Stinging Pain from Hair Transplant 3 Years Ago

Hello Dr. Rassman,

I am a 50 year old male and had a hair transplant 3 1/2 years ago. In retrospect any ethical surgeon would have sent me home. I don’t even know the number system that represent how much hair loss I had experienced but I’d give about anything to have not done this.

I thought I was getting 400 grafts using the latest follicular unit technology. What the doctor actually did is anybody’s guess. By two weeks after the surgery, to my complete surprise I had lost about half my hair. When the grafts began to grow a few months later I spent the next 18 months going to another dermatologist whom I understood to be a hair transplant surgeon (I later learned he had possibly never done a single procedure). Every week I would experience around 5 inflammed ingrown hairs, in which I would receive a cortisone injection. The surgeon who performed the procedure even put grafts all over the back of my scalp where I had absolutely no hair loss.

I developed a severe, debilitating pain problem in my scalp which started almost immediately after the procedure and has progessively gotten worse. The pain is a burning, stinging, scratchy sensation in the entire recipient area. A few months ago I started to experience a new wave of transplanted hairs all over my scalp and I have no idea why. The transplanted hairs have always been, and are, extremely stiff and course. They feel like thorns and are very painful.

I have been able to function by taking narcotics for the past few years but the resulting debilitating constipation recently got the best of me and I decided I needed to start making attempts to have the problem diagnosed correctly (and treated if possible)instead of treating the symptoms with no clear understanding of the problem. I had the pain before this last wave of grafts began to grow and I can’t really tell if the grafts are actally growing properly or not. I also don’t understand whether these “thorns” are causing this pain, or whether I have some kind of painful neuralgia. Sometimes I can feel every single graft just stinging.

I need help very badly. I have been to at least 25 doctors including hair transplant surgeons, dermatologists, neurologists, infectious disease, general practioners, pain management, psychological, etc. It seems that nobody has ever heard of this or just admittedly doesn’t know the first thing about hair transplantation, much less its possible complications like mine.

Any helpful advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

If you have been to 25 other doctors, I do not know how much I can help. Hair transplants should not hurt after a few days. Moreover it should never require dependancy on narcotics and “debilitating constipation”. It is my opinion your pain may be from other causes.