Hair Transplantation – Page 156

December 14, 2006

I Want To Harvest Facial Hair for Transplanting Into My Scalp – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

i am a 25 year old male with some male pattern baldness. I still have quite a bit of hair, but just want to have a full head of hair. I am interested in harvesting from the donor area near the back and sices of my head, but also was interested in hair from my beard (my chin). do facial hair transplants have just as low hair regrowth as body hair. also how many hairs can be transplanted from your chin with just one prcedure.

It would be malpractice for a surgeon to do beard to scalp hair transplants in a 25 year old. If you are committed, please do the standard thing and do not invent your own surgery. The price you will pay will have nothing to do with money.

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December 13, 2006

Exercising After a Hair Transplant – Balding Blog

First of all, a great blog – so thanks and I hope you get lots of patients from it!

I’m a 35 year old male. I had a hair transplant 10 days ago (1400 grafts) and am due to have my stiches out on day 12 (the doctor said that 10 days is ideal – but today’s a Saturday).

I’m a regular gym-goer and would like to know when I can hit the gym to my usual intensity. My doctor said that I should exercise only lightly initially. But I’d like to get back to my usual heavy weights. When would you generally say is safe to lift heavily?

Many thanks!

Exercise after hair transplant surgery is a concern for many people who are physically active and want to get back to their normal routine. You are facing two risks after a hair transplant:

The risk of losing new hair grafts from scratching or rubbing the skin of the recipient area. If the hair and scalp are washed well after surgery, the risk of graft loss after 3-5 days is small, as the risk occurs as long as the scabs are present.
The incision in the donor area, which is primarily closed by sutures or staples. The body takes 3 weeks on average for the wound to be reasonably secure. The healing of the incision of the donor area follows a general wound healing process that is standard no matter where the wound occurs. The process of healing starts from the moment the wound is closed. The body lays down the supportive infrastruture of fibrin from which the stroma for a secure would builds. Any vigorous activity should be avoided within the first week and then any aerobics can be done as long as the wound is not stressed (no heavy weights at all). After 2 weeks, the strength of this newly healed skin is not anywhere close to its final level, but between weeks 5 and 6 it reaches better than 80% internal strength. You can probably start your regular aerobic activities after the first week (the sutures should hold the wound together), but no weight lifting should be undertaken for 4-6 weeks. The process of wound maturation takes up to six months after the surgery.

December 12, 2006

Diabetes and Hair Transplant Complication – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

I have a related diabetic question and would like your opinion… I am diabetic, and I had a 1000 graft procedure done at a reputable shop. I had a severe complication, my scalp ulcerated, the “skin” just disappeared and left me with a large hole. I then had to have balloons placed under my scalp to stretch the skin and two surgeries under general to close the hole. Do you have any knowledge or experience with such a disaster?

I generally tell my diabetic patients that they are no more at risk from a hair transplant than any other person. I would want to know more about the surgery and what happened at the time of the surgery. This complication is one I have seen before when poor decisions were made at the time of the surgery by inexperienced doctors. I am not saying that this is your situation, but if your doctor was a good and experienced hair transplant doctor, I would probe more about why this happened to you.

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December 11, 2006

Swelling After a Hair Transplant – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

I had really bad swelling three days after my hair transplant. My right eye closed completely. Is this usual?

The swelling we see three days after a hair transplant is dependent swelling, working its way down from the scalp to the face. Clearly it takes time to work its way down.

The other day, a patient called me on the evening of the third day telling me that one ear was an inch away from his head, had shifted in position and was pointing downward. I told him that I did that intentionally so that he would be able to hear ground termites in his older house. I’m joking! Actually, I found out that he slept on the side where his ear had the problem. I blessed him, told him to take two aspirin and it would be better in the morning. Indeed, by morning his ear was fine. Dependent edema!

A few years ago, we did a study on the use of steroids, with small, medium and large dosages used. As the dose went up, the swelling came down both in frequency of occurrence as well as the amount of swelling seen. At the dose we use today (40mgs prednisone daily starting the morning of the surgery and going out 4 days) swelling is rare and significant swelling is even rarer. It was so obvious, the study was stopped and the higher dose became our routine.

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December 8, 2006

I Think 2-Hair Grafts Look Too Thick in the Frontal Hairline – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Hi Dr Rassman! If I pay for lets say 1000 grafts, do I have the right to achieve 2000 hairs (placed in the front) if I only want 1-hair graft in the front? 2-hair grafts don’t look good in the front (by front i mean about 1 inch), it looks too thick. My hairdoctor and I have different thoughts about this! Your opinion?

Thanks and God Jul “Merry Christmas” as we say in sweden.

I generally put a wide transition zone of single hairs in the frontal line. I believe that the ‘line’ is not actually a line, but a zone where there is a transition from the bald forehead to the thicker hair about 1/2 to 1 inch behind. The thicker area should have two hairs each, but that is a negotiation between doctor and patient. Generally, if you make single hairs from two and three hair grafts, there is a hair death rate, as not all of the hair will survive the break-up of the follicular unit. Great skills are necessary to accomplish this with the greatest success rate possible. I realize you are not in the US, but if you do make it out to California or if any other readers come to one of our open house events, you can look closely at the hairlines we have created and I think you will see what I am talking about in person. Alternatively, you can take a look at the Patient Photo Gallery on the NHI website.

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December 7, 2006

FUE Scarring, Healing, and Other Questions – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

will FUE transplanted grafts grow in donor strip scar tissue?

Do you recommend GraftCyte for healing of graft recipient sites?

If a person wanted to have as much hair as possible and not care about having any hair at all on the back and sides of thier head, simulating a rock musician look or marine type cut. Can one successfully FUE that entire area artistically and move it all to the top?

would the tiny dot scars left by the FUE punch eventually be able to tan or blend as not to be too noticeable in person?

And finally if one is nearly totally bald on top – say a 5 vertex – how many grafts will give a thick head of hair on top, not the 50% theory but rather full density, 8000 10,000 or more?

thank you

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I will answer your diverse questions in the order you wrote them:

Yes, and it is a good method of revising scars of the scalp and can also be used for bad scars in donor area.
Yes, GraftCyte contains copper peptide with a mild cleansing effect and we recommend using it for post operative patients who have a tendency to hold on to the red color after the surgery. It may enhance the healing of the recipient and donor area (claimed by the manufacturer) and it may be helpful to control scabbing and crusting of incisions.
This is not practical and I doubt that any doctor would do this. We generally FOX-test most of our patients and the result dictates whether the patient would be a good candidate for FUE procedure or not. We do not recommend FUE for the patients with negative FOX (having high transaction rate).
The scar of FUE is usually not noticeable, but it is there and does not contain pigment cells (as a rule) so the hairless spot will be noticed by discriminating eyes if the scalp is shaved.
As a general rule, you need 3000+ grafts (about 6000 hairs if you are Caucasian with average density), to cover an area of the size of an adult hand with a reasonable density. For more density, for those with dark hair and light skin, or very fine straight hair, a redo procedure may become necessary.

December 6, 2006

T-Gel Shampoo and Recent Hair Transplant – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

20 days post operation.

I am a 24 year old male and just had a hair transpant (2000 grafts). Everything seems to be going OK, however, I used a Tar Shampoo (T-Gel) for direct shampooing on the recipient area (twice) before reading that this may interfere with the growth of the grafts. I have switched to another shampoo, however, I am wondering if this has already affected the transplanted area in a negative way.

You can burn the hair below the skin. For a description of the product and its risks read MedicineNet. It would be unusual to negatively impact the new transplants at 20 days. You should go back to the doctor who did your transplants and ask him/her. I generally advise that after a transplant, you use gentle shampoos like baby shampoo, which is safe and will not burn the skin.

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December 5, 2006

Recreating the Hairline – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

my hairline seems to be moving back about an inch.. I know you describe this as a maturing hairline.. It seems that my hairline is now more of a zone. where if you pull back my hair the scalp slowly dissapears over the course of another half inch. It seems more of a zone. Have you done treatments where you recreate the line.. I dont wish to move the hairline back down but to just make it more of a line. Can transplants be placed that close together? If so, would you normally do this procedure on a 27 yr old? or would I have to wait until I’m older

There are many patients who have slight thinning of the frontal hair line. Hair transplantation to the thinning frontal line works well, but a correct diagnosis has to be made and the surgeon and the patient would be wise to make a “Master Plan” for future hair loss. At 27 years old, I would suggest that you have your scalp mapped for miniaturization to assess the current health of your hair and possibly determine your future hair loss scenario.

Assuming that the diagnosis of genetic balding is correct, you can increase the fullness of hair in your frontal area by having hair transplants. I generally tell my transplant patients to put the hairline where it belongs, not to shoot for a higher hairline. When high hairlines are created 1-2 inches higher than normal, they do not look natural because a strong higher-than-normal hairline is not normally found in nature.

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December 1, 2006

FUE Donor Exchange? – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Dear Dr.

This is the scenario, I am 28 male, balding on the front 1/3 of my head, I am currently using Proscar and Rogaine. I am most likely going to lose the rest of my hair and be a worst case hair situation one day if I don’t act on it now. So here are my questions:

1. Would you recommend I do FUT or FUE hair transplant as I want to reserve the right to shave my head of use the clippers on 0 blade if things don’t work out with the way I want it to look?
2. If you said FUE, would you do donor exchange which DR. [name removed] recommends in order to not deplete the donor hair and less visable scarring?
3. In the FUE scenario, how do you find a doctor who is going to give you the best price and the best job? Is it ok if a doctor is in 3 surgeries per day or would you reommend a doctor who is just working on 1 patient?

I will answer your questions in the order you asked them:

FUE will give you what you want if you eventually want to shave your head.
In my opinion, replacing hair from the body into the FUE donor sites in the back of the scalp (”donor exchange”) is crazy and I doubt that there is much proof that this technique results in anything worthwhile. Why would you consider being a guinea pig and paying for that privilege?
This is a Buyer Beware market. Too many unsubstantiated claims are made and the search I performed on the internet to research your question. I found a site which had a blend of famous, credible doctors mixed in with the scum of this business. One of the ‘doctors’ on the site I just referred to, is not even a doctor (I previously looked into his credentials). FUE can be done in one surgery (our group did as many as 2600 in a single patient in a single session) or it can be done multiple day surgeries. Just because a doctor does these procedures, this does not mean that the FUE will produce viable hair. You won’t know the results for 8 months and by that time, the money you paid will clear the doctor’s bank account.

Sounds like human experimentation, metaphorically similar to something Dr. Josef Mengele did. This is an ethical and medical licensing issue for the doctor if you were to have this procedure and were not fully informed about the ‘experimental’ nature of this process. Even with adequate informed consent, the legality of performing such ‘experimental’ surgery without proper institutional review and approval, is ingrained in our legal system.

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November 29, 2006

Hair Loss InformationHow Can I Convince My Transplant Doctor to Refund My Money?, Part 2 – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

This is a follow-up to a post from a month ago, How Can I Convince My Transplant Doctor to Refund My Money?

Hi i wrote to you in October about my bad hair transplant and i would like more advise from you because everyday i suffer from it. its making me hate my life ever since i had the procedure done. Here is the message that i wrote to you and you responded.

[note: see link above for full message and reply]

I would like to also add that when i tried to speak to the doctor he did not let me finish what i was saying. it was like he already knew what was on my heart and on purpose shut me up. Im not a cruel person so i did not argue back i just listened to all his rude remarks and hung up when he was done making me feel stupid. Every day i look at my hairline and it just hurts me deeply. I have spent over $7.000 and when i look at before and after pictures i still look the same. When i lift my hair up i can see that my left side looks like it has plugs and the right side is noticibly higher then the left. It has been 7 months and i still look like NW class 2 hairloss. im just tired of feeling depressed and feeling stupid. I dont know what to do anymore. im so frustrated with this. Im tired of waking up and falling asleep with the same though on my head. Im tired of seeing all the people in my college class with much better natural hairlines and feeling stupid that even after spending over $7000 i look worse then them. If theres anything you can do please help me

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Now that you have waited the 7 months I suggested the last time you wrote to me, I would suggest that you get another opinion. If you can see me in Los Angeles or San Jose California, I will be able to render you an opinion and even offer to help you once I know what the problem is (in medical terms at the least so that I can frame the process). This does not seem like a comfortable problem you have, not just because of the lost money, but your perception of poor work. Call my office and let’s start off with a conversation. You can reach me at 800-NEW-HAIR (or 310-553-9113) and ask to speak with me (Dr. Rassman). Please reference this blog posting when you call. My heart goes out to you and I would like to see if I can help.