Eyebrow hair and eyelashes, much as the hair on our heads thin and attenuate with age.
Waxing, plucking and other traumatic manipulations of the hairs of the brow and lashes can accelerate this permanent loss of hair.
Conventional wisdom, and even a great deal of uniformed medical advise, suggests that once these hairs are lost the only treatment is permanent makeup or cosmetic tattooing. While, when performed by a skilled artisian, permanent makeup can be a very effective disguise for hair loss, nothing is as natural as your own hair!
Now medical and surgical advances allow a comprehensive approach to eyebrow hair and eyelash restoration for both men and women.
The Procedure: It’s your own real and growing hair!
The Maas ClinicTM program starts with a comfortable office procedure requiring 1-3 hours that is performed with local anesthesia.
For eyebrow hair replacement specially selected hair grafts are usually borrowed from the back of the scalp, well behind the ear (or from the pubic area), usually with an incision of 2-4 cm (less than 2 inches). This incision is closed leaving, when healed, a hairline scar that not noticeable. With small color matched sutures used for closure this “donor” site is not noticeable when the patient leaves the The Clinic. With special magnification TMC technicians carefully cut the hair just as it naturally grows in the brow area. While these follicular unit grafts are prepared Dr. Maas creates micrograft slits in the area of the brow with thinning and absent eyebrow hairs. This is painless as a local the local anesthesia block performed at the beginning of the procedure makes both donor area and eyebrow area completely numb.
Finally, the eyebrow micrografts (transplants) are carefully placed to maximize or restore normal eyebrow hair density. The number of eyebrow implants placed, depending on the patients desire for eyebrow thickness, can vary between 25 and 100 grafts per eyebrow. The eyebrows are typically mildly to moderately swollen for a few days to week.
The small grafted hair shafts will fall out in one to two weeks with regrowth beginning as soon as three months and full density expected at 6 months. Like most eyebrow hairs, the restored eyebrows will need to be trimmed to shape from time to time. Patients with existing permanent makeup are excellent candidates for an eyebrow transplant with new hairs place precisely in the pattern of the permanent makeup or tattoo.
Eyelash hair restoration is performed in much the same way as eyebrow hair restoration. Thick and preferably slightly curved hairs grafts are carefully selected from the posterior scalp. Typically, no more than a dozen or so grafts are required per eyelid depending on existing eyelash density. Special “atraumatic needles” are used with the hair graft threaded into needle eye for careful and curved placement in the eyelid margin. The eyelids are completely numb with local anesthesia, so the eyelash treatment procedure is comfortable and for the patient with a little “needle anxiety” oral, iv or “sleeping” anesthesia can be offered.
Like eyebrow hair transplants, eyelash transplants are trimmed to appropriate length at the time of the procedure. The eyelash transplant hair shaft will fall out in one to weeks with new hair growth expected to begin within 3 months and full density at around 6 months.
Like The Maas ClinicTM hair restoration medical therapies for scalp (e.g. Minoxidil, Propecia, Spironolactone etc.), eyelash and eyebrow thickening and restoration can be accomplished with medical therapy alone or in combination with eyebrow and eyelash transplants. Bimatoprist or Latisse has shown outstanding results in eyelash thickening as well as eyebrow thickening in our experience. Many patients will get satisfactory results with once daily (followed by 2-3 times weekly maintenance) application the clear solution, available only by prescription through our office. As a courtesy to our patients, we charge only our cost for this product.
New surgical technologies and medical therapies have provided patients with excellent options for replacement and restoration of eyebrow and eyelash hairs. What was once considered a hopeless condition with tattooing as the only treatment option is now correctable with real, growing hair other body areas.
Corey S. Maas MDTM and the staff at The Maas ClinicTM look forward to answering any questions you may have about the eyelash or eyebrow transplant procedure in San Francisco. To schedule an appointment, please call (415) 567-7000 or contact us by email.
The information about eyelash/eyebrow transplant was reviewed by Corey S. Maas MDTM. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us using our contact form below.