Transplanted hair receding years after HT.

Victim,

Not sure if you have considered laser therapy but please be careful of using laser combs to stimulate your hair follicles. Many out there will try and sell you on that approach. I am still a skeptic for good reason, the results are hit and miss and far more miss than anything. Possibly you are already researching the area.

IMHO, I belive that your transplanted follicles are still there. I personally would consider temporary use of steroids or any any topical but as you said, very few understand why hair follicles remain in the dormant phase, and why a cure for alopecia areata has not been achieved. Use of an oral systemic medication or even a topical cream has been tried more on females and you may find doctors (derms) who treat this condition under the female hairloss section of this community.

My suggestion for scalp biopsy in the recipient area was more to determine that your transplated follicles and even some of you natural hair follicles still exist, and whether or not any minituriaztion is evident. If by chance the follicles no longer exist or are extensively miniturized, you will at least know whether there is something there to stimulate into the growth phase right?

Has anyone suggested PRP to you? As a layperson, I encourage you to consider PRP therapy to potentially stimulate your follicles. Contact Drs. Joe Greco, Dr. Jerry Cooley, and any other physicians doing PRP on a larger scale. They may have patients in your situation or patients dealing with alopecia areata. I am hoping you can find someone who would consider doing a series of injections of your own plasma! It's far less expensive too. They also may have some advice on the biopsies before PRP.

Okay everyone,
Here's my long overdue update. I got my surgeon to perform a biopsy of both the donor and recipient regions of the scalp and what they found was that the donor hair was perfectly viable for transplantation, no signs of androgen receptors, no miniaturization.. however the transplanted hair was miniaturized exhibiting classic signs of androgenetic alopecia. So there you go, I am living proof that non DHT susceptible donor hair can transform into DHT susceptible hair and miniaturize/fall out once relocated to the affected areas of the scalp. While this news is quite sobering at least I know that the reason for the hair falling out is due to DHT and it's not somehow being rejected, so at least I can go down the path of DHT blockers to maintain what I have left (and hopefully resurrect some dormant follicles in the process). Thanks all for your input and advice and I hope that cases like mine garner more awareness in the HT community to warn others that not all transplanted hair is gonna last forever without medication.

Thanks for the update slo, I will add your comments to my research.

I still wonder if PRP might benefit your recipient area and/or bring any dormant follicles to the growth phase.

Bump!

Im in almost same situation.

Slo, didnt u take anti DHT medicine before? Fin or dut? So what do u wanna do different now with ur new knovledge?

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Originally Posted by VictimOfDHT

Thanks Mr 4000. I wish it were that easy. If it were that simple I wouldn't have gone through 4 1/2 HTs and more than $20,000 in expenses. But it isn't.

My last doctor is a very famous doctor and people come from all over N. America and the world to get HTs by him, it's just that I have shitty luck as I do with everything usually.

But yeah, for some, it's impossible to look past this curse. My life's already destroyed anyway. Only now it's more so than ever before.

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Did you get the results of your biopsy? I remember reading that you were going to do it to find more about your problem. Unless I'm confusing you for someone else?

Cvazbar, yeah I did get the results a week ago or so -I mentioned that in one of my replies here. The doctor said there was "nothing abnormal", whatever that means. Basically, the biopsy didn't show anything. But he also said biopsies aren't 100% reliable.
I'd like to know, for those who have had biopsies done, did they take samples from the recipient area alone or did they take some from the donor area? What exactly did your doctors tell you about your results (what did the biopsy show)?

In my case, I don't think miniaturization of the transplanted is the problem. I haven't seen much evidence -if any- of that at all except for maybe two hairs and I can't even be sure they're transplanted. My loss happens all of sudden at random. I don't know if a biopsy can show those hairs are being rejected or something.

I have been told that most doctors do not have the expertise to know how to read the test results and exactly what potential deficiencies to look for in hair follicles that are not in a productive state.

Many patients that I have conversed with that had biopsies state that their docs have reviewed their results and do not find anything abnormal. Same response that Victim got.

At least you know that they are there below the surface. Could the doc at least distinguish between which hair follicles were transplated and which ones were not? Obviously the exisitng ones would have appareared much smaller as the transplanted ones are too new to have miniturized that much?

Did a skilled dermatologist who knows what to look for examine your results by chance?

Well that bloody sucks if the hairs are in fact susceptible to DHT and donor dominance isn't true. Man this industry sure is sketchy. I wish you both the best.

These situations are still the exception to the rule as far as I know or I think there would be many more folks posting their stories. What do you think?

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Originally Posted by gillenator

I have been told that most doctors do not have the expertise to know how to read the test results and exactly what potential deficiencies to look for in hair follicles that are not in a productive state.

Many patients that I have conversed with that had biopsies state that their docs have reviewed their results and do not find anything abnormal. Same response that Victim got.

At least you know that they are there below the surface. Could the doc at least distinguish between which hair follicles were transplated and which ones were not? Obviously the exisitng ones would have appareared much smaller as the transplanted ones are too new to have miniturized that much?

Did a skilled dermatologist who knows what to look for examine your results by chance?

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Sorry I didn't see your reply until now.

That's what I feel- most doctors don't know what to look for in these biopsy results and don't even care to know. I'm sure there IS an explanation to what's happening to the hair in my case and similar cases but no one cares enough to spend a little bit of time to find out.
All I got from the doctor is that the test didn't show anything abnormal or something like that. No details or anything.
I've never seen a dermatologist. I need to be referred to one by a GP and I just don't want to go through all that and I'm also embarrassed to talk about my problem to the doctor or the dermatologist and again, I don't even expect I'll be able to find a dermatologist who will bother to find out what the problem is.