Revising Donor Scar
I had a strip hair transplant done a couple of years ago, was unhappy with the results, and now shave my head. The scar on the back of my head is 5-6″ long. What are my best bets for revision?
Many thanks
A scar, which is present in 100% of all patients who have strip harvesting, is usually under 3mm in width and although noticable with a shaved scalp, they can be well covered with any reasonable hair length. With that said, if your scar width exceeds 3 mm, then you should consider seeing an expert to have the scar removed and the incision closed with a ‘fascial’ closure and without another hair transplant, minimizing the tension on the wound. If the scar is 3 mm or less, than an FUE procedure would be a good technique to use for your scar revision, which would transplant hair directly into the scar from the surrounding areas. The FUE technique, which has been defined by us, will eventually cover the scar, but it might take a few small procedures to get there.
Dear Doctor Rassman In your New HAIR NEWS issue winter/spring 2005; their is a article about scar repair with plastic surgery.This article was my first introduction to the fox procedure.(I thought)This is the type of tecnology that could help me in my repair.It has done just that. Combined with camoulage and plug removal and plug thinning my bad hair transplant is finnally (fifteen years later) looking like something I actually feel good about,and that looks very natural.Unfortunatley I have poor healing qualities and have a wide donor scar from a megasession I had at NHI. After two failed attempts at scar revision using 5.0 Ethilon sutures I had thought I reached the end of my repair options.Then I saw your article. To further soften the look and feel of my hair line Dr.Bernstein has been using the hair from the plugs directly into the scar.In three procedures he thinned or removed about 99 plugs yeilding about 280 FU GRAFTS.We also did a small fox procedure of about thirty FIVE FUE. Now I must wait to see if I get the desired result.My scar is similar to patient SZ in the picture on page 3 in the issue.Do you have any more pictures of patients before and after results to help me get a better or realistic idea of what my expectations sould be.If so can you post them on your site,blog or e-mail them to me thanks.I wouldnt want to upset my doctor who is great but I some times think it would be nice to get a second opinion on achieving my expectations.