Category: Other Surgical Procedures

Can you use body hair (like from my back to graft into my head??) All I have left is straight black hair. The brown reddish wavey hair is elsewhere on my body. What about if I want my once wavy hair back?

Does one consider using grafts from the other body areas such as pubic area hair?? As a former Physiology major and Chemist, this in theory seems possible considering the technology being used at the moment yes? Thanks — I’ve many questions, appreciate your bearing with me.

Hair can be transplanted from most parts of the body to other parts of the body. Some of the best work in this area was done by a Dr. Kim from Korea, who transplanted head hair to his leg as part of his PhD project where he tried to get more than one hair from one hair. He succeeded to transplant these hairs to his leg but failed to get more than an one for one yield.

Today, there is much human experimentation in moving hair from legs, abdomen, back, chest and beard to the scalp. It appears to work, but the question is one of value. Is the hair valuable enough to achieve the goals of the patient. How long will it last? How long will it take to grow? What are the growth cycles of these hairs when moved to the scalp or eyebrows? There are many unanswered questions and some answers are appearing to show that these types of transplants work.

All of these body hair transplants are done with the FUE technique. There is not a mystery as to how to do this, but the problems I see are more in the many unknowns for routine clinical use.

I understand that there is something out there called artificial hair. Where can I get it and how does it work?

Artificial hair is a product sold in Asia and limited countries in the western world. It has been banned by most countries because it must be surgically implanted with a special sewing needle. This would be a procedure that would need FDA approval and it has not been approved as safe in the United States. Many patients’ bodies will actually reject the artifical hair as it would any foreign body once it is implanted into the scalp. I have seen some patients with wonderful results. It gives ‘instant hair’ and as a result it is a big selling point in countries where it is allowed, BUT I have also seen patients that have developed massive scalp infections from these ‘artificial hairs’. There is a trade off and safety is sacrificed in exchange for short term benefits. Biofibre is one of the sites for artificial hair. Reading it might give you more information, but I would strongly caution your pursuit of this as a solution for your hair loss.

Artificial hair does not need to be included in any hair cut and you can not grow your hair out with them as you could with hair transplants. Hair transplants allow you to grow your own, natural hair for as long as you live.

I heard something about a place in Las Vegas that does “head resurfacing” to get rid of scars for men who are unhappy with their hair transplants and just want to shave their heads. Have you heard of such a place? Does such a procedure exist?

Resurfacing is essentially dermabrasion where the doctor will take something like a Dremel and remove layers of skin. This clearly can change the surface of the skin, but it does produce scars and in the process of abrating the skin, it sands away the pigment cells making the skin lighter in color in the area it is resurfaced. You must be careful that the changes from resurfacing are not worse than the problem you are fixing. Any good dermatologist / plastic surgeon can do this, so you do not have to go to Las Vegas to get it done. It is not rocket science.

Is it possible to fill in a scar on my eyebrow with the hairs from my other eyebrow? If so, would it be a good idea to pluck and collect hairs from my good eyebrow to transplant them later?

Plucking and collecting the hairs for future transplant is not going to work! When we harvest the donor grafts, we are taking the full follicular unit, something that can not be accomplished with plucking. For eyebrows, we generally take the donor hair from the permanent zone in the back of your head, being careful to match the characteristics of your eyebrow hair. If they do not match, then there may be other options. You would need to trim the donated hair, unless you like the unruly look and want ever growing eyebrows with an unusual look. If you let it grow out, it might grow to pony-tail length, so cutting them is important!

There is presently no proof, contrary to claims by some doctors, that a hair that has been plucked will produce a new hair and another hair will grow from the bed of the plucked hair. That would mean that we could manufacture as many hairs as we need, giving unlimited supplies of hair. We have actually tried it based upon reports by a physician at a medical meeting. The plucked hair did not grow a new hair, but the old plucked bed did re-grow another hair.

Hi,
I have “holes” in my mustache area as a consequence of radiation treatment for cancer in that area. I would like to have my mustache restored. What donor area do you use for this procedure? I have heard that it can be done by taking beard hair from under the chin. Can you suggest someone who has been doing this?

I have done quite a few moustache repairs at NHI using donor hair from the permanent zone on the back of the head. If the hair from the head is not of the same quality, then you could FUE hair from other parts of the beard or take if from below the chin. As you are in NY, I can recommend that you schedule a consult appointment with Dr. Robert Bernstein in his Manhattan office and spend some time with him going over your options. His phone number is 866-576-2400.