Thank you for the time and effort you put into answering all of our questions. My question regards scarring. I have heard some people say that scar tissue forms where the hairs are implanted during a transplant, and that this can result in bumps or raised spots on the hairline. Is this true? If so, is it common? If not, why don’t scars form where the hairs are implanted? After all, a wound of sorts must be made to implant the hair, so how would do you prevent hundreds or thousands of scars from forming after a hair transplant?
With the technique we pioneered, we do two things that minimize recipient site scarring —
- We make very small wounds in the skin, essentially slits that approximate the size of the grafts. These heal very fast.
- When preparing the grafts for implantation, we cut off the skin disk at the skin level. To minimize the skin disk, we remove the top layer of the graft skin from the surface of the graft. This prevents the skin from surviving the transplant which could, in some individuals, produce the bump seen in recipient areas. The same process is done with grafts taken from strip surgery.
When doctors use grafts that have a larger surface area than what I described above, the bumps you referenced get more prominent. We have seen from the old days when plugs were done and the graft sizes ranged from 3-5 mm across, the skin always was deformed. Clearly the more skin that survives at the top of the graft, the more detectable will be the existence of the transplanted graft.
I am not a dermatologist, so I will try to answer to the best of my capacity. I do know from personal experience that one of the consequence of eating spicy foods is sweating on the scalp, which can make your scalp itch. It also makes my nose run and sometimes my eyes water depending on the heat level. This may be due to a histamine reaction from the capsaicin, the chemical which makes it spicy. But I do not see how this is related to hair loss.
I was listening to the Joe Rogan podcast and was really surprised when he mentioned that he won’t shave his head because he had a transplant a few years ago and has a scar. I always wondered why he DIDN’T have a transplant when I would see him on TV but was kind of surprised that he says he had one. Do you think he was misinformed as to what his eventual loss would be?
Those who are at the highest risk for shock loss include:
The Norwood hair loss classification describes the variations in male hair loss patterns. It is not the progression or stages one goes through. You can look like you have a full head of hair, but still be a Norwood 6 if you show the thinning pattern. Some may be a Norwood 3 and be that way for the rest of their life. In other words, Norwood 3 rarely, if ever, progresses to a Norwood 6.