He may have a hair transplant clinic for men (and women), cosmetic doctor and ‘fireplace doctor’ Mark van Bracht does not use a transplant as the first but as a last resort in (starting) baldness: “We will first try to ‘resuscitate’ the hair and if that does not work, then a hair transplant will come to the point.”
That sounds like music to those who suffer from hair loss, growing coves, an increasingly larger ‘runway’ or a tonsure that monks are jealous of. So there is still hope. “I don’t just say yes to a hair transplant request. I start with a consultation where I explain how you can improve your hair, get rid of hair loss or stop. Hair transplant is not the first insert for me. I don’t think it’s a good first step either, because the hair losing process just goes on, so after a transplantation it can just be left out of time.
Shame or vanity
After Van Bracht started his general practice in Drachten fifteen years ago, he developed into a cosmetic doctor and hair improvement expert in the following years. Nowadays he is 100 percent of his time in the clinic that is connected to general practice. More and more men (and also women) know how to find their way to his clinic, some of them shame about their baldness or hair loss, others from uncertainty or vanity.
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Back to the womb
To understand hair loss and the typical baldness in men, we have to go back to the womb, Van Bracht: “A male embryo has two tissue plates on its skull. The tissue plate on the front and top has weaker hair roots than the rear and bottom. They have a different origin.
At the same place
Hair on the front and top are often also thinner than on the rear and bottom of your head. If you also have the bad luck that you are sensitive to the influence of testosterone, which makes the hair roots weaker, then you lose hair where the hair roots were already weaker anyway. The stronger hairs then remain. That explains why men often get bald in the same place. “
Baalheid is therefore almost always the ‘debt’ of testosterone in combination with the genetic composition of the skin and hair structure on the skull. Testosterone is the male sex hormone. Women also make testosterone, only in much lower concentrations. In men, if they are still in the womb as an embryo – it provides primary sexual characteristics and in puberty for secondary sexual characteristics such as body hair.
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Strip card
“Testosterone provides all kinds of beautiful properties, but unfortunately also hand out pests of hair roots, which are all mini organes with blood vessels. Every time the hormone comes along the hair root, it shrinks a bit. Such a hair root has a strip card with about two million strips so to speak, the hair root is not to make any hair in it,” words out.
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He notes that this does not apply to everyone, but especially for people who have hair roots who are sensitive to testosterone. And then it is also only about the hair in that specific place on the skull, not for the hair on chin, chest, legs or under the armpit. “The hair that you only get during puberty are the result of testosterone. That is why you sometimes see men who are bald but have a beard.”
Hair lotion
Okay, that bald (nde) man comes by the fire rider. What does it await him then? Mark Van Bracht tells his patients who suffer from the intake with hair loss or baldness that there are three options. Option 1 is a special lotion on your scalp every day.
“You can find out what lotion that should be with a DNA saliva test that we perform in our clinic. That is really a state-of-the-art research. You then get a lotion with two fabrics: one that improves your hair and one that brakes or even stops the hair losing process. I already need it very good results.”
Growth spurt
Option 2 is to take blood removes, distilling platelets from it and restore those platelets to the scalp with hair loss. Van Bracht: “That may sound bizarre, but thanks to substances in the platelets, the hair follicles get a huge growth spurt. That results in hair improvement.” A ‘laser cap’, a kind of helmet with special LED light, can also provide the scalp and hair roots with new energy.
Artificial hair
Chapter 3 of the ‘book Hair Improvement’ are the ‘cosmetic tricks’, as Van Bracht called it: a cap, a wig, makeup, tattoos and implantation, with its own hair or artificial hair. Artificial hair? “For men who have no hair for transplanting, artificial hair can also be used. We do not do, but you do happen in Italy and Greece. You can also use beard hair or chest hair to transplant.”
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Transplantation with its own hair
In principle, hair transplantation is always done with your own hair. Hair that comes out of the part with the strong roots. “We transplant, as it were, from the dense forest to the thinned or bare forest,” Van Bracht explains.
That transplantation is then as follows. First the part where the donor hair is located is almost shaved. Then the hairs with hair follicle and carrot, the ‘grafts’ in jargon, are ‘harvested’ one by one. Subsequently, small slices are made in the ‘reception area’ in which the donor hair is placed. It can be 1000 grafts, but also 6,000, depending on the size of the area to be treated.
Doll hair
Van brought the slices at the hairline does not neatly put it on a line: “Otherwise it will look very unnatural, then you get that straight doll’s hair, that doesn’t look”.
The treatment takes pretty much all day. Then the patient can go home again. Aftercare is also there: after three days, twelve weeks and a year, the end result is checked in the clinic and the patient receives advice to prevent future hair loss. “Because if you don’t do any prevention, testosterone will continue to do his job and the person will lose her again in the long term. You can slow or delay that process.”
Don’t bump your head
If the patient walks out of the door after the treatment, he will get another warning: ‘Watch out, do not bump your head’ it says on the yellow card. Van Bracht: ,, Pumping your head is never nice, but it is a disaster if you have just got your new, future hair. You don’t want to ruin it when you get in your car. “
Turkey
Turkey is popular as a hair transplant location. As a reason, the lower price is often mentioned. Van Bracht: “The treatments there are different from here in the Netherlands. Personnel is not always medically trained, the hygiene standard is different, the salaries are lower, guidelines are less strict and aftercare it is sometimes lacking. Turkish clinics can therefore offer cheaper treatments.”
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“And you sometimes see it in the way of transplanting: straight lines that give you such a puppet hairstyle or few grafts that appeal to the density of the hair is a disappointment. It can also go wrong with infections and complications as a result. I have seen examples of that and sometimes the failed cases are not always good for them.”