Approaches To Treat Hair Transplant Plugs And Costs

Do you have a cost to remove hair plugs and what will the scalp look like after removing them?

I’m in Kansas City?

The cost to repair this type of problem can range from $3000 to over $10,000. Most doctors have developed strategies for the treatment of hair plugs that include:

(a) This problem is created when the doctor tries to thicken the frontal hair where balding or thinning occurs. Over time, the hair is lost from continuation of the balding process and only the plugs remain. This patients hairline was easily 1-2 inches lower than the lowest of the hair plugs in this picture. Direct removal, possibly using a punch like instrument, depending upon the size of the plug works, but this often leaves whitish scars where the plugs were originally located. This may turn out to be expensive and with the scarring it is not satisfactory. The larger the plugs, the worse the scarring. Many doctors charge a per plug cost with a minimum fee. If you had this problem, I would recommend the approach shown in (b) below.

Some example are HERE

(b) Partial removal: This has gained popularity over the past decade where a punch is used to remove some of the plug (between 30-80% of it) and then re-transplant what was removed around the original plugs to produce either more fullness in the vacant areas, or create camouflage around the areas where the plugs are detectable using more hair transplanted grafts to fill the area up. This technique has been pioneered by us and is a standard around the world.

(c) Camouflage with small grafts: This is effective, providing that the plugs are not in the frontal hairline and there is enough donor hair. The patient should understand that he often must keep his hair long (at least 1 1/2 inches). We often do some partial plug removal for plugs that are in the area of the hairline. For plugs in the frontal hairline in addition to thinning these plugs out, we often recreate a new hairline at least 1/2 inch in front of what was originally the pluggy hairline. If the above patient were to take this route, the pluggy hairline is so high, that a new hairline in a normal location would create a very normal look. When such patients comb their hair back, the old hair transplants are hidden behind the new hairline. Creation of a new hairline may be expensive both on hair and money as it often takes approximately 1000+ grafts for a good job depending on how far forward the new hairline is made. Many people with the old pluggy look have depleted donor areas so that the choice of creating a new hairline may become impractical. This technique has been pioneered by us and is now standard around the world. This would be our preferred approach to this problem for most patients.

(d) Scalp Micropigmentation (SMP): This is a new approach and is now used more and more in our practice. SMP which is truly an artistic process, accomplishes three objectives. (1) The presence of the pigmented ‘dots’ obscures the large plugs. This can not be performed at the hairline level, only behind the hairline, and if the man in the photos wanted this, he would have to maintain a shaved scalp with the newly created pigmented hairline in front of the plugs, (2) it works by filling in the areas between the plugs so that the plugs will not easily be seen, and (3) it can be used on scars in the donor area where greater than 90% of the scars can be successfully camouflaged with this technique. See Scalpmicropigement.com