Visit to the renowned Limmer Clinic in San Antonio, Texas

I had the honor to visit the world renowned Limmer clinic in San Antonio, Texas on Tuesday, March 20th of 2007. In many respects the Limmer clinic is the birth place of “follicular unit grafting” since it was Dr. Bobby Limmer and his staff who first began using microscopes to visualize and trim naturally occurring follicular units into follicular unit grafts.

Dr. Bobby Limmer’s significant contributions to the refinement and advancement of follicular unit hair transplantation are well documented, including in the ”History of Hair Transplantation” section of the Coalition Hair Loss Learning Center.

Dr. Bobby Limmer shared his techniques and findings with his peers and was a persuasive advocate for the follicular unit procedure. For his part in pioneering this excellent surgical procedure Dr. Bobby Limmer was awarded the “Platinum Follicle Award” by the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery in 1996.

Over 14 years ago Dr. Bobby Limmer was joined by his son Dr. Brad Limmer who also has a strong background in dermatology. By joining his father’s hair transplant practice Brad was able to study under his renowned father and learn what would later become accepted as the “Gold Standard” in hair transplantation. He also learned his father’s emphasis upon honest and upfront education with all patients.

The Limmer clinic has continued to refine their follicular unit technique and today create minimally invasive incisions that are as small as 0.7 mm for the one hair grafts. These tiny incisions enable them to place more grafts closer together when appropriate for the patient. Patients now experience more rapid healing.

The Limmer clinic also using a technique referred to as “stick and place” in which the grafts are inserted immediately after the incision is made. Since the fresh incision is still dilated and has not begun to contract it is easier for the staff to place tiny grafts into very tiny incisions.

In general I was impressed by how refined, clean and minimally invasive the incisions and graft placements were.

They also typically remove a donor strip that is 1.2 cm wide and do not like to exceed this width because they feel it increases the risks of a visible donor scar. They also use internal and external sutures that are dissolvable. They feel that the internal sutures remove much of the tension from the external skin layer closure and thus minimize any potential scarring.

Dr. Bobby Limmer was not at the clinic on the day of my visit. But I was impressed by Brad Limmer and their very experienced staff.

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