Many surgeons perform hair transplant procedures by using
long-acting and local anesthesia so, after the anesthesia; the patient doesn’t
experience any pain or discomfort on the scalp.
The local common general anesthesia (a mixture of Lidocaine
and Marcaine) lasts about 4-5 hours. But for long hair transplant sessions, most
of the surgeons use tumescent anesthesia before the first wears off. Tumescent methods
were first popularized in liposuction operation where huge quantities of fluid
containing adrenaline were injected into the person’s fat layer to reduce
bleeding before the fat was removed out of the body. Due to tumescent, bleeding
was minimized because the epinephrine (adrenaline) contracted blood vessels and
the fluid condensed the blood flow in the smallest blood vessels called
capillaries. This method permitted in small liposuction processes to be
performed safely.
Surgical hair transplantation
processes, low concentrations of anesthetic fluid and tumescent are inserted
into the fat layer in the back of the patient’s scalp. In this method, besides
decreasing the bleeding, the anesthesia
solution makes the skin stiffer so that the incisions can easily made without
cutting hair follicles. It also assists the surgeon to avoid the damage of
deeper nerves and blood vessels in the scalp. This mixture of anesthesia
medication is a very fast acting tranquilizer, which is very relaxing for the
patient. Some patients even sleep off at the beginning of the surgery, then,
the patient could not feel any pain.
