Hair Restoration Surgery

The use of surgery to deal with hair loss is most commonly in the form of a hair transplant. This is covered in the Hair Restoration Transplant page of this site.

There are, however, other types of surgery that can restore growing hair.

One of these methods is called Scalp Reduction. This involves the removal of the bald area of scalp and then joining the adjacent sides of the scalp by stretching them across the area to be restored and stitching them together.

Another technique is called Scalp Flap surgery. This is where a section of scalp from an area at the back or side of the head is partially removed and stretched upwards to cover the bald area.

These techniques can only me carried out where the patient has a fairly lose skin across the scalp. Where this is not the case, the skin can be stretched before the main procedure by various methods. One involves the insertion of a small balloon type device which is inserted under the scalp. This is then gently inflated and applies pressure to the skin. Over a period of time the skin will stretch. Once sufficient slackness has been achieved in the scalp, the balloon is removed and the main surgical procedure carried out.

Scalp reduction surgery usually costs between $2000 to about $10000.

It should be noted that this procedure will not actually stop existing hair loss. The recovered area will still lose hair, but it should provide anywhere between 5 to 10 years of coverage.

The use of scalp flap surgery for hair restoration is not a common choice for hair restoration, but can be a suitable solution for some. The surgery is only useful for patients with a small area of scalp to be restored due to the limitations of skin stretch involved in the procedure. If the area to be restored is too large, this procedure may still be used, but in conjunction with another procedure such as hair transplant to complete the hair restoration.

By far the most common type of hair restoration surgery is hair transplant surgery, and you can find out more about this here