Is it safe to transplant hair into thinning areas, or do you risk damaging existing hair in these regions?
This is an excellent question and the answer ultimately depends on your doctor’s judgment and your personal hair and hair loss characteristics. The major concern, of course, is whether a transplant will damage the existing hair in the thinning area. If the existing hair is very limited, and likely to fall out eventually anyway, most surgeons would feel comfortable performing a transplant and implanting grafts into this region to restore some density. Even if the existing hair is lost, the net benefit of having it replaced with permanent hair will be worth it.
On the other hand, if the existing hair is relatively dense and/or in good condition, most surgeons would prefer that you first try medical therapy for 6 to 12 months, to see if you can slow your hair loss or even restore some hair. Some surgeons, however, may feel comfortable proceeding with a hair transplant. In this case, your doctor must be careful not to place an excessive number of grafts in this delicate region because this could lead to increased shock loss. Make sure your surgeon speaks honestly with you about the risk of shock loss and limited re-growth if you choose to go this route.
Don’t forget that everyone has only a limited supply of donor hair on their scalp. You do not want to jump into anything, particularly if you are not sure how your hair loss will progress in the future. Top hair transplant doctors will discourage you from rushing into anything and will help you create a long-term plan for combating your hair loss.
Recently, Dr. John Cole met with surgeons in China. The meeting was scheduled in preparation of establishing a hair transplant center that offers economical CIT hair transplant method. The center will be headed by a team of hair transplant surgeons led and trained by Dr. Cole. At this time, several of the doctors have completed 6 months of on-the-job, one-on-one training.
Dr. Cole has already setup a clinic that offers CIT (Cole Isolation Technique) in Korea. The purpose of offering CIT in Asia is to educate other hair transplant doctors to produce excellent results with the minimally invasive procedure. Our operation in Korea is a part of our efforts to provide quality hair transplant surgery to all individuals in Asia. The most recent technology in CIT hair transplant surgery is created at the main office located in Atlanta, Georgia. The Cole Hair Transplant Group offices all have the same common goal of satisfying each patient and making their visit a wonderful experience.
For additional information on low-cost CIT in Korea & China, contact The Cole group: Contact Form. The Cole Hair Transplant Group offers free in-person consultations with Dr. Cole. The Cole Hair Transplant Group o
ffers 18+ years of hair transplant experience and provides high-quality hair transplant procedures. It also specializes in the non-strip scar method of hair transplant and reconstructive hair transplants.
This news originally posted on forhair.com in the following URL:
CIT in Asia news in forhair.com
Are many hairs transected as the surgeon makes extractions on the donor during hair transplantation?
Good question. The answer is that it varies wildly from surgeon to surgeon and clinic to clinic. We take great pride in having achieved some of the lowest transection rates in the hair transplant world.
Our transection rates with CIT are averaging less than 3% which is very low compared to the industry as a whole. Some published papers on FUE and other single graft harvesting techniques cite transection rates as high as 50 to 70% from their own clinics! This is a travesty, and should be mentioned only to be condemned. .
Single blade strip surgery has average initial transection rates (in our hands) of about 2%; again, it is all over the map depending upon the experience and expertise of the surgeon, and at least for strip, upon the experience and expertise of the surgical staff. One of the most important variables is the surgical technician staff; after the strip is harvested, the tissue is processed by these technicians. Their transection rates can range from 5% up to as much as 50% of the grafts, and is dependent on their training and skill. This is why quality control in a hair transplant practice is so very important (but unfortunately is not the norm by any means). In our practice, CIT has a lower transection rate <3% than strip; in strip cases, our technicians’ transection rates, plus the transection during harvest, averages 5%. So for us, even this relatively low strip transection exceeds our even lower CIT transection!
Remember that the training and expertise of hair transplant surgeons runs the gamut, from beginners with virtually no experience to speak of, to veterans with thousands of cases and thousands of quality results under their belts. However, there is one other factor that comes into play, which is standards. A physician may have years of experience, but set the standards in his practice very low. In this situation, sloppy work and poor technique, combined with minimal staff oversight and quality control, may produce high transection rates and other conditions that lead to mediocre results at best, and cosmetic disasters at worst.
We are proud of the high quality and dedication to excellence that we are known for!
What are the ways to camouflage strip hair restoration scars?
Camouflaging Strip Scars
Scars in the donor area from strip harvests may be problematic for many men. They may be short or run from ear to ear. Sometimes they widen over time, occasionally to more than two centimeters, which is deforming. This is usually due to an overly tight scalp, too low a placement, or poor surgical technique. They also change the direction of hair growth below the scar, relative to above the scar, which may cause a “shadow†of the linear scar to be evident even with the hair grown out somewhat.
IN order to minimize the appearance of scars, several strategies are available. There are cosmetics such as Dermatch, which may help disguise the scar. The hair may also be grown out fairly long to attempt coverage. This, of course, may not be an option for those with an over harvested donor region.
Surgical scar revision may be attempted, often without success. This consists of excising the scar and them suturing up the wound, hoping that the resultant scar will look better than the original one. This can work in some instances; however, if the condition that led to the scarring is not remedied, then even the best revision may fail.
Grafting into the scar is another option. Because yields tend to be lower in scars, this may take more than one surgical procedure over many months to have a significant cosmetic effect. Either body or scalp hair may be used; scalp hair is generally a better choice if it is available.
I had hair transplant procedure a week ago and I’ve note that the hair is still growing in the grafts. Does this mean the hair has been accepted and that it will continue to grow?
Following hair transplantation hair in the grafts will continue to elongate for about 10 days. Some of this may be continued hair growth, but it also reflects a move toward anagen effluvium. In anagen effluvium the dermal sheath begins to contract and move toward the surface of the skin much like an accordion. This shortening of the dermal sheath will push the bulb of the hair shaft toward the surface of the skin. Therefore, some of the elongation of the hairs is not due to growing, but rather due to a contraction of the dermal sheath toward the skin surface.
Once the dermal sheath contracts, the hairs will either begin to shed on their own beginning in two to three weeks after the transplant. Some of the hairs will continue to rest on the surface of the skin for a prolonged period of time. Eventually the scalp skin will either begin to form a wall around the resting, non-growing hair, or the scalp will form a pustule or pimple like reaction that will eventually burst and the non-growing hair will exit the skin with the exudate from the pimple or cyst like structure.
It is probably a good idea to minimize the number of the cyst like structures that you get because they represent unnecessary inflammation. Inflammation may not always be a good thing. In theory inflammation might sometimes lead to an autoimmune response toward one’s own hair and this in turn may compromise future graft growth.
In order to minimize inflammation, we generally recommend that patients begin removing non-growing hair fragments beginning three weeks after the hair restoration procedure. The best way to manage this is to aggressively wash the scalp with soap and a wash cloth. Non-growing hair will come out easily like removing a pin from a soft stick of butter. Growing hairs on the other hand must be plucked and it takes a good bit of force to accomplish this.
Sometimes hairs do continue to grow following a hair transplant without ever going into the resting phase, but it is unlikely that you will see more than 10% go into the resting phase. It is far more likely that the hairs will shed. Occasionally hairs almost shed, but then continue to grow. We can easily recognize these hairs because they have a dark tip that is coarse followed by a narrow constriction that is of lighter color. This is followed by a gradual darkening of the hair shaft and increase in hair diameter once again. We call these hairs that exhibit signs of this trauma pol pinkus hairs and they are a sure sign of recently transplanted hairs that have continued to grow.
