CORRECTIVE FUE WORK ON YOUNG PATIENT (mid 20’s)
A young patient went to another clinic for FUE work. His receding hairline bothered him a great deal so when he heard he could gain back all that he had lost, he was thrilled at the prospect. However, as we’ve seen so many times, young patients are vulnerable and can fall for unrealistic promises. The result is afterwards they are left with a lot less money and a head of hair that needs to be repaired. This is what has happened with this patient. After the hairs grew out, the patient realized it was unnatural with the hairline being too low, hairs growing in the wrong direction and the anterior edge being too harsh and straight. He noticed he was already starting to thin behind the transplanted hairs and worried about how this would appear if future loss continued. He did not want to end up with an unnatural ring of hairs in the front with little hair behind it.
He contacted Shapiro Medical when he realized his initial HT goals were not met. He sent SMG several pictures to be evaluated. While we could see why he was not happy with his end result from his pictures, it wasn’t until Dr. Shapiro met him in person that he was able to thoroughly evaluate and assess what needed to be done to create a more natural look.
What needs to be corrected?
1) Hairline too low, especially with patient being so young with potential for future loss.
2) Hairline noticeably asymmetrical.
3) Number of 2 hair grafts at the hairline.
4) Hairs growing out in wrong directions.
5) 2400 grafts has already been used - depleting donor supply, therefore, care must be taken to use rest of donor supply efficiently as possible to not waste any donor.
As in many “REPAIR” cases, it is necessary to conduct the repair cases over multiple sessions to get the best results. In this case, the first session was used to punch out as many grafts as possible that were transplanted too low, too big, or growing in unnatural directions. We recycled the punched out hairs further back where appropriate hairline should have been. At the end of our first session, total of 226 grafts were replanted. The plan for the next punch out session will be to repeat this process. The hope is that these two sessions will get rid of most of the grafts that were planted too low. Afterwards in a final and third session, a regular FUE session with predominantly 1 hair grafts to recreate a natural anterior boarder hairline will be performed. The number of grafts needed will be determined at that time. We've had good results with this approach in the past.
Typically, the tiny holes left by the punches heal well with minimal scarring or notice ability.
Link to short Youtube video of punch outs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1MI9z-XwVk
Correcting FUE Work on Young Patient w/Dr. Ron Shapiro
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