The doctor will also want to know what you think will change when you have your hair transplant. If your expectations are too high, you may be referred to counseling before a reputable doctor will perform a hair transplant. If you are positive yet realistic, you may be ready for the next step. Next, the doctor will get all the facts on your health that are related with surgical procedures. If the sides and back of your head have full lustrous hair, you are in luck. This hair can be used as donor hair to replace hair you have lost on your balding spots. If your hair in these areas is not healthy, you face a difficult problem - where does the surgeon get the hair? A new procedure allows doctors to use donor hair from other parts of the body. It is just your scalp after all, not muscle or bone. The truth is that you have many small wounds and you need to protect them. 4. Hair transplant can be a time-consuming commitment. Treatment can often last one to two years. Mega-sessions where thousands of grafts are done in one sitting help to shorten the overall time. When he gives the ok, the surgical technicians again take over the patient's care. The grafts will be more permanently set into place when the technicians dry them by blowing a cool blow dryer across them. This makes them adhere in their place so that no bandages are necessary. The patient will be asked to bring, or will be given, a baseball cap for the ride home from the hair transplant procedure. He will emphasize that the hair on your crown should be at least 2cm long. This is so that the donor site scar will be adequately covered up until the sutures heal. Also, the doctor will not tell you to get a haircut. In fact, when getting a hair transplant, the longer your hair is, the better it often works. Once you have found a doctor or doctors to consider, make sure they let you see examples of their work. It will not be enough to see what they can do with a virgin scalp. You need to see how successful they have been in dealing with problems such as the ones you have. If you cannot see the patients directly, at least ask for a look at some photos.