Category: Post-Operative

i had 900 grafts trasplant on moustache and goatee area !!! after 2 weeks when i shaved my skin turned pink and orange and darker on the side !!!! is it a common thing ? how long it will last before it fades away and i also have a lot of pimple on my chin!! the fact that i shaved afeter to weeks is gonna affect the grafts…….thanx doctor

You should address these issues with the doctor who did your surgery. A good patient/doctor relationship is critical in achieving a desired goal. I would be concerned about things like pimples, because early folliculitis can behave that way. Two weeks after a hair transplant your skin may still be healing and it is sometimes normal to have some discoloration (especially after shaving, which causes irritation even more). The degree of discoloration should be something judged by your doctor so that you know if it is beyond what he expected.

after 2,360 graft transplanted . . . how soon could i have the second session. months?

I generally tell patients to wait a full 8 months so that they can see what they got. Prior to the first transplant, the patient has little real appreciation for what is going to be done and what he will look like. After 8 months (post op), the patient for the first time can appreciate what he got and what any disappointments may be. Often it is touch-ups (some want more bulk and thickness), and other times it is another area that becomes more important after the first area is hairy. Do not rush the second transplant. Take your time and now you can take control of what is happening to you

Dear Dr. Rassman,

I am beside myself. I have tried everything including minox and proscar to no avail. I held out transplants as my last resort to save my hair. However, after my first transplant, though it seemed it was text book up to six mo., after this, it began to thin back out as if it were my normal scalp hair!My transplants were done by a well known surgeon here in San Diego.

My Doc had no answer. My drmatologest thought it might be inflamation but was not 100% sure. Thinking it was a fluke, I opteted for a second transplant in the same area, and the same thing happened! What is going on? Is there anything I can do?

I did have dermatitis prior, durring, and after the transplants, and was battling some infected teeth, which unbeknownst to me were sending out low level infection to the rest of my body for years.

I am in good health otherwise.

Have you seen this before? Do you have any answers, or can you recommend anyone who could address this situation?

I really do not know where to turn to next.

Thank you for your help.

Firstly, I must restate that BaldingBlog is not intended to establish a medical diagnosis or offer a second medical opinion. Furthermore, I do not have the benefit of seeing you in person. Now with that being said, I can answer this in a general way.

If a hair transplant fails or is associated with hair loss, we can attribute it to two generalized causes:

1. Poor technique and human error (not in your case, because you reported that everything grew out and was good for 6 months).
2. Medical conditions that you acquired or that you did not know of that contributed to the hair loss.

I often stress the importance of measuring the miniaturization of scalp hair for the correct diagnosis and quantifying the degree of miniaturization so that if something like this were to occur, another measurement would be helpful in rebuilding a picture as to what happened to cause the hair loss.

I have had one patient tell me a story like you just told, but I believe that not enough time passed for me to draw conclusions on the matter.

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Hi Doctor,

I had my transplant on 6th july this year. I managed to go through good post-operative care for ten days but on the 12th day, I started getting rid of my scabs by gently rubbing my scalp even when it was dry. That was basically because I misunderstood my doctor who actually told me to gently press scalp at times of any itching. So everytime the scab fell off I saw a hair attached to it too and in rare cases there wasn’t a hair to it. I still have many transplanted hair left on my scalp and I am currently 20 days post-op. I have doubts that I have possibly dislodged my grafts and I am afraid my transplant may result in a failure. Incase if I have dislodged some grafts, will this affect the grafts which have not been dislodged. And is the presence of graft noticable on the scalp with a naked eye?

I am well aware that I shouldn’t have done the rubbing on dry scalp but does that mean that I have made a BIG mistake and there is no point in expecting the new hair growth at all?

I believe you are overreacting. If everything was good for the first 10 days, there is little possibility that you lost any grafts/hair. What you are doing is shedding the hair that was transplanted. It will go into a hair cycle of telogen and then ‘wake-up’ and start growing at about 3-4 months. This is normal and certainly nothing that you’ve said in your email indicates that what you did will have any negative long term impact.