraction differs from FUE. Whereas with FUE the technician extracts the individual follicles to be transplanted, with FUT the donor hair is removed in one large strip from the back of the patient’s head. This strip is then segmented into tiny little pieces with individual follicles on them, which are then used to transplant as described above.

While FUT may be accomplished a bit faster by an experienced surgeon, it has one main disadvantage when compared with FUE, and that is the resulting linear scar on the back of your head where the strip of scalp was removed.

We hope that we’ve helped you understand how modern hair transplants work, and why they win the hair plugs vs hair transplants debate hands-down. If you would like to find out more, the best next step is for you to contact a hair clinic or hair surgeon. Most hair restoration specialists offer personal consultations so that you can explore all the options before you commit to any one procedure or provider.

Nashville Hair Doctor by NuBody Concepts serving patients in Tennessee and beyond

About Hair Doctor

With over 20 years of experience in FUE hair restoration and led by a double-board certified plastic surgeon, we are a leading provider of affordable hair transplants in the Southeast. Visit us at our Nashville Hair Doctor or Memphis Hair Doctor offices, or take advantage of our complimentary travel package for out-of-town patients. Read more>>

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When Having a Bad Hair Day Sounds Like the Perfect Problem

When is the last time you had a bad hair day?

For most people, hair that won’t cooperate is annoying. A Bad Hair Day is just that – bad.

But if you’re one of the millions of men and women who suffer from thinning hair or baldness, having enough hair to complain about would be a welcome problem. If the thought of having a bad hair day fills you with insatiable envy, hair restoration might be for you. Keep reading!

The Daily Struggle

If you suffer from hair loss, you look in the mirror every day and see the same thing: thinner hair and bald spots where there was once a thick mop of hair. Yes, you might not have to deal with tangles, frizz, or unruly locks, but that’s a small consolation, What you wouldn’t give only to face these mundane hair problems again!

Not having enough hair isn’t just embarrassing. It can also be mentally and emotionally devastating, because in our culture full hair symbolizes good health. Men and women alike can suffer from hair loss. In fact, women make up about 40 percent of hair loss sufferers in the United States. Traditionally thought to be a condition that only men deal with, baldness and thinning hair strikes both sexes almost equally.

People who don’t struggle with alopecia, the medical term for sudden hair loss, can’t understand the emotional impact that comes from having a patchy scalp. Your friends might complain about humid days and wind as you try in vain to cover up your bear head. If this sounds like you, then know that you’re not alone. Even better, you can do something about it!

Customized Hair Restoration

With our personalized hair restoration treatment, we can help you regrow your own hair using transplants from your own body, or rather head. By transferring healthy follicles from other parts of your scalp where they are in abundance, we can stimulate growth in the areas that need it. It’s not a wig, and it doesn’t work the same way as hair plugs. Instead, it’s a state-of-the-art process that uses your own hair to regrow hair in thinner, balding areas. Benefits include:

  • Minimal downtime, faster recovery, and less scarring
  • Fewer, if any, side effects than traditional hair replacement surgery
  • A natural-looking head of hair that comes from your existing follicles

Unlike fake hairpieces and other hair transplant methods, hair transplantation works by stimulating the growth of your own hair where it once grew naturally. Once your hair starts to grow back in, people won’t be able to tell that you ever had anything done. It’s
the natural way to get a fuller, thicker head of hair so that you can feel like yourself again.

Let The Hair Doctor Help You

At Nashville Hair Doctor and Memphis Hair Doctor, we love helping clients turn back the clock on hair loss. Our team will assess your condition in detail, answer your questions, and design a plan that addresses your concerns and aesthetic goals. We offer free personal and confidential consultations to help you understand. your options, without any obligation to go forward if you don’t want to. We understand it’s a big decision, but we have a feeling you will be intrigued by what we can show you about Follicular Unite Extraction – that’s what it’s called.

You don’t have to settle for thinning hair, baldness and the emotional side effects that come with unexpected hair loss. A hair transplant is the perfect way to make you look younger and sexier and make you feel like a new person – even if it means having the occasional bad hair day again!

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Getting your Hair Beach-Ready with a Hair Transplant

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Warmer weather and sunnier days mean summer is on the way. For many people, this time of year offers the perfect chance to get outside and hit the beach, but for millions of Americans, summer can be a challenge. If you suffer from thinning hair or baldness, then you know that keeping your head covered is essential to preventing sunburn. You might also be self-conscious about your thinner crown. Fortunately, there are better ways to protect your scalp, and we don’t just mean with a hat and sunblock. At Nashville Hair Doctor and Memphis Hair Doctor, we’ve got you covered – literally – with NeoGraft hair transplants.

Why am I losing my hair?

The American Hair Loss Association cites several reasons for thinning hair or baldness. The most common among men is male pattern baldness, a condition that accounts for about 95 percent of hair loss cases. Reactions to medication, certain diseases and extreme stress are other culprits. It’s a common misconception that men are the only hair loss sufferers, but about 40 percent of people with alopecia, the medical term for unusual or extreme hair loss, are women. Hormones play a role in hair loss. Too often, doctors also misdiagnose hair loss, missing the underlying cause and making the problem worse.

Regardless of gender, hair loss can be emotionally and physically devastating. If you’re a sufferer, then you might be looking for ways to regain a fuller, thicker mane. While it may not always be possible to achieve luscious, beach-ready waves, our teams at Nashville Hair Doctor and Memphis Hair Doctor can help you cover up that bald spot and enjoy a beautiful head of hair again.

What are my options to restore my hair?

At our two Hair Doctor locations in Nashville and Memphis, we specialize in helping our clients suffering from thinning hair or baldness get ready for beach season with NeoGraft hair transplants. After a hair transplant has restored your hair, there’s no need to hide your head with hats and scarves, or to hide from the sun altogether. These transplants are so minimally invasive that you’ll hardly have any downtime, meaning you can hit the ocean in no time. Other benefits include:

  • No scarring to the transfer skin because each follicle is transplanted individually
  • Seamless hair growth, which means no one will be able to tell that you’ve had work done

NeoGraft was developed in Europe, and it’s been around long enough for us to be using fourth generation technology. Unlike traditional strip therapy, grafting transfers follicles from other places to give your hair a fuller, more natural look. Over time, your hair will regrow more naturally as well. There’s no scarring, stitches or staples to worry about.

Your individual NeoGraft treatment plan will depend on your needs, goals and budget. We’ll meet with you to discuss your options, and we’ll evaluate your head and hair thoroughly to determine if NeoGraft will work for you. We work with men and women who have been devastated by hair loss, thinning hair or baldness.

Let us help you throw your hat to the wind this summer! We invite you to contact us today to schedule a consultation.

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How You Can Look Good and Feel Great with a Hair Transplant

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Feel Great with a Hair Transplant –  the Cosmetic Treatment of the Future

People can and do underestimate the power of a great head of hair. Hair is sometimes referred to as your crown, and for a good reason: your hair is one of the first things that people notice about you. Your hair is part of your personality, but sometimes illness, aging, or genetics can reduce a head of lustrous locks to a thinning shadow of what you had before. Most of us think of thinning hair as a problem only men have, but in truth many women struggle with thinning hair as well. Some of us never had thick, strong hair to begin with. Whatever the case, you will look good and feel great with a hair transplant. If you invest in yourself and in your appearance, it will pay off for you in the way others look at you and what you see in the mirror every morning.

Turn Back the Clock

For people who had thicker hair when they were younger, thinning hair can come as a bit of a shock: less hair means less time getting ready, but may also mean feeling less like yourself. With a hair transplant, you could restore that pride you felt when you spent a little time pampering yourself for the day. Hair transplants can be done in one of two ways: Transplanting strips of hair from one place of your scalp to another, also called the “strip method,” or transferring hair follicles individually from one area of the head to another area where the hair is thinner. This second method is used in NeoGraft Hair Transplants, a procedure more and more people opt for every year to resolve thinning hair or balding. Looking younger will make you feel younger and more self-confident.

Add Glamour to Your Daily Routine

We rarely pay attention to the celebrities that have thin, fine hair. At awards shows, our eye is drawn to people with hair that is thick, shiny, and strong. Having enough hair to copy the styles of the stars means the world to many of us. We all want to look beautiful, desirable, and fun, and hair transplants can give us exactly what we need to make that happen in our lives. Want to feel great with a hair transplant? Call Nashville Hair Doctor for a consultation to learn how you can go from thinning hair to red carpet-ready in a few short months!

Catch All the Attention with Hair Extensions, or Ditch Them

If your hair is naturally fine, you may have tried hair extensions, which your hairdresser can professionally install for you. While hair extensions are a great way to make your hair look fuller, they are also a hassle and can be expensive long-term. In the long run, a hair transplant might be a better and more economical way to begin your journey to perfect hair.

Enjoy Your New-Found Confidence

Just think of all the people you see walking down the street and tossing their hair around. That can be you! Many women think hair transplants are not for them, but that’s simply not true. Restoring your natural hair with a transplant will give you the flexibility you need and the beautiful look you want. It’s a worthwhile investment because your new hair will be a gift that will keep on giving.

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The Mystery of FUT vs FUE Hair Transplants Explained

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Do you have thinning hair? Is your hairline receding? Would you prefer to do something about that?

If your answer is yes, then you should absolutely consider a hair transplant. You’d be amazed how many men (and women) who suffer from hair loss opt for some form of medical hair restoration. Regrowing your own natural hair will make you look years younger, and it will give your self-confidence a huge boost.

But how to navigate through myriad hair transplant options offered by different providers? Which one of those is best for you?

Basically, there are two main competing hair transplant technologies on the market today: Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT), and Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE). I know, these are big words, but it’s important to know the difference.

FUT vs FUE Hair Transplants

FUT is commonly called the Strip Method. Why? Because it involves removing a strip of hair from the back of your head and transplanting it to the top of your head (which is most often the area where you want to stimulate growth). As you can imagine, removing an entire strip of hair leaves a visible scar. It means that most patients need to keep their hair rather long for most of their lives to cover up the tracks of this invasive treatment.

FUE works its magic in a much more subtle and gentle way. No strips of hair are removed, so there is no visible scar. Instead, individual follicles of hair are extracted from the donor area in the back or your head and re-inserted into the target area, one at a time. The tiny pinpricks caused by extraction and insertion soon heal over and become invisible, allowing patients to wear their hair as short as they would like.

How do FUT vs FUE hair transplants square off? Here is another way to look at it:

If you’re considering a hair transplant, it’s important to know that no method is an instant fix. Regrowing hair takes time, whichever method you employ. It will require patience while you let nature do its work. This makes it all the more important to pick the right procedure and the right provider.

At Nashville Hair Doctor and Memphis Hair Doctor, we perform FUE hair transplants using the NeoGraft technology you’ve seen in action above. NeoGraft is a specialized machine using pneumatic pressure to extract and insert hair grafts with amazing speed. But speed isn’t everything. Decades of experience have made our NeoGraft technician into a true hair artist, making sure he places the hair grafts with an eye on the best aesthetic outcome. The collage below is an example of one patient’s journey through hair restoration with NeoGraft over the course of 17 months:

FUT vs FUE Hair Transplants

Timeline of a NeoGraft Hair Transplant

How about it? To find out how you might look after a NeoGraft hair transplant, give Nashville Hair Doctor or Memphis Hair Doctor a call. We would love to help you understand the ins and outs of FUT vs FUE hair transplants, and create a treatment plan for you during a free consultation.

Further recommended reading: The Cost of a NeoGraft Hair Transplant.

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No Ordinary New Year’s Resolution: Grow Hair!

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Hello, 2016! It’s just about time to talk about New Year’s Resolutions.

Aren’t you a tiny bit excited to start on a clean slate with a brand-new year stretching in front of  you?

You might have already put up all the Christmas lights, changed a few light bulbs over the holidays, and generally gotten a head start with your to-do list. Perhaps you’ve even made a few – gulp! – New Year’s Resolutions.

But if you’re like me, the one thing you’ll probably procrastinate about till kingdom come is to think about having any kind of “procedure” done. The word alone is enough to send shivers up your spine. It evokes bland waiting rooms with dog-eared magazines you’d never open unless it was a dire emergency (i.e. your phone battery dying just as you’ve been told to take a seat and wait for your “procedure”), being told unpleasant truths about the need to eat more vegetables, and a general waste of time you’d much rather spend with your feet up watching Monday Night Football.

To overcome all that, any “procedure” would have to be well worth it. It would have to be amazing. It would have to be like the mother of all Nachos Supreme sitting in front of you, dripping cheese, with the Super Bowl about to kick off.

What if I told you about such a procedure, one that is worthy of making your New Year’s Resolutions list and one that makes it totally worth having, even though it’s the last thing you really want to do?

If you listen to our customers, our NeoGraft hair restoration procedure is the best thing they’ve ever done. It’s easy, it’s fast, and it produces amazing results. For some, it has proven life-changing.

Listen to what David Reed, a Nashville radio commentator has to say about his NeoGraft hair transplant from the Hair Doctor in Nashville:

David had actually had a previous hair transplant and wasn’t happy with it. In his words, his experience at the Hair Doctor “was light years beyond the procedure I’d had in the past. It was simpler, it was quicker, it was better, there was very little recovery time, there were no stitches. This, to me, is the only way to go.”

Not to be outdone, Eric Hasseltine, Memphis radio announcer and “Voice of the Grizzlies,” has the following to say about his hair restoration by Hair Doctor of Memphis:

If like Eric or David you experience thinning hair, a receding hairline, or bald spots, you may have started thinking about hair restoration, but any kind of “procedure” may have scared you off. And plenty of scary stories abound if you look into the matter. You might have heard of the “strip method,” whereby a patch of your hair is transplanted from the back of your head to the top but can leave behind an unsightly linear scar. As you can imagine, relocating a piece of your scalp in this fashion is not the most enjoyable way to spend your day.

NeoGraft hair restoration is in an entirely different league from that. Using the advanced technology of the NeoGraft machine, our technician is able to extract individual follicles of your hair from areas with plenty of growth and artfully transplant them to the recipient area. It is so minimally-invasive that it can be performed with just a local anesthetic, and most of our patients are back to work or their regular activities the very next day. Find out why NeoGraft is the clear winner in NeoGraft vs Strip Method, or check our Neograft Hair Transplant page for more detailed information.

If you find yourself doing this in front of your mirror far too often,

Man examining his receding hair in the mirror while making New Year's Resolutions

Do you find yourself checking out your thinning hairline every morning? Then make growing your hair with NeoGraft your new resolution for 2016!

then it might be time to put “NeoGraft” procedure on your list of New Year’s Resolutions. If not now, then when?

Call Hair Doctor of Nashville or Memphis to schedule a consultation. We look forward to helping you get started on the road to a full head of hair!

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