My normal hair not growing after hair transplant?
I had my hair transplant done just over 2 months ago.
I had the front and my crown done.
My hair looks worse now than before.
It looks like I have less hair.
Do any of you know what's going on?
You can see on my picture, that I had more hair before, especially in the front, the
hair transplant is made at Istanbul hair center.
I am still numb in the frontal area after the operation.
Thank you for your question!
You had a hair transplant two months ago at the hair center and you are concerned that
you have less hair than you did before your transplant.
Now there's a good likelihood that you had a good discussion with your surgeon during
your consultation.
And I'll explain what your basis is.
When you have a hair transplant, you're moving hairs from your permanent zone behind at the
back of the head to the areas that need hair which is thinning out.
Now when that happens, the hair grafts initially will take and then they go through a phase
called shock loss.
Now this is a time when people would often panic because they feel that they're losing
their grafts.
And so we explain to our patients that shock loss is a normal phenomenon and we actually
have a strategy for that and I'll explain that momentarily.
In addition, the trauma of having surgery to existing hair in the adjacent area which
are native hairs can also cause shock loss.
So you combine the two, you end up with an area like there's not going to be growth.
Now shock loss is temporary.
And what you have to basically do is to wait for the hair growth cycles to synchronize
and to start growth again in the course of several months.
No matter what we do, we tell our patients that you're closer to your long term final
result is in about 1 year.
Now understanding that having hair transplant is moving permanent hairs to an area where
hairs are thinning, there are some factors that are part of the equation of the long
term viability of the transplant.
And that includes the actual take of the transplant that is transplanted.
Let's say that you moved a hundred hairs.
In the standard hair transplant, it's not likely that you get all one hundred hairs
there.
You can get 5% loss or you can get a few hairs, you can get almost 90% loss.
There's a range there.
Now when we perform hair restoration surgery, we actually developed a system called hair
regeneration where we use a material called extracellular matrix and combine it with platelet-rich
plasma and vitamin D. and we have been successful in helping people with better take or better
growth rates with the hair transplants because it seems that this extracellular matrix wound
healing technology accelerates the healing and reduces some of that initial shock loss
or long term loss based on the viability of the hair grafts.
In addition, the hairs that are thinning will actually become thicker.
So the combined benefit has been truly wonderful.
We've had many patients who have come to us from all over the world who had a transplant
and learned about our hair regeneration and came to us to have the injection to help support
their transplant.
So it's something people have done.
Usually they'll do that within the first month after their transplant.
This is not about our procedure but to help you understand that wound healing is the key
aspect of understanding what you're going through.
So a normal process of wound healing does involve shedding of the transplanted hair
and shedding of the existing hair and sometimes that is referred to shock loss.
Nonetheless, you could try using some minoxidil and even rogaine or propecia and finasteride
to help slow down your progression but again, this is something about your communication
with your surgeon who performed the transplant or at least communicating with office and
the technicians or support staff.
So again to summarize, this is normal to lose a good amount of hair early on and it is likely
in most transplant situations that the existing hair will go back and the transplanted hair
will grow and you will have at least close to the result that you were going for.
So I hope that helpful, I wish you the best of luck and I thank you for your question!