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Greetings,

In this blog I will demonstrate a patient who came to me after he underwent the strip harvest procedure from another physician and his donor scar was wider than he expected and he could no longer wear his hair at the short length he wanted. In some cases these wide scars can be revised by excising them and closing them again under less tension than they were previously closed. In this case, the physician who performed the original procedure had already attempted to revise the donor scar and was unsuccessful in reducing it’s size. I recommended to the patient that I perform Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) by harvesting follicles ones by one  with a special tool and then placing these harvested follicles into the strip scar to cover it with hair. Here are the results after 9 months. It made a significant difference to the donor scar and the patient is very happy as he can now wear his hair shorter and not be conscious of his wide donor scar. I have treated a large number of patients like this and it remains a good option for those with wide donor scars who wish to wear their hair shorter.

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All the best,

Marc Dauer, MD

Greetings,

Today I will discuss a very interesting case I just performed. This patient presented with a skin graft in his mustache region from a previous accident that required extensive Plastic Surgery. He was left with a large scar  and no ability to cover the scar as it would only grow a scant amount of hair. The patient prefers to wear a goatee but it is very unnatural with only one side growing hair. In this case I performed follicular unit extraction otherwise know as FUE by harvesting the hairs from his beard on the neck individually with a .8mm punch. I harvested the neck hairs as these will most closely resemble the beard hairs we are meant to recreate. After I harvested all the beard hairs via FUE we placed the grafts individually to recreate a mustache.The angles and orientation of the grafts placed in the mustache were made to mimic the angles of the hairs on the unaffected part of the mustache. Typically there is a slightly lower growth rate of grafts transplanted into scar tissue, but these patients usually have excellent cosmetic results. Below you can see the pre operative photo and the post operative photo and the immediate difference that is seen with the transplanted grafts present over the scar.

All the best,

Marc Dauer, M.D.

Greetings,

Here is a video I put together showing FUE to extract chest hair for Hair Transplantation into the scalp. I hope it is informative and helpful video of Body Hair FUE for Hair Transplant.

All the best,

Marc Dauer, MD

Greetings all,

Today I would like to discuss the issue of donor strip scars and how to approach them when they are too wide, or noticeable, or the patient just wishes to cut their hair very short. In the world of Hair Restoration today there are many physicians trying to push the envelope of grafts in a single session. Physicians trying to perform 4000, 5000, or even 6000 grafts in a single session. Using the strip method, the only way to achieve these numbers is by taking a donor strip that is very wide. This puts undue tension on the skin closure and can then result in very wide donor scars. Sometimes though, even under the best of circumstances and a proper closure, a wider than expected donor scar can also occur. I have been seeing more and more of these patients from other physicians recently.

After much experience I am finding that when you attempt to excise these scars, often times they will just come back again. The best approach to this situation is to harvest grafts via FUE ( Follicular Unit Extraction) and then transplant the grafts into the scarred areas that are devoid of hair or have very little hair in them. Typically the grafts grow nicely through the scar tissue and provide hair coverage of the scar which acts to conceal the scar thus making it more feasible to cut the hair short.

I have included photos below of a patient who had multiple strip scars from a procedure performed by another physician. The ‘before’ photos show the donor area shaved and the donor scars. The ‘after’ photo shows the FUE punctate sites (these heal in about a week) and the hair immediately transplanted into the donor scars. A difference in the donor scars with hair transplanted into them is immediately visible and when the hair grows in this should provide nice coverage to the donor scars and allow the patient to cut their hair much shorter than was possible before.