Post-Operative – Page 41

March 1, 2007

Slit Marks and Mild Pitting in Part of My Hairline After Hair Transplant – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

i underwent a couple of strip transplants and i got slit marks and mild pitting in some sections of the recipient area including part of the hairline. a surgeon told me about microdermabrasion or dermabrasion (laser or mechanical), the pitting on my head is not so severe and i don’t think that a FUE extraction of my pitted monofollicular is the logical thingh to do. ANY SUGGESTIONS?

thanks.

Block Quote

Get a second opinion? I cannot help you without seeing the results and examining you in person. Mild pitting can be an unfortunate consequence of such surgery, especially if the grafts sites are too big or too much skin was transplanted with the hair grafts. I have heard other doctors describing microdermabrasion/dermabrasion to correct such problem, but these techniques may remove pigment from the skin that is worked on. This means that you may end up with a shine on the skin and some skin discoloration, which may look even worse.

February 27, 2007

Hair Loss Information3000 Grafts Transplanted in the Front Does Not Look Like Enough – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Good day and thank you for past respones. My question is..Does 3000 grafts at the front of my head cover alot of area?. I ask this because thats what I had done. Thing is though after 1yr. I feel there should have been more hair in obvious areas of need. Maybe I expect too much density or what was done never sprouted. Thank you…

Block Quote

Hair transplantation does not give you 100% of the hairs that you lost. As a rough estimate, it replaces 15 to 35 percent of your original hair density in a single session. Usually this is enough to achieve a positive cosmetic effect, with these factors also playing an important and subtle role in making the transplant look more full:

coarseness (thickness) of your hair
contrast between your hair and skin color
curliness of your hair

As an example, a man with black hair and fair skin with very thin and straight hair would not have a full hair appearance as compared to a man with blond hair and fair skin with coarse and wavy hair.

If you are concerned about your hair transplantation results you should see the doctor who performed your surgery and express your concerns. It is impossible to tell you if your expectation is too high or if the surgery was not a success without a good physical exam. You can also look at NewHair.com for before and after pictures of patients who had similar surgery performed.

February 23, 2007

Hair Transplant Growing Slow After Taking Avodart – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I had a hair transplant 8 months ago and the doctor told me that my growth is slower than normal as my hairs are shorter than he would have expected. I am taking Avodart. Could this medication have an effect at slowing my hair growth?

Block Quote

We really do not know a great deal about Avodart and what it might do to a new hair transplant. In theory, transplanted hair from the back and the sides of the head should not be impacted by Propecia (finasteride) or Avodart (dutasteride), but one might make an argument that Avodart is very strong and could be prolonging the telogen cycle for hair growth. In theory, it might also prolong the growth cycle when it start growing. Frankly, this is all speculative, but an interesting theory for an interesting question.

February 15, 2007

I Think My Hair Transplant Was Placed Too Low – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Hi Dr. Rassman, I recently had a HT with a “top doc” but I’m concerned that my hairline may have been placed too low. I’m 32 years old. My hairline sits 3 inches above my eyebrows and recedes about a 1/2 inch higher than that as it goes back. Where is the right stop for an adult hairline? any comments will be greatly appreciated.

If you look at the post Maturation of a Hairline, you will see where the adult hairline belongs. It should be one finger breadth above the highest crease of the wrinkled brow. There is not a fixed size for distance between the hairline and eyebrows; instead there are guidelines that could be used to determine where your natural hairline used to be and where it should be after a hair transplant.

One method is to measure the distance between the tip of the nose and the chin (let’s say in ‘Fred’ the distance is 7cm) and compare it to the distance between the upper bridge of the nose — Fred’s mature hairline should be found 7cm above the upper bridge of the nose. The other method is to use the highest crease of your forehead when you are looking upward and go about one finger breadth above it to determine where your natural mature hairline should start. I personally think that the second method is the best way to know where the mature hairline belongs.

Some patients do not follow these rules and may have a wide forehead or a bigger chin to start with. In these cases, old pictures from patients could be used as a guide. Nevertheless, the judgment of the surgeon and his/her artistic view is always crucial for the design of the most natural looking hairline. If you ended up with a too-low hairline, it can be a real problem, since as I’m sure you’re aware, hair transplants are permanent. Send me a photo with your eyebrows lifted high up and I will venture an opinion and keep your identity confidential, of course. Please reference this blog post when sending your photos.

Paid advertisements (not an endorsement):

February 8, 2007

Hair Loss InformationUsing Minoxidil After Surgery – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hello Doctors,

Minoxidil after Surgery.

Thank you for taking our questions. I just recently had my second procedure done 1 year after my first 2700 FUS. This time we were only able to do 2005 because my scalp wasn’t very flexible. I have two questions and 1 request.

1. You mentioned in another posting that using minoxidil a few days after the surgery might help to speed up the growth process of the new hairs. How long should I wait before using minoxidil after my surgery? I had my surgery 4 days ago.

2. Should I start to do the stretching exercises after I heal to help produce better yield for my next surgery hopefully in December?

Block Quote

I do not believe that minoxidil accelerates the growth process after hair transplantation. I did a study where I used minoxidil on half the head and nothing on the other half. Both sides grew at the same time and rate.

Stretching exercises to the scalp are good 6+ months after surgery if your tendency is to be tight.

February 7, 2007

My Transplanted Hair is Brown, While My Hair is Normally Blonde – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

I had a hair transplant and the new hair is dark blonde/light brown color, but my top hair is light blonde, so every transplanted hair is much darker and is freaky. I was told this would lighten over time and would eventually grow in the same as my normal top hair color which is light blonde. Can I believe this?

When hair is transplanted, it will be thick shafted, just like the original hair in the back of the head (which usually gets less sun than hair on the top). Your blonde native hair in the recipient area will be miniaturized, so they will be blonder than the transplanted hairs, simply because miniaturized hair has less pigment and is easily bleached by the sun. You may have to dye the transplanted hair just to make it match. Assuming you are a typical summer blonde, the transplanted hair may blonde during the summer months. If you fill out the balding area eventually, then the blend will return more to a normal, where frontal hair gets sun exposure and more blonde as a result.

Paid advertisements (not an endorsement):

February 7, 2007

Retained Hair Fragments 6 Months After Hair Transplant – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

I just read a post by a doctor on one of the hair loss forums saying that retained hair fragments post op can interfere with transplant growth. I’m coming up on six months out from my procedure and haven’t seen a lot of change — still very sparse. I have noticed that I do seem to have a lot of these retained fragments where new hair should be sprouting. I had my wife tug on a few with tweezers last night and they just slid right out. Could these be interfering with my growth? Is it okay to go ahead and remove them this way?

Thanks in advance for your response.

Some people retain the hairs (beard length) for months. I generally do not remove them, particularly at this stage, as they may be the new hair growing in and you would not be able to tell the difference between new hair in its initial growth spurt and the fragments. These retained fragments that go through the skin and look like a beard have no importance and will not impact growth of the new hair. You need to wait out the full 8 months and then set up an appointment to review where you are. Patience is a virtue.

Paid advertisements (not an endorsement):

February 1, 2007

Loss of Donor Hair and Value of a Scalp Tattoo – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

I have had too many hair restoration procedures, the doctor told me last week. Now I am struggling to manage this big bald area on the back of my head. I saw (what I think was) a good doctor who said that the entire back of my head was solid scar. Any suggestions?

Tattoo I am assuming that having long hair does not cover the scarred area. One might consider the use of tattoo treatments to the donor area, starting off with a temporary henna tattoo in the balding donor area with a color that closely matches your hair color. Be sure that the tattoo artist who does it, does it will a stipple effect so that it looks like hair (not like the picture on the right). The henna tattoo is temporary and usually goes away in a few weeks and if it works (temporary) then you could step up and have it permanently done. I have seen a few people who have done this and it covered reasonably well but it is best woven with some hair to augment the effect. Be careful and be sure that you use somone who is knowledgeable in henna, as there are some potentially harmful variations out there. I’m not a henna expert, so I am just going by what I’ve read (for more, see Wikipedia – Henna).

You generally need some hair in the scar and most of the time a limited transplant into the scarred scalp can put enough hair to blend with the tattoo, It might be worth a try and with a temporary tattoo there as there is no long-term risk.

Paid advertisements (not an endorsement):

January 26, 2007

Horror Story with a… Happy Ending? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Here’s a story about a dermatologist who had a hair transplant when he was 25 years old, in 1975. Forgive the blurriness of the photo below.

What is particularly important about this first picture is the amount of hair that he actually had when the transplant process was started. He was clearly thinning his hair in the Norwood Class 6 balding pattern and if he were treated today, he would have been put on finasteride (Propecia) to halt the hair loss and hopefully lock in the Norwood Class 6 pattern. When he had the plugs put in, the hair was still there, although clearly heavily miniaturized. The photo above was taken in the first month after the surgery and the hideous looking islands reflected grafts that contained between 20-30 hairs and crusting after the surgery. The crusts which are shown here are only a few weeks old, but in those days, the patients were deformed for months after the surgery as the healing progressed very slowly. The only good news for this man was that many of the hairs failed to grow, reducing the pluggy appearance, simply because of the failure of hairs to grow. His first procedure put two lines of plugs in the frontal hairline, which were followed up with many more plugs at another surgical session.

He eventually lost all of his hair native in the Norwood Class 6 pattern. The grafts were taken out of his donor area with hollow drills measuring slightly under 1/4 inch which left him with white spots about 1/4 inch round that could easily be seen through the thinned out donor area. After he completed his surgery, he developed a comb-over to hide the plugs, but the hairline was still deforming and even with a comb-forward style, he could not hide the hideous grafts.

In 1988, he went to Denver and had a few hundred micrografts placed in front of the hairline by the inventor of the micrograft. The focus was to put camouflage in front of the plugs. This surgery did much to soften his look. Still, on meeting people in his dermatology practice, eyes focused on his hairline and the top of his head. That convinced him that he needed to find a better solution. Eventually, he had grafts removed, received dermabrasion to smooth out the bumps and cobblestoning, and had about 8 laser hair removal procedures to kill off the hair that he worked so hard to put there. To deal with the deformities created by the harvesting techniques, he had finely stippled tattoos created to look like hair and this hides most of the scars on the side and back of his head. His final look, one of a bald man, seems to work for him. His approach to his problem was creative and it showed me the value of the old saying: “Necessity is the mother of invention”. This doctor, armed with a unique set of skills (dermatologist) and facing his deformities every day in the mirror, applied his talents to solve his problem. He got there and now people who see him as a doctor, look straight into his eyes, not at his head. Congratulations!

Note: Most people see someone just like this man walking down the street, at a movie, in a restaurant, or at an airport. There is a perception that this pluggy look is the look of a hair transplant, but this type of procedure, if done today, would be clear malpractice and not acceptable in this litigious legal climate. Unfortunately, tens of thousands of men had this awful surgery done worldwide years ago. The victims were many — far too many. Personally, I can not imagine why a doctor would ever perform such a surgery. Fortunately, there are many ways to treat this problem and becoming bald is just one option (see Repair – Dean’s Story for an example of using hair transplantation to correct the old plugs).

For even more information on repair, please see:

January 24, 2007

Hair Loss InformationDoctor Told Me to Use Salt Water Soaked Gauze After Surgery – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Incredible Blog… wish I had seen it before my surgery.

I’m at 4 days post op. Donor area still a little sensitive, but everything going smoothly so far!

I had 3000 grafts placed both on the crown and in frontal region. I’m 43 and was somewhere between IIIv & IV

My post operative instructions include… salt water soaked gauze 4 times a day for 4 days followed by an application of polysporin ointment. How do you feel about the use of polysporin on the recepient area to reduce the scabbing and redness. How or will this affect the time it takes for the grafts to “secure”? Any suggestions on how to safely get the polysporin out of your hair without scrubbing the grafts out??? Thanks

Block Quote

I do not do it the way your doctor does it, so it would not be fair to comment. My washing instructions can be found here — Washing Scalp After Transplant.

With regard to Neosporin ointment in the recipient area and on any hair there, speak with your doctor, as it can be a nuisance.