TREATING DONOR SCAR WITH HAIR TRANSPLANT-FIT

In performing FUE we often run into individuals who do not desire additional strip scars or the risk of a wider scar. Sometimes they have a limited donor supply. Sometimes, they have a very tight donor area. If these individuals desire larger sessions, we face a problem. If we want a large session, we must shave a larger surface area. This may risk exposure of the donor scars. Patients do not want to take this chance often times. In other instances, they are willing suffer the embarrassment of exposing their linear donor scar for a short time to maximize their potential coverage from a single procedure. We have found that leaving the hair long allows us to obtain as many as 1500 grafts in a single procedure without shaving the entire donor area. When the hair is an average length, we can typically obtain between 800 and 1200 grafts without shaving or exposing the donor region. If there is significant scarring in the donor region, we are sometimes more limited in the number of grafts we can obtain without shaving the donor region. Sometimes individuals want a larger number of grafts, but they do not want their scars exposed. To deal with this problem, we devised a new method of concealing the donor strip scars after shaving the donor region. This patient was told by a well known and well respected strip physician that he could obtain up to 600 grafts only from a subsequent strip harvest. He did not want to risk a wider scar or additional scars. therefore, he opted for the cole technique of FUE. We did our best to avoid shaving the donor region, but his follicular density was markedly reduced due to the multiple strip surgeries in the past. He wanted to maximize his results from this procedure so we devised a temporary hair prosthesis for the donor region and applied it to his donor scar. the photos of the scar before and after the hair prostehsis are depicted in this photo. we shaved the surround areas and performed our procedure to remove individual follicular groups. he had numerous lovely 2 and 3 hair groups. we extracted and placed approximately 1900 to 2000 grafts in total. this is well over what he could have obtained from the strip alone. we left the hair immediately above the scar slightly longer, but combed it upward in this photo so you can see how well our hair prosthesis covers the strip scar. the hair surrounding the extraction sites in the shaved donor area will grow quickly. after one week, i advised him to cut his hair one even length so that it blends better with the area that we did not shave. this, along with the hair prosthesis, should help to conceal his scar. after the incision sites heal, which should take about 1 week, the worst case scenario is he will look like a guy who got a bad hair cut rather than a guy who had a strip incision.

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