Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has lost there hairs after Hair transplant down the track after a year or couple? or is HT is a permenant solution?

k waiting for replies....

Transplanted hairs should be permanent; but that is because they are transplanted from our strategic donor area -- a "safe zone"....sometimes this zone can be flexed a bit, though ideally it would be only with total patient consent.

Make NO mistake about it. A person can lose some of his transplants over the years. It's not common, but it DOES happen.

What can happen in a few patients is that the caliber of the transplanted hairs can actually thin noticably within 3 years of the transplant. I have no idea why this happens, but it is a definite phenomenon in few patients. The way to counter this graft thinning is simply to implant more grafts in the area.

This happened to a patient of mine who used to post quite frequently. I performed two surgeries on him that gave him a thick tuft of hair in the front and top of the head. Then, about 2.5 years later he visited the office because of noticable thinning in the recipient area. We did one more transplant and that did the trick. He has no problem since. He posted a professional portrait of himself and signed off the internet to go on with his life.

Making sure your transplant surgery is done right is just ONE aspect contributing to the final result. YOUR personal physiology plays just as important a role. The body does many seemingly qwirky and weird things and we are FAR from having all the answers.

Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of patients have "average" physiologies that allow for significant cosmetic improvment after surgery.

Dr. Feller
Great Neck, NY

Spex put up Dai Vernon's portrait that I mentioned in my previous post. That is how he looks today

Below are photos of how he looked when I first met him:

I forgot about him. Thats a great result.
Did he ever address the crown?

Thats an incredible change in appearance! Fantastic work, even if that is "thin hair" I would gladly have that result!

How many grafts did he have?

Dr. Feller---
"Make NO mistake about it. A person can lose some of his transplants over the years. It's not common, but it DOES happen.
What can happen in a few patients is that the caliber of the transplanted hairs can actually thin noticably within 3 years of the transplant. I have no idea why this happens, but it is a definite phenomenon in few patients. The way to counter this graft thinning is simply to implant more grafts in the area."
----
I have *never* heard of this phenomena before; is there any way you can elaborate more on this? I realize you said the causal variables are physiological and *unknown* but w/respect to *thinning*:
-your NOT referring to thinning due to MPB and thus the hair which does *thin* does not ultimately die and not continue to grow; correct?
-you said it was "uncommon;" can you quantify that at all (i.e. 5%)?
-if a patient does have some quirky physiological predisposition which causes the transplanted hair to *thin* then won't the same hold true for additional transplanted hair on the same patient in an attempt to resolve the issue? This would be of *significant* concern in a case where an individual---although planning for the long-term AND taking into account supply and demand issues---does an initial Mega-Session procedure to ONLY address the front half while leaving enough grafts in reserve to address the crown in a second procedure; as in this case:
http://hair-restoration-info.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2566060861/m/8011097763
This has been MY plan for a line of attack, because by ALL accounts it seems to be the most effective strategy;
-BUT-
what if one (as in Club Head's case) had been one of the unlucky *minority* who suffered from *thinning* of transplanted hair? He would now be left w/only half, or less, of his donor hair left and has only addressed HALF of his balding area?

The ONLY account I have ever heard of anything approximating this phenomena was by Jotronic where he stated that sometimes the transplanted hair (during the 12-18 month period) will *thin;* but the *thinning* he was referring to was w/respect to the donor hair being of a caliber which is naturally thicker than what would be found on the top of even a man who does not suffer from MPB, thus the donor hair thins out to mimic the hair in the recipient area. Is this NOT the phenomena your referring to?

Is this a result of weak donor hair that had begun to miniturize?

I wonder if some large % of donor hair is subject to miniturization. Old bald guys side and back hair often looks thin. If more than half of the hair in the "safe" zone dies, then I suppose one could lose more than half of their transplant density.

hairdude83,

I think the fact that grafted hair can thin - particularly in old age - is sometimes a good thing. It can be somewhat graceful actually.

If your hair loss accelerates and/or your donor area is thinning, a thick crop of locks in the frontal third may create an imbalance. On the other hand, if your transplant “moves” with the overall appearance of your hair, the result will age naturally.

That said, I do not wish loss of transplanted hair for patients! Still, if a patient suffers from an odd condition, senial alopecia for example, it is nice to know that the transplant will, to a degree, behave like the rest of the scalp. It is just more natural that way.

NG2B
No, this hair doesn't thin to the point where it dies like MPB.

I don't have any stats on it, but it is surely less than 5% incidence.

Yes, additional hair is expected to thin as well. That's why you have to implant ALOT of it to get a good cosmetic effect. It must also be packed tightly. This may very well put the brakes on any plan to fill greater areas of scalp like the scalp later on because of the obvious limitations of a finite donor area.

If this happened to clubhead he would still be well covered, just thinner.

I don't get your last point.

Thank you Dr. Feller. I had NEVER heard of this before, and your transperency w/ ALL aspects of ht's on this forum is fantastic!
It's nice to know that it is less than 5%, but it is somewhat worrisome, but at the end of the day the odds are OVERWHELMINGLY in one's favor.

..."I don't get your last point."

Yeah, I was so over come w/follicular fear as my dreams of a glorious mop burst when I read your post that I kind of just puked my feelings/thoughts onto this thread...
I was referring, to what I *now* believe after hearing your account of this phenomena, to something much DIFFERENT described by Jotronic elsewhere...
thank you...