Dr. Lindsey FUE into scar results McLean VA

Here is a tough case. I posted this character way back.

This young man had a dysplastic nevus on his right temple which I removed with a small cuff of normal skin, and closed him with 2 layers. The path report indicated that I had to go back and get a little more...which I did a few weeks later and again closed him uneventfully. Due to his age at the time...he did very little cleaning and was a difficult kid for the nurse to remove sutures on.

Surprisingly his scar widened out to about the size of a quarter. EVEN with 2 layers of closure in an area that typically doesn't see much stretching...but he was playing football and other 15-16 year old stuff.

So we did about 100 FUE's 18 months ago. Despite lots of preaching...he did a crappy job cleaning and I think let crusts build up and extract some grafts. PLUS I think his scar continued to widen some.

Patient and his mother were frustrated. I was frustrated with them too. But the patient had left the country with a church mission and blamed lack of cleaning on being "out in the wild".

SO, this Christmas eve I had him hostage over winter break and we did 130 FUEs uneventfully. Yesterday, now 3.5 months out...he got a haircut and pointed out that he can't see the "bald patch". He'd said a few weeks ago that it was working and I told him it was his imagination...to early at 3 months in a scar... but I got pics in the SHADE and in DIRECT SUN yesterday for review.

I think he is correct. At 3.5 months he's pretty well covered. His donor area still has a little shock as seen in the last posterior picture, again right after a close haircut.

But I think we fixed him. And it should only get better. I'll get pics this Christmas and put them up.

I've posted a bunch of these FUE into scar cases, and presented this at 2 national meetings...so I was frustrated that this kid took so much effort. So was he...as he was the guy who presented those cases at the national meetings. He is my son.

So a few things.

1. FUE is variable and may take a 2nd round, particularly in scar.

2. You have to clean the recipient area!

3. Its hard to get patients to clean...even when they are your own kid.

4. Hair into scar does work, but we make the slits slightly larger and try to manipulate the grafts as little as possible.

Now if he presents this topic at a meeting in the future he can show his own head as an example.

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA