Hair Transplant Repair in Pompano Beach and Fort Lauderdale FL

The field of hair transplant repair is a highly specialized part of reconstructive surgery which deals with correcting the cosmetic and technical mistakes and failures of previous efforts. In contrast to routine hair transplantations which either create new hairlines or increase thinning areas on the healthy scalp, repair surgery is more related to the surgical reconstruction. Its aim is to treat the visible effects of poor planning or execution of the surgery: unnatural “plugged” hairlines, visible and enlarged donor scars, incorrect angles of hair growth, and thin and weak natural density. The proportion of this issue is notable as the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS) indicates that repair processes occupy a considerable percentage in the practice of many surgeons. Some surgeries report that up to 25% of their patients require help for the already done low-quality procedures.

The causes leading to the need for the repair are numerous in terms of preoperative and operative mistakes committed during the surgery. The conditions of inexperienced and incompetent doctors can lead to serious failures in terms of fundamental principles of hair restoration such as artistic approach, careful placement of the grafts, and careful usage of the donor hair. For instance, the medical personnel can use old methods such as big “plug” grafts which provoke the appearance of the hairline completely unnatural. Moreover, often the frontal hairline is located too low or too straight or is too symmetric which contradicts the natural proportions of the face.Another common issue arises from not taking progressive hair loss into account. When hair transplants are given to young patients without considering future needs, it may result in a situation in which transplants serve as isolated “islands” of hair amidst a receding native hairline.

In donor areas, problems take the form of wide and visible scars due to improperly performed FUT or over-harvested donor areas due to aggressive and improper FUE.

Treating such issues requires a multi-modal approach and specialists note that making corrections is much more complicated than doing the original surgery. It involves working around the limitations presented by tissues that were scarred, donors that became exhausted in the process of the original surgery and all mistakes that were made before. Sometimes corrective measures take up to one to two years and involve different methods combining surgical and non-surgical techniques.

One of the main strategies utilized in one such surgery involves removal and relocation of grafts that are poorly placed. For example, large “plug” grafts could be excised and dissected into individual follicular units, which may be inserted in a proper place and angle matching the hairline.In order to treat prominent linear scars from FUT, practitioners may perform a “trichophytic closure,” where the original scar is re-cut such that hair follicles can grow through the scar line. For different types of scars, including broad scars and stippled dot marks caused by FUE techniques, FUE is being used to implant follicular units directly into the scar tissue, which requires very high skill due to the poor blood circulation of the scar tissue. The success of grafts in scar tissue is lower than in healthy scalp areas, reporting 70 percent success rate instead of 90-98 percent in standard cases. If the donor area is depleted severely, then some innovative methods such as harvesting body hair may help.

In many cases, the surgical method is augmented through adding non-surgical techniques. Scalp Micropigmentation (SMP) is widely used with the goal to hide both linear and FUE scars by applying a permanent microtattoo that will mimic the appearance of hair follicles. SMP also plays an important role in minimizing the difference between scarred areas and normal explosions. In addition to this, additional procedures such as Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) can be applied to augment blood circulation in the scar tissue.

Watch the following video to learn more about repair procedures at Powell Medical Center: