1 year post Hair transplant, I have slow growth. (photo)

A hair
transplant is the movement of genetically resistant hairs. These are hairs that
are at the back of scalp in the limited space called the donor area. Little
openings are made called stab incisions and grafts are placed individually
where the scalp is losing hair. A graft is composed of skin, the hair, the root
or the dermal papilla, and some of the tissue that surrounds it. When this is performed, a
phenomenon called shock loss happens. This is when hair grafts and the existing
hairs in the scalp temporarily shed. Although hair thinning can be to the point
where you barely see any hair, using a microscope, we are able to see that
there are many miniaturized hairs. Nonetheless, even there are existing hairs,
a lot of those hairs go into shock. A transition period occurs for several
months after hair transplant where there is no growth.


As a general
rule of thumb, at one year most of grafts have grown in. However, from my own
experience, I have seen patients who start growth as late as 18 months. There
are different factors that will affect the results in one year. One of those
factors has to do with the rate of hair growth. In our practice, we do a
procedure called Hair Regeneration that reverses thinning hair. When we do this
treatment, we follow our patients every 3 months. Because of this, we are able
to classify people as fast, medium and slow growers. People who have very
advanced hair loss tend to be slow growers.



We do the
combination of Hair Regeneration treatment with extracellular matrix and
platelet-rich plasma to maximize the survivability and the yield of the hair
transplant, as well as to reverse the hair thinning concurrently. Patients who
appear to have less hair or didn’t have much growth at 12 months have robust
growth of their thinning hair as well as their transplant at 18 months.



It is not
unusual for people to come us who have had "mega sessions" where tremendous
amounts of hair implanted and not have any growth. Factors such as elevated
blood pressure and manipulation of the grafts can make the patient lose up to
90% of the hair grafts. This is not a very encouraging thing to hear when you
have a limited donor space and amount of hairs. In your case scenario, we
probably can just wait and see how you are doing for another 6 months or so and
then try to determine what the yield is.



The
survivability of grafts is critical for the success of a hair transplant. This
means that although you may move 2000 or 2200 hairs, your yield may be 10%,
20%, 30% less than what you’ve transplanted. In the popular method of FUE or
follicular unit extraction, there is a very high rate called transection where
the hair follicle gets cut and the important part of the hair doesn’t grow. Interestingly,
some of those hairs will have enough stem cell activity present that they can
grow, but unfortunately, a lot do not.



We have
been using Hair Regeneration as a way to help people who have had transplants
done elsewhere. They come to us 1 month after their transplant and had Hair
Regeneration treatment. As early as 6 to 7 months, they had robust growth of
both their existing and their transplanted hair. Hair Regeneration maximizes
the healing process and accelerates the
growth of hair grafts.



I think
that it is very important that you meet with your doctor, discuss the details
of your surgery, have your doctor examine your scalp and let him evaluate with
a microscope your situation. Moving on, you’re going to have limitations of
what your donor area can produce for your next hair transplant if you’re going
to consider it. This is why a lot of people who have had previous transplants
continue to find us. We do Hair Regeneration injection for them to thicken
their thinning hair and for many people, they actually avoid a second
transplant. That way, they can save the donor area and have that banked for
later if they were ever to need it. I hope that was helpful, I wish you the
best of luck, and thank you for your question.



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Most patients have achieved their final density by one year. If this has not occurred, one might consider visiting their hair transplant surgeon again to review. In general, newly transplanted hair falls out (is shed) three weeks after a procedure. Noticeable improvements occur at 3-5 months and then final results are achieved by one year.