Is Scarring an Issue When Revising an Older Hair Transplant?

This following article was written by recommended hair restoration physician Dr. William Lindsey and posted on our Hair Restoration Social Community and Discussion Forums.

When revising an old “pluggy” hair transplant, is it harder to place the follicular unit grafts near the big plugs due to scar tissue?

No, not at all. We do a fair number of hair plug repairs in my hair restoration clinic and surrounding scar tissue is almost never an issue that requires making larger slits or causes concern that there is insufficient blood supply for hair growth. Now, if you consider placing grafts in thick keloidal tissue in donor scars, I’d say that it’s a problem 50% of the time, if not more.

Really, the only issue with older hair transplants is that the scar tissue around the sensory nerves makes it a bit harder to numb them up. About 25% of the time I need to do a supraorbital nerve block, which itself hurts a little bit.

William H. Lindsey, MD, FACS
McLean, VA

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David – aka TakingThePlunge
Assistant Publisher and Forum Co-Moderator for the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog, and the Hair Restoration Forum

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