A step towards hair restoration(credit:
Ribenawrath)
Operation Restore is a program of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery, which offers treatment at no cost to people who have suffered hair loss because of disease or trauma.
Blerim Grajcevci is a 17-year-old boy who is going to undergo hair restoration surgery. This is Blerim’s story:
Whenever Blerim Grajcevci sees his reflection, he remembers a day in Kosovo when he was 5 years old and Serbian soldiers came looking for his father.
They didn’t believe his mother when she said he was out of the country, insisting instead that he was part of the Albanian military. So they began to push her, Blerim recalled, and he tried to stop them. In the struggle, hot oil she had been using for cooking spilled onto his head, burning about a fifth of his scalp.
He recovered from the burns, despite the fear that kept his mother from bringing him to a hospital. But his hair did not grow back in a swath that runs above his left ear. A hair transplant last year in Europe failed to cover the empty space.
Blerim’s story prompted his doctor to contact the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery, a 650-member organization that since 2004 has offered surgery at no cost to people who have suffered hair loss because of disease or trauma. The group contacted Dr. Mark DiStefano of Worcester, who volunteered to provide his services through the society’s Operation Restore program.
Hair replacement surgery is a relatively new type of cosmetic surgery. Dermatologist Dr. Norman Orentreich is considered the father of modern hair transplantation for his work in the 1950s transferring skin that could grow hair on the scalp in plugs.
Blerim’s case is clearly different. What Dr. DiStefano will do to repair it is also different.
The four-step procedure he proposes will expand the scalp so tissue that can grow hair will cover where there is no hair. To do this, Dr. DiStefano will make an incision and insert a balloon that will then be filled with saline solution. The scalp will gradually grow in size, responding to under-the-skin pressure. The balloon will be removed and the flap of skin will be advanced and then sutured over the space where there is no hair growing. One or two hair transplants will follow to fill in any gap.
Local anesthetic is used, with oral valium pills to put the patient at ease.