My Donor Hair Got Weaker After My Hair Transplants!

I’m a year post-op on my 2nd HT procedure, 6300 grafts total including my 1st round.

While my results are dramatic and I am quite pleased for the most part, the crown area is still somewhat sparse, and upon my recent 1-year follow-up, I am told there is the issue of some donor hairs that have, according to my doc, become thinner in diameter or possibly even miniaturized due to genetic programming that came with those grafts (in other words, at the time the grafts were transplanted, they were of even diameter and size, but some weakened and shrunk according to him). He took some extreme closeups and showed me the photos on a computer.

I had always believed from my research, that miniaturization is halted or cannot occur in transplanted hairs. Is this not true, and what do you recommend to protect my investment other than finasteride and/or minoxidil?

It’s difficult to provide an accurate answer to your question, because I do not know what you have…

Donor hairs do not normally miniaturize for men with male pattern baldness (MPB), so I must assume there is something more going on or there’s something that wasn’t diagnosed. I would ask your doctor about the cause of your problem and what you can do to for it (in other words, you need a diagnosis). If you do not receive a satisfactory answer, get a second opinion from another physician!

For example, I have seen a few patients over the years who had hair transplants by other doctors, but didn’t know that they had diffuse unpatterned alopecia (DUPA). Their donor hair had significant miniaturization and the transplanted hairs eventually were also miniaturized. I am not implying that you have DUPA, but this gives you an idea of how things are not so simple when undergoing a hair transplant.