Renowned for transforming faces and bodies at her award-winning medispa in Perth, Dr Anh Nguyen, a leading plastic surgeon, is now transforming hairlines too.
Since opening its doors just three years ago, the Dr Anh Medispa at Crown Metropol has rapidly established itself as one of WA’s premier destinations for cosmetic procedures.
At the luxurious medispa, Dr Anh consults with her plastic surgery patients before and after their operations while also working with her team of nurses and dermal therapists to offer clients the latest non-surgical procedures ranging from Botox and filler injections to fraxel laser, chemical peels and thread lifts.
Dr Anh, who prides herself on providing her clients with the most advanced aesthetic treatment options, says her initial reasons for moving into the hair restoration market were in many ways “more personal than business-oriented”.
“I have known for years that hair loss is a major aesthetic concern for men,” she says.
“At the clinic we see men and women from 18 to 80 who are concerned about some element(s) of their appearance: women are typically concerned about ‘everything’ while men are largely concerned about their ageing faces, their love handles and their hair loss.”
Yet despite this professional awareness about the psychological impact of balding, it was her husband’s personal battle with hair loss that affected her the most.
Vu Tran, the general manager of the medispa, has been self-conscious about his thinning hairline for many years but, like many of Dr Anh’s patients, could not find a suitable treatment option.
“Vu had no luck with any of over-the-counter treatment options but didn’t want a traditional hair transplant as he was worried that the final result wouldn’t look natural.”
Dr Anh therefore searched for viable hair restoration treatment options for him, and her patients, whenever she attended cosmetic surgery conferences and conventions around Australia and overseas but didn’t find anything suitable until she discovered the NeoGraft Hair Restoration System.
Distributed by Venus Concept, a US-based manufacturer of medical aesthetic devices, NeoGraft is a ‘minimally invasive’ alternative to traditional hair transplantation surgery.
NeoGraft uses an automated handheld device to harvest individual hair follicles from a donor site (usually the back of the scalp where terminal hair grows) and then implant those grafts at the site of hair loss, where they will regrow as healthy, fully functioning hair.
Unlike traditional hair transplants which requires a surgeon to remove a strip of the patient’s scalp, the NeoGraft procedure does not leave a linear scar, is more comfortable, and requires much less recovery time.
Although newly arrived in Australia, NeoGraft hair restoration treatments have already proved effective in the US for over 10 years with an average ‘Worth It’ rating of 95 percent on RealSelf.com.
According to Dr Anh, the FDA-approved system eliminates the inefficiencies of manual extractions and implants so practitioners can “perform fast, effective, safe hair transplants that yield superior clinical results”.
She believes this simplification of the hair transplant procedure is the key to its success.
“The treatment is relatively simple as it involves just two steps: harvesting and placement.
“We numb the donor site with local anaesthetic and then uses the NeoGraft to extract individual hair follicles.
“After sorting the follicles by size, we numb the recipient sites and places the individual follicles into the thinning areas.
“The patient doesn’t require stitches, is left with virtually no visible scars, and can return to work or their normal routine in just two to three days.”
“Best of all, the NeoGraft creates a natural-looking hairline so patients can look more like their old selves again.”
Not surprisingly, Dr Anh chose Vu as her first NeoGraft patient after she completed extensive training in the US.
Vu, who had the treatment five months ago, said that although his hair had been thinning “for years” he became particularly self-conscious about it when he saw a photo of himself at a birthday party.
“I didn’t realise how much hair I had lost until someone who took a photo of me at the party sent me a photo that showed the top of my head,” he recalls.
“I was quite shocked.
“I’ve got black hair and there was this massive white spot right at the top of my scalp.
“It just me feel so old. I didn’t realise I had such a big bald spot as I normally just look at myself front on in the mirror.”
Despite his eagerness to have the NeoGraft treatment, Vu readily admits he dreaded the prospect of “sitting down doing nothing for hours” but after some light sedation he said the time passed quickly with “no pain at all” except some slight “scalp irritation” as Anh and her team implanted 800 grafts into his scalp.
The full results of the NeoGraft treatment normally aren’t visible for 9 to 12 months as the implanted hair follicles work with the natural hair growth cycle but Vue is already enjoying his new look.
And his friends have noticed too.
“I have never really discussed hair loss with my friends, so I never told them that I was having the treatment, but once they started to see my hair grow denser and my white patch start to disappear, they started asking me what I had done,” he says.
“They couldn’t believe how natural the results were and in fact, two are so impressed they are planning to have the procedure too.”
And they aren’t the only ones.
“No one is happy to go bald,” says Anh.
“Hair loss damages men’s (and women’s) self-esteem so much.
“Many learn to live with it or attempt a wide variety of ways to try and fix it ‒ or at least disguise it.
“Most are aware of traditional hair transplants but have avoided them for various reasons including the fact that it leaves a highly visible horizontal scar at the back of their scalp”.
“Thankfully, NeoGraft is such a good alternative.
“I have already seen how the treatment has changed Vu’s confidence, and some of my other patients too, and really look forward to helping many more.”
For more information phone 1300 837264 or email [email protected]