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Choosing Hair Plugs Over Hair Loss Drugs

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Most of the time when you are in the process of deciding which is the best choice for you spend your hard earned money, you find out that the costs of a short term solution and long term solution are very different. Let’s use the baldness treatment for men to cure male pattern baldness as an example. There are two basic types of treatment which have been proven to be effective as compared to a lot of products that don’t work at all. The two basic hair restoration procedures are hair plugs surgery and hair growth drugs. If you check out the cost, there’s one that’s cheaper than the other in the short run but this changes if you consider the long run.

There are only two hair growth drugs that can be used today based on approval by US FDA and these are proven to work effectively. These drugs are Finasteride and Minoxidil. Finasteride is a medication taken orally once a day and it works by blocking the production of DHT which is a naturally occurring substance that can make the hair follicles stop the manufacture of hair shaft material. Minoxidil is a topical type of drug which is applied twice a day, every morning and night. It works by protecting the hair follicles from attack of DHT. If one of these drugs is your hair loss treatment regimen, you can be spending $100 per month just to keep the remaining hair you have. It means that you have to spend $1200 per year. None of these drugs can help your hair to re-grow if the follicles have already gone dormant..

With this fact, the cost of hair plugs appears to be more economical in the long run. Because of the worsening condition of the current economy, you can negotiate a  lowered price with a hair clinic which means each individual graft will cost about $4. If you need 1,000 hairs for transplanting, you have to pay a one time $4,000 fee.

The cost of the drug seems to be much better and affordable but you must consider the long term effect. If you have your hair plugs, they can continue to grow for several years. Assuming they remain on your head for the next 20 years, you divide the original cost over 20 years and you’ll get $200 which means this is the annual cost of having hair plugs. The cumulative costs per year of the drug are six times more expensive and there’s no possibility of hair re-growth in your bald spot unlike with hair plug.

If you choose hair transplants, it’s more logical from an economic point of view if you aim to have new hairs growing.

Information About Hair Plugs

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Hair loss and thinning hair has almost always been a problem for many men. Genetics is the main cause of male pattern baldness and up until only a few decades ago there were very few options for treatment. There are less aggressive treatments like light therapy and FDA approved oral medications to protect the hair follicle and stimulate new hair growth. These and other remedies have been tried with varying levels of success. A surgical option with very high positive results is hair plugs. This treatment was developed more than 50 years ago.

The first modern hair transplants were performed by dermatologist Norman Orentreich in New York. These first transplants were fairly primitive and were quite noticeable. This is because each hair plug was about two to four millimeters in size and when transplanted in the hair line or on the crown of the head gave the scalp a speckled appearance.

In the 1980’s, advances in micro-surgery allowed donor plugs or strips to be divided into smaller grafts. Implanting smaller plugs allowed for a more natural appearance. In 1995, a technique to implant individual hair follicles was developed by Drs. Bernstein and Rassman. This method was less dramatic on the donor and transplant area as one or two follicles were removed and then implanted at a time instead of larger plugs of scalp. This surgery is often performed only under local anesthetic and the patient is able to walk out of the office immediately following the procedure.

Over recent years, this individual follicle transplantation has improved even further. Surgeons have begun to focus not only on the types and amounts of hair plugs, but also the angle and direction of the graft. This make the transplanted hair grow in a more natural pattern. These improvements and others have made hair plugs a very attractive option for many men.