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Damaged donor area after over harvesting with FUE

salvar

salvar

Valued member
This gentleman came in to see us and represents a newish hair transplant problem we are seeing more and more, over harvesting (FUE) of a limited donor area.
His story is that he went on holiday to Turkey and saw a ad in his hotel promoting hair transplants, he went for it and they harvested a X number of graft, he wasnt sure but from the donor you can see how badly they have ruined it. He was still completely bald on top , with maybe 100 - 150 grafts visibly growing after the transplant.

 

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Westcoaster

Westcoaster

member
This type of topic will become a regular thing with the vast numbers of doctors trying their hand at Fue.
 
salvar

salvar

Valued member
FredtheBelgian wrote:
Not nearly as unsightly as a FUT strip scar.

If he shaves the back, it wouldn't even be noticable.
Believe me this was noticeable shaved, but bearing in mind that he didnt have any result I guess its some truth in that its better then not being able to shave with a poor FUT scar.

 
Bigmac

Bigmac

Administrator
Staff member
I've seen quite a few donor areas that gave very bad scarring from Fue. With it becoming more popular we will see more.
 
topccat29

topccat29

29 year HT veteran
My guess would be that it wasn t an issue of overharvesting so much but very poor technique. So not only were the follicle units being extracted transected along the way but the surrounding follicle units might have also been transected at the same time. Would seem to explain was the growth in the recipient area was so poor while at the same time the donor was devastated.

Using the right size punch ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ not too big, not too small ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦just at the right angle and not a degree off ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ while sensing the right depth in the fingertips ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦.. is the difference between having experience and skill and not having it.

Sometimes others will ask me what happened to the giant plugs that were put into my hairline at 23 ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦.equally inexperienced doctors just kept planting into the same area and as they did they transected all the native hair ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦I was just a dumb guy sitting in a chair thinking they must know what they are doing ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦.of course I was wrong ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦..but others may not understand this concept of transecting surrounding hairs so it might be valuable to pass it on. It is also the same reason the density limitation is lower for a hair transplant and the same reason why good clinic will not plant into an area where there is too much existing hair regardless of if the density is lower than what was originally there.
 
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Prohairclinic

Prohairclinic

Prohairclinic FUE and SMP
Every extraction leaves a scar, no matter what punch size is used.
Obviously the smaller the punch, the smaller the scar;

However there is more than just the punch size.

If one where to use a 0.4 or 0.5 mm punch it is impossible to harvest 2-3-4 haired grafts. Patients are paying for hair transplantation, not to leave most hairs in the donor area.

In our opinion a 0.7-0.8 mm punch seems to be in the range of the best trade off between punch size and getting most grafts out.

Another factor to consider is skin/hair contrast in combination with donor density.

For example the following patient will have more white dots visible:
fair skin + dark brown/black hair + high density donor

compared to
fair skin + light colour hair + low density donor

Last but not least the total amount of grafts harvested is also a key factor and the size of the donor area that was used.

We know there are patients that can shave to grade zero after 3000 grafts and see nothing, and there are patients that need to have 5 mm hair lenght in order to cover up the white dots.

There are no miracles in hair transplants, everything has its limitations.

We would never argue FUE is perfect, nothing comes close to mother nature.
 
N

Nightowl

member
Have you viewed the pictures that illustrate FUE extraction sites that were clustered too close, they form a pattern of patchy scars ranging from a cm to a few cm's which looks terrible.
 
bullitnut

bullitnut

4 awesome repairs with SMG
Salvar what if anything can you do to help this gentleman, is he looking into Smp now or planning to use body hair for another HT?
 
P

Pete Z

Member
This patients situation looks hopeless., no donor grafts left, probably has white dot scarring with very sparse new growth on top. Salvar what advice did you give this guy?
 
bullitnut

bullitnut

4 awesome repairs with SMG
Do you have an update on this gentleman....did you end up treating him Salvar?
 
Sparky

Sparky

Valued member
I agree with Fred, definitely preferable to a nasty telltale strip scar, this just looks like Alopecia.
 
Bigmac

Bigmac

Administrator
Staff member
Bad work via Fue or strip should be a thing if the past these days but unfortunately it's not. Both will look awful and cause emotional problems etc for the patient.
 
A

after40HairTransplant

Valued member
I hope I dont end up like that.
 

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Dadhairday

valued member
Did this patient find a solution to his depleted donor?
 
Bigmac

Bigmac

Administrator
Staff member
Some people will have body hair transplanted to the area or opt for SMP to colour the scars in and give an appearance of density.
There are quite a few examples in the SMP section.
Hope that helps.
 
scepticsausage

scepticsausage

member
Bigmac wrote:
Some people will have body hair transplanted to the area or opt for SMP to colour the scars in and give an appearance of density.
There are quite a few examples in the SMP section.
Hope that helps.

How successful is body hair that's transplanted into the donor?
 
G

gambler

Valued member
scepticsausage wrote:
How successful is body hair that's transplanted into the donor?
It can be very successful.
There's plenty of successful repair cases using body hair highlighted on Dr Umar's and Dr A's websites.
Keep in mind, it is a bit more unpredictable transplanting hair into scar tissue compared to "virgin" scalp.
 
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