Hair Transplant Repair – Can I Be Helped?

Over the past decade, there have been significant advances in hair restoration surgery in both technique and technology.

Old-style plugs, scalp reductions and flaps have disappeared along with the 1980s, giving birth to follicular unit transplants (FUT), groups of mostly one, two or three follicles, now considered as the gold standard of hair transplantation.

Many patients who have had work done when the technology was still evolving, or who have had unsatisfactory results, may be looking for remedial surgery.

Spencer Kobren, Founder of the American Hair Loss Association says, with today's state of the art techniques, even the worst repair patients can be helped. Depending on your available donor area, much can be done to help you achieve a completely natural looking hairline that you will no longer have to hide.

If you experienced poorly done hair restoration surgery, with visible plugs, inconsistent coverage, obvious scarring, hair angled in the wrong direction or an unbecoming hairline, you may be anxious to have corrective surgery and remedy the situation.

A patient who has had bad results may be jaded, upset, depressed and distrustful of unmet promises.

He or she should shop around for a surgeon who is proficient and a specialist in this area, who can restore confidence, and who performs FUT on a consistent basis.

As hair transplantation is as much an art as a science, it's important to find a physician with an eye for aesthetics.

Can visible plugs be camouflaged or integrated more thoroughly into the larger body of hair? Can large scars be remedied? What about hair that is facing the wrong direction?

How realistic are these expectations?

They are not unrealistic. with today's precision instruments such as the binocular stereoscopic microscope that allow for precise dissection of hair follicles, a surgeon can correct cosmetic defects from prior surgeries.

Poor results can be partially or completely ameliorated by removing, dissecting and re-implanting the grafts.

For patients with large, unsightly scars, it's possible to excise them and perform a scar revision using a trichophytic closure, depending on the width and location of the scar. this technique buries the follicles in the incision line, so hair will grow through the scar.

A second possibility to camouflage the scar, is to implant follicular unit grafts into the scar directly, so the new hair growth will obscure the scar as it grows, or to use a combination of both procedures.

Many surgeons may recommend both graft excision and reimplantation in order to maximize available hair and minimize poor prior results.

Sometimes, a large scarred area may impinge on the amount of available donor hair. if this is the case, you may not be a candidate for a remedial surgery.

However, with today's knowledge and expertise, and as long as there is a sufficient quantity and quality of donor hair available, it is certainly possible to achieve a more natural look.

Talk to your physician and prioritize your goals for the surgery. each hair is precious and should be used judiciously.

If not all goals are attainable, the physician should focus on the ones that can realistically be performed and that will do the most to enhance the patient's outcome and appearance.

Hair Transplant Repair - Can I Be Helped?