HAIR TRANSPLANT IN SINGAPORE
Is a Permanent Hair Transplant in Singapore possible?
Do you suffer from Hair Loss?
Have you tried every over the counter treatment, taken pills, and applied serums to your hair daily or even more?).
Have you visited herbal remedy stores to try to massage your hair back with little to no success?
The good news is, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Every day, thousands, maybe millions of men painstakingly massage all kinds of tonics into their hair, and pop a huge variety of pills, just to control their hair loss.
In fact, you may be one of these men.
They mistakenly believe that these tonics, pills or creams will treat their hair loss. They could not be further away from the truth. You see, there is a little known fact about hair loss treatments, which is that today’s best hair loss pills or lotions can only slow down or stop hair loss, and some can even cause the regrowth of fine baby hairs in some patients. However, none can actually claim to be able to deliver the promise of PERMANENT, FULL THICKNESS HAIRS re-growing on the bald spots on your head.
The even better news is that there IS such a treatment that promises to grow PERMANENT, FULL THICKNESS HAIRS on the bald spots on your head. Hairs that do not fall off months after stopping your medication or lotions. (Something that you will read in the small print of the medicine box).
SO which would you rather choose?
A. A treatment that needs daily maintenance to keep your hair looking like it is today, while doing LITTLE or NOTHING to treat the existing bald spots on your head, OR
B. A treatment that can grow PERMANENT, FULL THICKNESS HAIRS on the existing bald spots on your head, bringing your hairline back to what it was years ago before you started balding.
To many, the answer is obvious. What’s even sweeter is that this treatment requires very little downtime and has a success rate of over 90%!
Right now, you must be wondering what this treatment is. This treatment, which in the year 2010 alone, was chosen as the PERMANENT SOLUTION TO THE HAIR LOSS PROBLEM of over 100,000 men in the US and over 270,000 men worldwide.
You may have guessed it by now, the treatment I am referring to is Surgical Hair Restoration, otherwise known as a Hair Transplant.
Just what is a Hair Transplant?
The theory is simple. When you see a balding man, he usually shows signs of balding around the temples and crown of his head. There is almost always a good cuff of hair around the sides and back portions of his head. Why is this so? Researchers have found that the cause of balding in male pattern balding (alopecia) is a hormone known as DHT, short for Di-Hydro-Testosterone. The hairs which bald are especially susceptible to DHT, and over prolonged exposure to this hormone, eventually thin and drop off. However, the hairs on the sides and back of the head are different. These hairs are not as susceptible to DHT, making them stay on for many years, even through our 60s to 70s. When we perform a hair transplant, we are merely moving some of these good hairs from the sides of your head, to the top of your head, to REPLACE THE HAIRS WHICH HAVE ALREADY DROPPED.
This principle is based on another little known fact, which is A PERSON CAN LOSE UP TO 50% OF HIS HAIR WITHOUT NOTICEABLE THINNING! An average human head has over 100,000 hairs. So borrowing a 10% of the hairs from the non-balding parts of the head, and placing them in important areas of the scalp such as the hairline or the crown of the head WILL NOT MAKE A NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE to the area where the hair was taken, HOWEVER, IT WILL MAKE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE when these hairs are placed along your now-receding hairline, or on the growing bald spot on the top of your head!
The best part is that these hairs that have been moved retain the original characteristics of being hormone resistant, and thus persist through many years, usually past your 60s and 70s!
I know all this sounds wonderful… Just pull out 1000 hairs from the back of my head and plant it in my hairline. Voila, problem solved! Is it that easy? The truth is, not all hair transplants are alike. You see, there is this catch. And the catch is called VARIABLE SURGICAL TECHNIQUE. Surgeons are human, and hair transplantation is a tiring, repetitive process. That’s why even the best surgeons fall victim to fatigue, and that gives rise to variable surgical technique.
Let me share a story about one of my friends (and also our hair restoration patient) who had a hair transplant by another doctor, where 1500 hairs were transplanted from the back of his head to the hairline, using a technique known as FUE. After a year, he was dismayed that only 30-40% of his hairs grew. From my calculations, that translates to nearly 900-1000 hairs WASTED! That means that 1000 hairs were taken out of the ALREADY LIMITED STOCK on the back of his head, and in the course of the surgery, killed or dead after the transplant was completed. These hairs will never grow again, not on the back, nor the front of his head. In other words, these hairs were KILLED. After analyzing the causes, I concluded that this could only be due to this problem of variable surgical technique. And this affects even the best and most experienced surgeons!
So right now, supposing you want to have 1000 hairs transplanted from the back of your head, to the hairline where it counts. But you’re terrified of variable surgical technique. So what’s the solution? Well, the hair transplant industry is a huge one, valued at USD1.87 billion in 2010. There was no way that the brilliant minds in this industry were going to sit on their hand and not develop any technology to fix this, so they came up with a ROBOT that would take over the imprecise, variable and repetitive work of a surgeon, and increase the speed, reliability and precision of each hair transplant.
This robot has been used in the largest and most advanced commercial hair transplant centres in the USA, including Bernstein Medical in New York, Ziering Medical Worldwide, and Shapiro Medical Group since 2011. Now, it is available in Singapore, and TCS is proud to be the pioneer to introduce this technology in our MOH accredited Day Surgery centre.
Before we dive into the technological details, I just wanted to share with you about my experience with hair transplantation. Since 2011, we have been performing manual hair transplantation in our centre. We acquired a Korean Automated FUE device, which did an OK job with hair extraction, but because the grafts were still harvested by hand, I was unsatisfied with the quality of the grafts which were harvested. When I saw the robot, and its ability to extract the highest quality grafts I have ever seen with minimal to no error, I realized that we had entered a new era of hair transplantation. Whatever the human is capable of doing, the robot does it better with more consistency, speed and precision. And this translates directly to LESS HAIRS WASTED. If you have already lost 50% of your hair, the very last thing you want to do is to WASTE MORE HAIR.
If you would like to get a permanent solution to your balding problems today then just pick up the phone and call us right now at 62218221 .Our hair loss consultant is standing by to provide you with more information. If you would like more information about our treatment, then please read on!
Robotic Hair Restoration by TCS clinic is the first such system in Singapore, and utilizes the ARTAS platform, developed in the USA for automated hair transplantation. This system is FDA approved in US for male pattern baldness, but has been used extensively for hair restoration for women also. The robot has a number of innovative features to automate the repetitive task of extracting hairs from the back of the head, and then implanting it back to the same patient’s head using an advanced technique known as Robotic Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE). 4 high resolution cameras and a swiss-made robotic arm combine to ensure precise extraction of hair follicles from the back of the head. A host of active and passive safety features and intelligent algorithms ensure quick, uneventful recovery after the painless procedure.
The procedure takes about 1 hour to complete extraction of 1000 hairs, and the implantation process will take approximately 2-3 hours. So that whole process can take about just half a day. During this period, you will be seated comfortably in a specially designed chair. You will not feel any pain at all during the extraction and implantation as we will numb the area to be treated with only a local anaesthetic. Patients can even listen to music, use a mobile phone or watch a movie during the extraction process.
Due to MOH restrictions, we had to remove photographs of the actual transplant procedure. However, we are able to show you these photographs so that you can get an idea of the procedure during our consultation.
Robotic Hair Restoration overcomes many of the disadvantages of the conventional process, such as:
✔ absence of a line scar in the donor area;
✔ very short healing time for the donor area in 2-3 days;
✔ minimised post-operation discomfort; and
✔ reduced risk of poor scarring.
✔ very short healing time for the donor area in 2-3 days;
✔ minimised post-operation discomfort; and
✔ reduced risk of poor scarring.
Other benefits of the Robotic Hair Restoration vary for individuals and their lifestyles, which our doctors will advise you on. From a personal perspective, the most importatnt advantage of Robotic Hair Restoration is that your precious hair follicles are NOT WASTED. With conventional surgery, human error, surgeon fatigue and poor equipment can account for between 30-70 percent of loss due to damage of the hair follicle. I had a friend who did FUE at a different surgery and only about 30% of his transplanted hairs grew. This meant that 70% of his hairs were wasted. Money issues aside, what this means is that precious donor hairs were killed in the process of transplantation. Because we only have limited donor hairs, this severely limits his options for hair restoration in the future.
Most men are good candidates for Robotic Hair Restoration; however, the final result may vary depending on the quality of your existing hairs and the fullness and thickness of your hair. You also need to have enough donor hair to meet current and future needs.
After the procedure, some of the newly implanted hairs may grow immediately. However, most of the hairs which are implanted will actually go into a resting phase, and slowly start growing between 3-12 months after the procedure. You will thus notice gradual improvements to the hair over a period of one year.
The hairs which we transplant will be obtained from the “mid-permanent” zone, which is the zone around the sides and back of the head. These hairs are resistant to falling and you can expect the results of the transplant to be permanent in most cases.
The main risks of hair transplantation are infection, poor scarring, scalp bumpiness, buried grafts and poor cosmetic result. The final expectation is very important to manage, as several sessions may be needed to get the desired cosmetic result.
As with all clinical and surgical treatment, you have a right to all the information you need to prepare for and decide on the treatment for the best results. Your doctor is committed to ensure that you have access to the information and care you need. As a patient, you also have the responsibility to keep your appointments, complete the course of treatment and ensure you comply with any medical instructions safely (e.g. personal hygiene, use of medications).
I need more information…
Read this interactive interview between Dr Chow and Dr Shenthilkumar in our In Conversation page about hair restoration.
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