Thank you for your question. I understand you had a 2600 hundred graft hair transplant, and you started smoking 3-4 cigarettes a day a month after the procedure. You want to know if your smoking will have any effect on the hair grafts.A bit about my background — I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and Fellowship-trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon, practicing facial rejuvenation and hair transplants, among others, in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years. I’m also the founder of Trichostem™ Hair Regeneration centers, which offer non-surgical treatment alternatives for men and women with thinning hair.In your case, it is clear that you have a relatively early onset of hair loss and aggressive progression being that you’re only 26-years old and that you already needed a hair transplant. The unfortunate reality about hair transplants is that they are very limited. The donor area itself is, by nature, very limited and there are only so much hairs that you can harvest and transplant from this area. In addition, of the 2600 hair grafts you had transplanted, not all will survive. You can experience anywhere from 10-30% percent loss, particularly in cases of follicular unit extraction (FUE) wherein there is a high chance of transection. Some patients have even lost as much as 90% of their grafts in megasession hair transplants with high volume of grafts. Although the scalp is very vascular and has a rich blood supply, there are still many variables that can affect the long term growth of hair.In our practice, we developed Hair Regeneration with extracellular matrix to help the donor area and hair grafts heal better and faster, and to strengthen existing hair because what we found was that thinning hairs actually became thicker with the treatment. We actually use Hair Regeneration as a standalone treatment to help people with thinning hair avoid a hair transplant completely. The results have been very successful and can last up to 5 years.With regard to smoking, it is one of the worst things you can do to your body, as the inhalation of carbon monoxide can literally choke off the blood supply to all your cells. Smoking also ages the skin faster and generates free radicals in your blood which cause tremendous cellular destruction. Because of nicotine addiction, it is not unusual for person to go from 3 to 4 cigarettes to a pack a day to two packs a day, so I would certainly discourage you from continuing to smoke. Anyone can rationalize that 3 to 4 cigarettes isn’t going to do much harm, but it certainly won’t do any good either. You have to understand that you are depleting a limited resource in the donor area, so you want to do everything you can to ensure its survival of your grafts. Bottomline is, don’t smoke. Do what you can to get off the cigarettes. Also, ensure that you stabilize your hair loss, whether it’s through finasteride or a treatment like Hair Regeneration, so you can maximize the benefit of the grafts and prevent further hair thinning and loss after your transplant.I hope that was helpful and I wish you the best of luck!
