David Silva Hair Transplant – Are the rumours true?
There has been a lot of speculation amongst football fans for the reasons why Man City star David Silva has shaved his hair off.
The most likely explanation is that the Spanish midfielder has had a hair transplant.
There is lots of pictures of Silva on this hair loss thread showing the tell tale signs of a hair transplant.
The red dots at the front of the hairline are the temporary scars visible from either a FUE (follicular unit extraction) or FUT (follicular unit transplantation) procedure.
The red dots are marks where the donor hair – taken from the back or side of the scalp – are replanted in the balding areas at the front of the hairline. These tend to go away after a few weeks.
Lots of footballers have undergone hair transplants in recent years including, most famously, Wayne Rooney but also lots of other Premiership stars such as Crown Clinic client Didi Hamann and Crystal Palace winger Andros Townsend.
What kind of hair transplant has David Silva had?
Most footballers choose the FUE method of hair transplantation. This is where individual grafts are removed from the donor area to the back and sides of the scalp and they are then replanted in the balding areas.
The advantage of this method is that the scarring is minimal and the red pin pricks you can see in David Silva’s picture below tend to go away after a few weeks.
Around 80% of the male hair transplant clients at Crown Clinic opt for FUE.
This is a big shift on five years ago when the majority of our consultant hair transplant surgeon Asim Shahmalak’s clients opted for the more traditional FUT method.
With FUT, the donor hair is collected by cutting a strip of skin from the back and side of the scalp. The donor grafts are then extracted from this strip by skilled technicians and then replanted in the balding area by Dr Shahmalak.
The TV doctor, Christian Jessen, has undergone two FUT transplants at Crown Clinic with Dr Shahmalak
The advantage of this method is that the donor hairs are removed in one go – this makes it slightly less labour intensive than FUE and therefore more affordable.
The disadvantage of this method is that the removal of the strip does leave a linear scar on the scalp which is visible if you like to wear your hair short or shaved.
It is for those reasons that it is likely that Silva opted for FUE.
Lots of men shave their head after undergoing a procedure while they wait for the transplanted hair to grow back. This tends to take between eight months and a year for the full effect of the hair transplant to be fully appreciated.
There are clear signs in David Silva’s hairline that the transplanted hair is starting to grow back.
Any transplanted hair will be permanent and should last the Spanish international for the rest of his life. There is no guarantee that he will not carry on losing more of his natural hair.
In having a hair transplant, he would be following in the footsteps of other leading Spanish sporting stars such as the the tennis player Rafael Nadal.