Revising Transplant Scar

Hi Dr. Rassman, I have had several procedures done at your San Jose NHI office over the past five or so years. The transplants are very nice and natural. However, the donor scar stretched quite badly from side to side, about 1/2 in in thickness at it’s widest behind each ear. I wear my hair cropped quite short because as my hair grows longer it does not look very good. It looks best and healthiest short. Dr. Jones performed a scar revision about 18 months ago and it reduced the scar to a fine line and it looked great for a while. However the scar has stretched back, and is even wider than before. The scar is now getting noticed fairly regularly, regardless of whether I leave my hair short or let it grow longer. If it’s possible I would still like to have more transplants as I’ve lost some of my natural hair in the past few years, but I really do not want to make this scar problem worse. And of course I really want to have the donor scar reversed and stay that way. The doctor of course was completely helpful and offered to re-revise the scar if needed, but I wanted to get your opinion. I read in your newsletter that you have new procedures that are better for the scar. I’m hoping you can help. It’s quite embarassing to have to answer the question “how did you get that strange scar?” but worse, just wondering whether people are noticing. I just want to solve the problem, and for it not to “come back” again.

Thanks for your help.

There are no guarantees, of course. There are two causes of donor wound scars: one from your body tissue type/healing properties, and the other from surgical techniques as they interact with your healing and body tissues. You may have a collagen defect, but another attempt at scar revision is worth a try and if we were involved, we generally do these revisions at no charge for our patients. If that fails again (even with the new techniques), there are two other ways to fix scars. Each of these have a high degree of success, but they are expensive – the first is FUE and the second balloon stretching of the scalp. We subsidize the FUE repair of wound scars that were a result of a previous NHI surgery. We can talk about these alternatives and which would work best for you, once I have had a chance to examine you.