Month: January 2023

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Swelling in My Head After Hair Transplant

hello doctor..i come from greece and i had hair transplantation about 3 months ago..a few weeks ago i noticed that the area where the new hair was transplanted it started to swell and raise up a little bit..i went to see my doctor again (actually it was a clinic, specialized in cosmetic surgery) and they told me it due to the new hair trying to find their way out but couldnt…they used a needle to cut it open a little bit and cleaned it from the blood and pus that was gathered in it..when i asked them if that is natural they told me yes, it happens from time to time cause some hair get trapped and inverted but they told me the transplanted hair will grow normally after that..is that true? could the transplants have died because of that? im sick worried..thank u

If what you are talking about is a few cysts, this occurs in about 5% of patients and with proper soaks (or drainage) they should go away. Sometimes they need antibiotics. If the pus or drainage was any bigger than a drop, then you could be having problems. You need to trust a doctor to deal with this (in person), not someone like me over the internet.


2007-04-10 13:32:09Swelling in My Head After Hair Transplant

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Swelling after hair transplants

Does swelling always happen and then gravitate to the eyes like mine at day three? My doctor’s pitch to sell me this procedure was that in his hands, swelling never happens. So I selected him and now I am swollen just 3 days from the FUE I had done. Could this swelling have been stopped?

Yes, swelling always happens unless God is your surgeon. Since I think that only humans do this type of surgery, your surgeon could have done two things to stop the impact of the swelling:

(1) use a steroid at the time of the surgery, and

(2) use a tape on the forehead to prevent the swelling from moving from the upper forehead into the eyes.

Swelling after a hair transplant

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Swap from topical to oral finasteride

I apply at a .25g dose so the bottle lasts about 3.5 months so the prices doesn’t bother me, and I’m not bothered by applying topicals. Just wondering if there’s any point as I see loads of people be like blah blah it goes systemic just the same no point etc etc

Yes, you should be able to switch from the topical form of finasteride to the oral form without consequences.


2021-01-23 10:45:10Swap from topical to oral finasteride

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Suture Scarring

I have a couple stretch marks in my back donor area performed years ago from older methods of harvesting graphs.

My new HT doctor has revised these stretch marks by suturing into the subQutaneous. What is your opinion on this?

Thanks,
Tony

I am having difficulty understanding your question. I think you are saying that there are ‘rail road tracks’ where you were stitched years ago. If widely spaced sutures are placed a bit of a distance back from the wound, they tend to produce ‘hash marks’. Today’s suturing with very fine sutures close to the edge of the wound does not produce ‘hash marks’. Is this what your doctor is suggesting?

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Surgical Hairline Lowering Is Not Permanent?

I have read in a couple of blogs on the web that the surgical hairline lowering procedure is not permanant -ie. in 10 years after the procedure, the skin can stretch back and pull the hairline back to its original position. Is this true?

It may be true. Many brow lifts (just the reverse of hairline lowering) will stretch back. As we get older, the skin loosens and stretch-back may occur to some degree.

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Surgical Complications in Hair Transplantation

Surgical Complications in Hair Transplantation: A series of 533 Procedures

Background

Surgical complications in hair transplantation can sometimes be a serious matter. Most of the published literature on this issue deals with individual case reports rather than larger series of patients.

Objective

The authors analyze complications in 425 consecutive patients undergoing 533 hair transplantations.

Methods

Patients with androgenetic alopecia (407 men and 17 women), cicatricial alopecia (9 men and 8 women), and malformations (1 man and 3 women) with a mean age of 36.9 years (standard deviation, 10.4 yrs) underwent hair transplantation between 1995 and 2006 and were followed up postoperatively for at least 1 year. Data on surgical complications were retrospectively analyzed.

Results

The overall complication rate in our series was 4.7%, including enlarged scar (1.2%), folliculitis (1.0%), necrosis in the donor area (0.8%), keloids (0.4%), bleeding (0.2%), hiccups (0.2%), infection (0.2%), and pyogenic granuloma (0.2%). The frequency of enlarged scar increased proportionally according to the number of surgical procedures.

Conclusions

The hair transplantation complication rate in this series was 4.7%. Good communication between patient and surgeon, a complete clinical and laboratory assessment of the patient, accurate surgical technique, specific equipment, a trained surgical team, and careful postoperative attention to the patient are crucial for successful hair transplantation and for decreasing complication rates.)

DISCLOSURES
The authors have no disclosures with respect to the contents of this article.
Reprint requests: Sandro Salanitri, MD, Santa Casa São Paulo, Rua Cesário Motta Júnior, 112– Vila Buarque, São Paulo, SP 01221-020, Brazil
1
Dr. Salanitri is from the Department of Surgery
2
Dr. Gonçalves is Chief, Head and Neck Surgery Division, Department of Surgery
3
Dr. Helene is Chief, Plastic Surgery Division, Department of Surgery.
4
Ms. Lopes is a medical student at Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
5
Drs. Salanitri and Helene are members of the Brazilian Society of Plastic Surgery.

Copyright © 2009 American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Inc. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

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Surgical Camouflage of Pluggy Hair Transplants (with Photos)

This patient had 1414 grafts almost 12 years ago to camouflage the obvious grafts in his frontal hairline and in the process, bring down his hairline into its normal position. His old transplants were placed too high and looked too pluggy. This is a nice result and a good demonstration of the value of camouflage when used properly. The photo on the left is before I performed any transplants on him (note the plugs there on the close-up), and the photo on the right is over a decade later. The key to the camouflage was to create a feathering zone of one hair grafts irregularly placed and spaced apart in front of the plugs, then with two hair grafts placed closer together, the transition to the old plugs was so gentle that the plugs were hidden from view. The patient was thrilled with the results.

When we wrote the original articles on repairs for the medical journals, it was taken from experiences like this man had. Today, we can harvest hair from the big plugs (not shown in these photos) as well as use camouflage as we did here. When this repair was done in 1995, the unfortunate standard of care at the time was still the ‘plugs’ that produced the corn row deformities. Surgeons were trying to repair the rough work by putting even more large grafts in between the larger grafts, which only compounded the problem. Fortunately today, few of these pluggy procedures are done and much of what we published has become today’s standard of care for repairs. To see the original work we did on the subject and the publications, look at: NewHair.com – Repair (search).

Click the photos to enlarge.


2007-03-21 19:14:43Surgical Camouflage of Pluggy Hair Transplants (with Photos)

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Surgery Error — Hey, We’re All Human

Here’s a quick story I felt was important to share…

Eight months ago, I performed a surgery of about 2500 grafts. The day following the surgery, I noted that the hairline was not in balance (the right side was 1/4 inch higher than the left side). I mentioned it to the patient and suggested that we could modify the surgery and balance the hairline better. He was surprised when I told him of my error, because he did not see the imbalance. What we agreed to do was to wait until all of the hair grew in and then address the imbalance.

The patient came in this week. I reminded him of the problem. We looked at it carefully and he said that he still did not notice the problem and was fine with it the way it was. I have always had a rule that if something goes wrong, I will always tell the patient when I realize the problem. No one is perfect and even under the most careful watch, things can go wrong. Honesty is always the best policy and I have found that my patients recognize the honesty as a good trait, one that builds confidence.

So while the problem may have gone unseen by the patient, it was my duty as his doctor to share my error with him, no matter how minor it may have been.


2006-10-12 14:46:24Surgery Error — Hey, We’re All Human

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What was that surgery called that Trump was victim of?

Scalp reduction is the answer to your question. This is when there is a bald area in the back of the top of the head, and the surgeon removes the bald area and leaves a large scar running down the excision area. This is a permanent scar, and the bald area’s removal usually returns or worsens too quickly and makes the person more bald. Most of the time, in those days, the surgeon chased the recurrent balding with more and more Scalp Reductions. I know from personal experience because I had three of them done on my head, which left me scarred and with a paper-thin scalp that used to bleed regularly. I then figured out that if I transplanted it, the transplants would restore the infrastructure to the scarred area. I was lucky because I only had crown balding and a lot of donor hair. Still, I suspect that Donald Trump was not so lucky and ended up chasing his hair loss with the old type of plugs, leaving his donor area heavily depleted, as seen in this video.

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Surgeon Video of high density grafting as performed (from Reddit)

I will assume that such a density will produce less than 100% growth. As the first doctor to perform dense packing (1994), I think that this is a reasonable comment. Also, with such a high density, the area covered will be limited so if this person is very bald, then it is possible that there will never be enough donor hair to cover the bald area as donor hair is limited. Most people (particularly from India) have donor densities that limit the number of total harvestable grafts to under 7000. With the densities shown here, this patient hopefully will never bald or he will run out of donor hair.

Hair transplant FUE- highest density ever achieved- Mumbai India- +91-9699581541; +91-9022725969 from tressless


2019-04-22 11:20:36Surgeon Video of high density grafting as performed (from Reddit)