22,000 see former footballer Michael Gray‘s hair transplant

Yesterday approximately 22,000 people from around the world tuned in to witness former Premier League and England footballer Michael Gray receive what is thought to be the first ever live streaming of a hair transplant procedure. The seven-hour long intricate operation was performed by medical director of the Institute of Trichologists, Dr Bessam Farjo, and came to a conclusion at 6.50pm after initially getting underway at 10am. Dr Farjo is a hair loss and hair transplant expert and incredibly he is in his 19^th year of performing such procedures like the one seen yesterday on 37 year old Gray, who is currently employed as a football pundit on Talksport.

Viewers were able to see a close-up of Dr Farjo extracting thousands of hair follicles from the back of Gray’s head and implanting them into the receding areas at the front. Gray explained that after seeing other celebrities such as Wayne Rooney have similar procedures, he chose to go under the knife himself after his previous blonde flowing locks began to diminish at around the age of 32. Gray took to his Twitter account throughout the operation to update his followers on the proceedings, and was involved in a question and answer session. In addition, Dr Farjo also answered questions throughout the procedure, which involved a team of two doctors and six nursing technicians.

The ex-England International gave a detailed account into what persuaded him to seek the help from Dr Farjo, “I think it’s more acceptable now and that was one of the reasons that I wanted to go through with it,’ he said before the operation. Cosmetic surgery now is an everyday occurrence. People might be out there and may be worried about the operation and if I’m going to get it done then why not let people see it. There’s a lot of people out there who are worried about it. Here they can see it from start to finish. I’m working in the media at the moment and doing quite a lot of the TV and when I watch myself back I’m conscious about the way I look, so from the confidence side of things I’m hoping that will beat that. People refer to the harrowing experience a woman must go through when losing her hair, however it can be equally upsetting for men, who can suffer from a severe loss of self-esteem. I hope the live broadcast will help us to educate people about hair transplant surgery and open up discussions around the solutions available to those experiencing hair loss.”

With more and more people undergoing hair transplant operations, Dr Farjo links this to the recent increase in celebrities who have paid for the expensive solution to hair loss. Dr Farjo commented, “Obviously 20 years ago people generally had a different attitude or feeling about things like cosmetic surgery and lifestyle issues, it was very much not talked about. It’s a far cry from where we are now.” Dr Farjo is now optimistic that yesterday’s live streaming may pave the way for more men to seek help with their hair loss and added, “Our broadcast is intended to orchestrate a pioneering moment for the hair loss community, as well as the surgical field, giving the nation a first-hand look at the procedure and helping to dispel misconceptions around hair transplant surgery.” Gray can now look forward to hairs beginning to grow in around three months time, with more obvious results visible after between eight and fourteen months.