I had roughly 2600 grafts done 5 weeks ago. Although the donor scar has healed on the ends, the middle part of the scar right at the back of my head hasn’t healed and is a little weepy.
Is this normal? Typically I heal very well after injuries, etc.
Thank you.
If part of the scar is weepy (wet) then go back to your doctor. You could have an infection present. Wet wounds in a scar 5 weeks after any surgery is not normal.
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i had the hair flap surgery, done back in 1989, when i was around 25, my question is , can the flap be removed from the head??. to be honest i look kind of silly, with this thick hair in the front that grows in the wrong direction…thank you for your time…
To learn what this person is asking about, read more about the flap.
The flap can be reversed, but the scarring is high and it may not answer your needs. There are many ways to manage such a flap. See an expert and be careful that you do not make another mistake. You don’t want to go down a one way street the wrong way.
If I get the FUE procedure, to fill in the scar on the side of my head, will the fue scars be noticeable? I do a lot of television commercials and stuff on TV, so I really need it to not be detectabe, because I constantly have people doing stuff with my hair, and parting it in all sorts of ways. What I’m trying to say is, will the fue scars really be detectable if I want to have braids or my hair up? My agent actually told me I should get this scar repaired, and I really want to find the best, and I heard you are one of the best, and I’m really worried, becuase I don’t know what to do.
(The scar is not that big at all but my agent is bugging me about it).
PS- I got it when i fell against a desk when I was five. 🙂
Many doctors claim their expertise in Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE). Thank you for the complement. You may want to read the first article on the follicular extraction technique, which I co-wrote and was published in 2002 — Follicular Unit Extraction: Minimally Invasive Surgery for Hair Transplantation.
All incisions on the skin will produce a scar. However a FUE scar is so small, it would be virtually undetectable especially among your scalp hair. Furthermore, in covering up your desk accident scar, FUE would be an ideal technique from its minimal invasiveness to its fast healing times.
If you are interested you should set up a consultation so that the entire procedure can be explained in detail. You may also be interested in coming to one of our monthly open house events so that you can potentially see a patient who has had a FUE procedure.
Hi, I have good hair on the side and back and I think I would be a good candidate for the transplant. I also still have fine hair on the top of my head still. I wanted to know how thick will it grow out? How come you never see people on the hair websites that have really long hair? Does it not grow that long? Will the scar show when I go swimming after my hair gets wet? Does Biotin Vitamins work for thinning hair, does it grow hair? Is it possible to hair a second hair transplant if the remaining hair falls out on top? Do they cut the donor from the same area? Will hair grow out of the scar? How far off is hair cloning?
thanks
I was wondering if I could bring my daughter in for a consoltation, because she has a small scar on her scalp that she would like to get filled in, and we were just wondering what kind of treatment options there are. It is a very small scar, but it seems to bother her a lot, and I just want her to not worry about it anymore. She is only 16 but she is begging me to set up a consoltation. Would this be okay, or is she to young?
She is not too young and I would be happy to see her. Hair transplants work very well for scalp scars. The FUE technique works well here. That means that there will be almost no pain for the transplants or after the transplants are done.
(female) Hi, I just wanted to say that I really appreciate the feedback you gave me about filling in the small scar on my head. I do however have another question. Since the scar on my head is so small, and I really don’t want to damage any further follicles on my head, is it possible to extract a few hairs from my leg or the back of my leg, and use it to fill in the scar? Because the hair on my legs doesn’t really differ from the hair on my head. And if transplanted, would the hair grow the same length as the rest of the surrounding hair?
Leg hair has longer sleep cycles (as does most body hair) than scalp hair and that means that most of the hair is in its sleep cycle and not showing its presence. If you transplant 10 leg hairs and watch them grow, only about 2-3 of them will be evident at any one time (the others are there, but in telogen phase). Body hair also grows at different rates and it may not grow to regular scalp hair length. Furthermore, leg hair does not have the same quality and caliber as your scalp hair. More importantly, even if leg hair transplantation works, are you willing to live with a surgical scar on your leg?
The traditional FUE procedure (on the scalp) is a better solution and the hair is exactly the same quality that exists around it. In addition, it has only a 10-20% sleep phase at any one time. Although your idea sounds interesting, it is not a worthwhile endeavor.
Please see Transplanting Chest, Leg, and Thigh Hair for more.
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How will these new wound closures you discussed in this blog impact people who have scars that stretch? I have scars that stretch every place I have had a surgery, including my hair transplant scar.
A trichophytic closure will not work if the wound widens more than 2-3 mm, because the hair growth from the trichotomy will only grow up to 2-3 mm from the edge of the wound where the trichotomy was done. The stretching may be helped by a sub-fascial closure below the occipitals muscle fascia. The tension reduction of such closures has value in reducing the wound size, but not necessarily in obliterating it. You might have some form of Erlos Danlos Syndrome (see here, here, and here), which comes about from defective collagen by its very nature. The story of EDS is not black and white, for I believe that some people have small amounts of this defective collagen and these people are the ones that may get stretching of the scars. In such situations, even the sub-fascial closures will not work, because eventually the body must heal the wound and as the sutures dissolve, the value of the sutures that hold the wound together will decrease over time.
Scars are at times a price one pays with surgery. For strip harvesting, this could be a price you will pay. If you have FUE harvesting (Follicular Unit Extraction), then this stretched scar problem should not become an issue with regard to your healing, as there is no large line scar to stretch.
Now with that said, putting the scar issue in perspective, the scar only exceeds 3 mm in about 5% of cases. If that happens and it bothers the patient, then I make this my problem as well and we work to solve the problem with whatever it takes.
Hello,
I had surgery with NHI back on 01/24/2002, no problems, then had more grafts placed by a surgeon closer to home about 1 year after. Having been a trauma nurse for 6+ years, I told him to please be very careful around the donor area as there was not much elasticity. Post op had very bad infxn and after 10 days of oral abx I now have very large scars at the donor areas behind both ears and have to wear my hair long to cover these scars.Since this is already heavily scarred, can anything be done to place hair here?
Yes, I know, I should have just gone back to you to get my second one done. Thanks
You are more than welcome to pay us a visit and we’ll see what we can do. We can address the scar and also transplant into the donor area if that is what is needed. There may be a better solution, but until I examine you, I can not render an opinion. It is interesting to note for the readers of this blog, I have not seen an infection in the donor area for more than 10 years. As you may know, we are an accredited facility through the AAAHC and during the last accreditation process we were told that amongst accredited facilities we were in the top 1% with regard to the incidence of infection. I believe that we are the only accredited hair transplant facility in California and possibly even the entire USA. This accreditation process inflicts the highest standards on its participating facilities and includes many if not most of the hospital-level outpatient surgery facilities in the nation.
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Do FUE procedures form scars?
Yes, there are scars anytime the body is invaded by the surgeon, or any time you cut yourself. The scars come about when the edges attempt to close the gap. The FUE scars are circular, so the size of the scar somewhat reflects the size of the wound. To answer the question appropriately, let’s talk basic math and then convert the math to logic.
The chart here shows the size of the cutting punch and compares the size of the wound that is created. The scar reflects the size of the wound.
| Diameter | Area | % change from smallest wound size |
| 0.75mm | 0.44mm square | (baseline) |
| 0.9mm | 0.64mm square | 44 % larger than 0.75 |
| 1.0mm | 0.79mm square | 78% larger than 0.75 |
| 1.5mm | 1.77mm square | 300% larger than 0.75 |
The reality of these number are that the 0.75mm leaves almost no scar, because the edges co-apt and there is minimal secondary healing as the scar fills from below as the side skin grows over it. With all of the wounds from strip harvesting, the scars are long and the wound is much larger. Such ‘line’ wounds can be seen when the scalp is shaved.
The 0.75mm wounds are impractical, but the 0.9mm wounds are the standard used in my practice. So in answer to your question; scars are related to the size of each wound. The smaller the wound for FUE (for example), the smaller the instrument used by the surgeon, the smaller and less noticeable will be the wounds in their final healing phase. Please see this previous post, Size of FUE Procedure, for discussion on actual yield rates. If only a needle is used (like the one you get with a flu shot) I sincerly doubt that you will ever find the scar with the naked eye.
Can you show me a donor scar following a transplant in a person with Dark Hair and light skin.
This patient had 1512 grafts about a year ago. He happened to come in the same day that I read your question. Take a look at his results scar when I pulled the surrounding hair up.
