1 year, 3 months post Neograft I can see where the grafts were extracted and no progress with the transplant. Advice? (photo)

Question

After a year and 3 months of Neograft surgery, when I get a small buzz cut I can clearly see a rectangle where the grafts extracted. Also after this period, I don't see any progress with the transplant very few hairs have grown and it's very thin besides my original hair is thinning as well.

Amir Yazdan, MD · Answer

Results like this are almost always the result of an inexperienced individual performing the procedure. I’d suspect it was a technician or assistant with little to no training rather than a board certified physician with years of experience performing FUE.
The first way I can tell this is by the fact that your donor area is overharvested. On top of that, the punch they used was far too large and the punches they made were likely excessively deep leaving the above scarring. No professionally-performed procedure should ever leave results like this, especially over a year after the fact.
The only person who should be performing this type of procedure is a licensed physician with substantial experience as a hair restoration surgeon. In fact, I’d recommend people to stay away from Neograft procedures in general; they’re usually handled by assistants or technicians, the punches are usually too large, and they go too deep into the scalp in turn. 
You can see how a properly-handled donor area should look in the web reference below. As you can see, even immediately after I performed the procedure, the donor area looks clean, even & properly harvested. The punch I use in these transplants has a very small diameter (0.7mm, specifically), and the punches made don’t excessively penetrate the scalp. Six months afterward, the donor area is completely healed, and there’s little evidence that anything was removed in the first place.

Dhaval M. Patel, MD · Answer

Thank you for your question and photo! It's hard to tell without seeing your pre surgery photos! I suggest you go back to your initial surgeon and discuss your concerns! Best of luck!Dr Dhaval Patel Double Board CertifiedPlastic Surgeon Chicago Hoffman Estates OakbrookOrlando Park

Guy Cappuccino, MD · Answer

I think your best bet for the lighter patch from your donor site would be either to have some micropigmentation done to camouflage the sharp line of demarcation, or if you are going to have a second transplant procedure, selectively take grafts from the edges of the denser/ darker areas to "feather" the results and make the demarcation line less noticable.  Of course, the easiest way is to keep your hair slightly longer in the back to cover more scalp and make it less noticable. As for the recipient site, by 15 months you will not see more changes, but without before and after photos it is hard to judge.

Michael Vories, MD · Answer

There are only two options for disguising the donor area- growing out your hair longer or getting scalp micropigmentation. Our experience with the NeoGraft machine is that the suction can damage the tissue, leading to poor growth. Many plastic and cosmetic surgeons are not aware of this, and they purchase the NeoGraft (and ARTAS) systems for a new revenue stream, without having any experience with hair transplants.

Richard E. Moore, MD · Answer

Thank you for your question and posting your picture. To begin with, it sounds as though you are not on a good hair preservation program. Hair loss should be stabilized before undergoing a hair transplant procedure. All hair transplant candidates should be started on a program to block the effects of DHT. In addition, minoxidil, low level laser therapy, and scalp PRP injections can be helpful for stabilizing hair loss. Second, a good hair and scalp analysis with a magnifying scope is very helpful at assessing your grafts. Hair grafts are characteristically coarser than the native hair. If your grafts are present, they should be easily identifiable with a scope.I encourage you to return to your transplant surgeon for follow-up and evaluation. If you are not happy with the results of that follow-up, you should consider seeking a second opinion.I hope this was helpful - Dr. Moore.

Sagar Patel, MD · Answer

While I agree you can see the box, the key thing is that i don't think you were over harvested. I would have "feathered" the edges of where the grafts were taken so it would not be so clearly demarcated. As for the grafts not growing you need to have pictures of that including before and afters. Start with a consultation with a hair surgery expert.

H. George Brennan, MD, FACS - Account Suspended · Answer

Our office has never experienced anything that would resemble the photograph that you are showing in this question.  Generally, within 2 of 3 days you can't tell where the graphs were taken from.  I would add a photo to show you what our results are after 2 or 3 days but it does not appear that we are able to add photos to our answer.  You might want to consider letting your hair grow to 
camouflage the area.

Baldev Singh Sandhu, MD - Account Suspended · Answer

It's difficult to judge your results because there are no pre and post pictures of the recipient site but after 15 months you are not going to see more results.
Like all surgeries Neograft depends upon the skill and experience  of the team doing the procedure and unfortunately there are a lot of practices out there that use rent-a-tech services to actually perform the procedures. These practices also tend to price their services by the graft which is totally stupid because any surgeon with experience in this field will tell you that it is impossible to predict the yield from any patient until you actually start extracting.
The rectangular area that you are seeing  is hypo-pigmentation of the entire shaved area which is rare, but can happen in people of color. The marks left by neograft harvesting are 1mm round and are usually visible as hypo pigmented dots which is not what you are experiencing.
Finally hair transplant does not "work" for people who desire to wear their hair short because since hair transplant simply moves your existing hair around it only is useful in patients who let their hair grow long to camouflage the bare area (look at my picture on my website - which by the way is the one Neograft uses in their marketing).

1 year, 3 months post Neograft I can see where the grafts were extracted and no progress with the transplant. Advice? (photo)

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