Donor Scarring from Hair Plugs Done About 30 Years Ago

Thirty years ago I had 4 or 5 sessions hair transplant sessions done using the old punch graph method. For most of those years I was fairly satisfied. Lately that has not been the case. The appearance of corn rows is starting to show in the front and it is getting harder to cover up the donor area in the back. Twenty years ago I spoke to a specialist in Philadelphia who disappointed in the methods used in my procedures and he implied that I was not a good candidate for future transplants. If this is the case I would prefer to shave my head instead of continuing trying to cover up, which can only become more problematic in future years.

The scarring at the donor site is a concern. Are there any procedures to reduce this scarring? Thank you in advance for any information and/or advice you can give me based on this limited description.

We have routinely performed surgeries for men who are in your situation. You can read about one patient’s journey here and see some of my repair patients here.

As you undoubtedly know, everyone is different and unique so I really cannot comment on your particular case without examining you. Many patients who had 4-5 sessions of the old hair plugs have heavily depleted donor areas, and a skilled surgeon with experience in this field can often soften the plugs by harvesting the recipient plugs as well as redistribute some of the remaining donor area. If you want to explore options, please send me photos and set up at the least a phone consultation with me.

There is no simple answer to your problems, and each person must be evaluated one on one before recommendations can be made. This goes for both repairing/removing the “corn rows” and seeing what can be done about fixing the donor scars.

Donor Recharging — Using Body Hair to Fill Out the Scalp Hairs Used in FUE

Doc,
I have slowly come to rely and trust this site on a day to day basis, so thank you.

I am considering an FUE surgery and have been reading a lot about “donor recharging”, where body hair is placed into FUE sites to help the donor region out. Ive unfortunately been around the block with this whole field and now feel the only way FUE should be done is by adding body hair as you remove a follicle from the donor.

My Question… Why aren’t more FUE specialists offering this technique? Won’t an FUE surgery be detrimental as the area will thin to the point of very shallow density in anyone with a norwood 3 and beyond.

I was hoping that the A Cell treatments would make this more viable but no one seems to be talking about it. Hence my question and my wishes for a great day for you and your staff!

“Donor recharging” is an interesting term I have not heard before. I do not buy into recharging the donor area from the scalp with hair from the body. I am just not convinced that the quality of the body hair will make for a good substitute for the donor hair that has been transplanted earlier.

It is easy for a doctor to do this to make more money, but unless there is proven value, I do not want to get on that bandwagon.


2011-01-13 10:18:16Donor Recharging — Using Body Hair to Fill Out the Scalp Hairs Used in FUE

Was all of the donor hair removed permanent hair? (photo)

The permanent zone is measured from the base of the skull a distance up of approximlately 3 inches at most. If the donor area is larger than 3 inches on the sides or back, then this hair may eventually fall out in the years to come. You have gray hair suggesting that you are probably over 50, so that might make the risk of loss less, if your recession of the hair in the back has stopped. If it did not stop, then you may see the ‘white dots‘ associated with the FUE extraction once you lose the hair on the upper fringes.

 

Donor grafts as high as 15,000, please discuss

In your assessment of my donor supply, you noted that I can bald to a Norwood 7 and still get hair. I’m not a NW7 but out of curiosity, I know different factors are involved, like head size and stuff but how many grafts would a Norwood 7 typically require for adequate coverage at an average transplant density? I know I’ve seen photos online from another doctor in California you’ve probably heard of or maybe even know (Dr. Umar), who specializes in the use of body hair grafts. Some of the Norwood 7’s he’s restored required over 15,000 grafts! One of the clients in particular, transplanted 9,000 grafts from just his beard alone! (how many follicles are even on a man’s face because he still was able to grow a beard, albeit just much less dense); the results were pretty impressive, regardless. Granted some of those clients requested really aggressive/ juvenile hairlines and had a lot of thin/single-haired grafts harvested from their back and legs which probably accounted for the need for a higher graft harvest

I wrote an article in the Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in 2017 which discussed that almost anyone can get a full head of hair if they combine FUE with SMP. I didn’t discuss beard hair, but the use of beard hair significantly adds to the donor supply. I believe that body hair has much less value for two reasons (1) the hair is fine, and (2) the telogen cycle is long, which results in only half of the hairs growing at any one time while the other is in telogen phase.

My Donor Area Is Very, Very Thin After My 4000 FUE Surgery, Why Is That? (Photo)

4,500 FUE grafts is a high number of FUE grafts for anyone with a lower than average donor density.

If you are from India or South Asia, your donor density will not support that number of grafts and thus you have a depleted donor area.

Scalp Micropigmentation is the only solution to this problem (see: https://scalpmicropigmentation.com/scar-covering/).

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2018-12-01 08:09:56My Donor Area Is Very, Very Thin After My 4000 FUE Surgery, Why Is That? (Photo)

Why is my donor area red and without regrowth?

I would have to (1) know how many grafts you had taken and (2) see your same picture in another 3 months with the same hair cut. That will tell me if it is an over-harvested donor area. I would hope that the redness would be gone in a week or two.


2019-01-14 14:12:38Why is my donor area red and without regrowth?

Was My Donor Area Overharvested with 4500 Fue Grafts? (Photo)

4500 FUE grafts are most likely too many grafts for most men. The typical Caucasian’s limits are around 3600 grafts based upon an average donor density and medium weight hair. Without knowing your original donor density, I cannot tell, but I can predict that you will most likely have a see-through donor area. See: https://newhair.com/donor-area/


2018-05-16 13:17:59Was My Donor Area Overharvested with 4500 Fue Grafts? (Photo)

Donor area messed up in Turkey. How do I know who can do SMP well so I don’t make another mistake

Hi i am considering scalp micro pigmentation for an over eager fue transplant by Maralklinik in Turkey. Will post pics below for advice. It’s been 18 months since and am open to all advice. Ps I reccommend never getting a transplant. But that’s another story for another day.

Be sure you get an expert and always ask to see some of their patients that had SMP as too many providers do it poorly and the best protection you have is seeing people who had it done yourself. We offer these experiences along with hair transplants at monthly open house events held at one of our two office in Southern California. See: https://scalpmicropigmentation.com/


2019-03-26 18:18:09Donor area messed up in Turkey. How do I know who can do SMP well so I don’t make another mistake

Again the Donor Area Is Too High and Too Low (With Photo)

In these pictures, you can see the occipital notch on the scalp which is the bump about 1 1/2 inches above the bottom of the donor area which was harvested. To get numbers, for whatever reason, this patient will have non-permanent hair which will appear sometime in his future. The hair from this area is not permanent hair.


2019-02-20 08:53:35Again the Donor Area Is Too High and Too Low (With Photo)