What Happens During The Year After Your Hair Transplant?

(2 WEEKS POST OPERATIVE AND BEYOND)

1. Hair Cuts - Wait 5 to 7 days after your suture removal to get a hair cut. It is best to keep the hair at the level of the donor incision 1/2 inch or longer with your first 3- 4 haircuts. It takes 8 to 12 months for the donor incision to reach its final stage of healing and for all the hair to grow back around the incision. For some skin types it is common for the incision line to be pink for several weeks to a few months before fading to normal skin color. For some patients there may be temporary shedding of hair adjacent to the donor incision. It takes 6 to 12 month for full recovery of these shed hairs.

2. Numbness and Sensation – It is common to have temporary loss or change of sensation to the scalp. The most common area affected is the top of the head. Occasionally, the area above the donor incision may also be affected. The tiny nerve endings located superficially throughout the skin are traumatized by the surgery resulting in the sensation change. The sensation does return to normal, but commonly this can take from 2 to 6 months. Rarely, it may take longer and very rarely, there may be small areas in which the sensation does not fully normalize. There is nothing that can be done to speed this process. Recovery of sensation is often associated with minor tingling, prickling, or itching sensations (signs of healing). Read more

FUE Hair Transplant Primer

As one of the few docs who does FUE routinely in my practice, I think it is interesting that all sorts of new methods for automating the process are being introduced. There have been many iterations of these machines and while none has yet panned out perfectly, I do see some hope on the horizon! For those of you who are novices to the idea here is a comparison of the two techniques;

TRADITION! The traditional FUT (Follicular Unit Transplantation) or “Strip” technique takes a thin strip of hair from the back and sides of your head. The two sides are brought back together leaving a thin line typically 1-2mm wide as the scar. Often, a “trichophytic closure” is used which allows the hair to grow through the scar, rendering the scar all but invisible. This scar is typically visible only if you buzz your hair shorter than a #2 on a pair of standard clippers (or if you shave your head with a razor.) It is typically NOT visible if you cut the hair at a #3 on clippers (or if you leave it even longer). This goes for wet and dry hair I find. Read more

Concerns About Camouflaging a Hair Transplant Scar

What is the hair length needed to cover an average donor harvest scar on the back of the head? I currently keep my hair short on the sides (less than 1/2 inch) Also, where on the back of the head is hair strip collected from? Parallel to the ears? How long is the resulting scar in inches?
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Dear “Worried about Scar Camouflage,”

Thank you for taking the time to write!  An average donor harvest scar should be done with a trichophytic edge these days, so hair should be growing through it rendering it nearly invisible.  However, even without completing that extra step (which I consider essential but not all surgeons do) an average scar should be no wider than 1-2 mm.  Based on an extensive survey of my patients, a scar like this would be visible if the hair were clipped at a #2 and invisible if clipped at a #3 length.  Of course, variables like skin and hair color can impact this, but as a general rule this is what I advise my patients. Read more

Would a Hair Transplant Be a Permanent Hair Loss Solution For My 26 Year Old Son?

My 26 year old son has been losing his hair since about the age of 18. Hair loss runs on my side of the family so I feel somewhat responsible for what he is going through. It breaks my heart to see him so unhappy and I would like to help him if I can. I’ve done a great deal of research and keep coming back to your organization as being the one to trust. Can you tell me if hair transplantation would be a permanent solution for my son and will he need follow up surgeries once he begins the process. Should he be taking medication like Propecia before thinking about surgery or do they work together?

Thanks you for your time,
Concerned Mom
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Thank you for your letter.  It certainly is difficult to watch one of your children, no matter what the age,  have a difficult time with a condition that can be emotionally devastating. You didn’t mention how severe his hair loss is, but the fact that he started losing it at an early age suggests that he has a fairly aggressive case of androgenetic alopecia or male pattern baldness.

The good news is that with medication the hair loss may be significantly slowed or stopped, and provide some chance that re-growth may occur. Read more

Hair Transplant On a Budget - Getting The Most Out Of Your Surgery

I am a 54 year old man who has been  experiencing hair loss for many years. Using the Norwood scale I would say I am a five.  My question concerns how much hair I want replaced.   I do not want a full head of hair.  In other words, I do not want to  look like I am 25 or 35 again.  I just to fill in some of the places  where the hair is thinning.  Is this a reasonable request when fiances are an issue?
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Your preference for having a limited size transplant session is perfectly okay, but it is important that, whatever is done, is done in such a way that it could “stand by itself” for the rest of your life if you never had another session done. I would exclude doing the rear vertex/crown area and perhaps even some of the rear aspect of the midscalp on top, but it is important that whatever is done in the front extends across the breadth of the head and isn’t placed around some hair you happen to have still in the central areas. The problem with simply placing grafts in the “bare spots” adjacent to your native hair is that, when that native hair disappears due to the progression of male pattern baldness, the fill-in hair that was placed will look very strange and abnormal. Earlier in my career I did this a few times and always came to regret it when the patient would return a few years later with the now bare areas next to the grafts that were patched in various places. It’s important to “march through” the frontal area, even in the region of present existing hair. Read more

A Closer Look At Eyebrow Hair Transplants

Hair transplant surgery is an extremely labor intensive and meticulous form
of cosmetic surgery. A bad hair transplant is visible from a mile away, and
unfortunately there are still many less than optimal results being produced
on a daily basis by under-trained and/or unskilled hair transplant practitioners.

One hair restoration procedure that can be especially challenging is eyebrow transplantation. Various medical conditions can result in eyebrow loss, but probably the most common cause is self-induced. Women who pluck their eyebrows run the significant risk of permanently damaging the hair follicles that are repeatedly plucked, thus causing permanent brow loss. Other causes of eyebrow loss include chemotherapy, trauma from accidents and burn injuries.

Eyebrows are very important to a person’s appearance since they essentially frame, and give symmetry to the face. Loss of eyebrow hair can have a profound effect on a person’s self confidence and general well being. While eyebrow reconstruction technology had been reported as far back as the early nineteenth century, it has taken the evolution of conventional hair transplant surgery to take eyebrow reconstruction to the level the we see today. Read more

Hair Transplant Repair, Can I Be Helped?

Hair transplant surgery is one of the most demanding cosmetic procedures performed today. Unfortunately, many physicians performing hair transplant surgery do not do so to state of the art standards. For various reasons, some physicians who decide to enter the field are either unwilling or unable to  learn how to perform this labor intensive, artistic procedure the right way.

Performing hair transplant surgery well involves several factors. First and foremost, it requires a surgeon to be highly skilled and meticulous. You can not cut corners when it comes to hair transplant surgery and this includes the physician’s staff.  A hair transplant practice must have the infrastructure to accommodate the equipment and staff requirements necessary to perform a procedure that can last between eight to ten hours. Each staff member plays an integral role in the final outcome of each hair transplant procedure and as practice is only a strong as it’s weakest surgical staff member. Read more