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  1. #401
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    I have been following this thread very closely for a long time. I too, have a similar strip scar and this thread has been very helpful. Northeast guy, with enough scar grafting (multiple sessions) and the combo of SMP into the scar, does the scar look good at different hair lengths? I understand smp looks best at a 0 guard because it most closely mimics the stubble and when the hair grows out, the 2d smp and 3D hair don't blend well. However, in your experience, with the FUE into the scar, there is also hair growing out of the scar to give it the 3D look. Therefore, can you wear your hair at a 1, 2, and 3? This is the only thing stopping me from going this same route. I want to be able to cut my head to a 0 but also won't be maintaining it every week so want to know if the hair still looks good grown out to other lengths.

  2. #402
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    Northeastguy...do you recommend FUE with Cole or Shapiro? I am beginning the journey you just finished and need a place to start. I have a 25cm strip scar that is .5cm wide that I got from a 2007 surgery with Dr Feller. I got only 1,600 grafts and I was 20 years old. Really dumb surgery and I was completely mislead by Doctor Feller. I have not had any surgeries since then and am really unhappy with the front work and even more unhappy with the scar.

    Also, do you recommend to try temporary SMP or FUE into scar first? I wanted to try SMP to see how it looked before I jump into the more invasive FUE.

  3. #403
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    Hi Southeast guy. Sorry for the delay and hope you're doing well. Also sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience with Dr. Feller. In regards to your question, you named two outstanding physicians. I honestly think you would be safe with both. ironically, I will be at Dr. Schapiro's clinic at the end of next week. We will be doing temporary SMP or Trico pigmentation. We will post some before and after photos. Yes, I do feel SMP has a big impact on Scar repair and camouflage. Nothing is going to replace FUE into the scar and should be the primary task. The SMP or Trico essentially ties it all together. Be patient as you will likely need a few passes of FUE over a course of about two years. I am sort of coming to the end of my journey with this. I will likely just do Traco going forward. Doing more FUE has not been beneficial. I seem to be very safe now at a 1.5 (with Trico) or two guard length. Be careful with permanent SMP. It did not match my skin tone at all and I needed to have it removed. That set me back almost 9 months. I had some shock loss from the laser. Lately I've noticed things are improving substantially. Reach out if you have any questions be happy to help.

    https://youtu.be/LRAWRKafXZE

  4. #404
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    zero God is extremely difficult to achieve if you have a scar. I have not seen anyone who has been able to completely hide it at that length. You can achieve great improvement but you will ultimately still be able to see it. There is often scar raising or depression, that may have a lot to do with it. When your hair is slightly longer 1 to 2 guard, that seems to resolve the issue. For me I have learned the magic number is 1.5 to 2 guard. Now that we added some FUE between the sides and the top a 2 guard is a nice look. I am very happy with that length as it is still a nice short cut. I will post some photossoon. I see Dr. Schapiro next week for SMP work.

    QUOTE=Therealdeal23;254035]I have been following this thread very closely for a long time. I too, have a similar strip scar and this thread has been very helpful. Northeast guy, with enough scar grafting (multiple sessions) and the combo of SMP into the scar, does the scar look good at different hair lengths? I understand smp looks best at a 0 guard because it most closely mimics the stubble and when the hair grows out, the 2d smp and 3D hair don't blend well. However, in your experience, with the FUE into the scar, there is also hair growing out of the scar to give it the 3D look. Therefore, can you wear your hair at a 1, 2, and 3? This is the only thing stopping me from going this same route. I want to be able to cut my head to a 0 but also won't be maintaining it every week so want to know if the hair still looks good grown out to other lengths.[/QUOTE]

  5. #405
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    Thanks for the reply Northeastguy. Your thread has been an inspiration to change my life so I want to thank you for being so honest about your experience. I am planning on going with Shapiro medical for my first pass of FUE with Dr. David Josephitis. They recommended about 30 hairs/cm2 in the first pass. I plan on using only scalp hairs since I have a good donor. How many total hairs/cm2 did you use to get to the result you are at today? Also, how many passes did you do on the scar?

    I recently did a session of Trichopigmentation and while the session was successful, the contrast of missing hair with a 1 or 2 guard is very noticeable. I hope that the hair from FUE will be the answer to this problem. Im not a big fan of a 0 guard so I hope that I can follow your path and be content with a 1 or 2 guard.

  6. #406
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    Stick with scalp hair. If you're curious have him do about 10 beard grafts in the scar to see how well it takes. I did not have success with beard hair in the scar. We did test beard hair on the scalp and I think I had some success. I had 10 placed on the scalp and we will count out what took on Thursday. The other issue I had with beard grafting was ingrown hair's and it left bumps in the area where the extractions we're done. Right now, unless you are completely depleted with scalp hAir, I would stay away from beard grafting. Again, it's OK to test and see how well it takes in your scar. You're already having a procedure so why not test. If you make your goal a 2 guard, you're setting yourself up for likely success. That is an extremely reasonable goal. Again, be patient and do "multiple" passes. Then, by adding the temporary pigmentation you Will likely achieve your goal. Honestly, if you have success with the grafting and stick with a two guard, you may not even need pigmentation. Cross that road in a couple of years. Good luck.

  7. #407
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    You know, I have had about 10 strip surgeries from the early 1990's to 2000, and while the surgeries themselves cost me around $50,000 to repair, using beard hair and scalp hair (mainly beard hair), at least the butcher doctor left me with nice thin strip scars.

    But the problem was I had all that bald space where the strip scars were and I had to grow my hair long in the back to cover them up. I had Dr. Cole add about 500 beard hair to my scars, which grew well, but I needed much more work. That's where Dr. Umar came in, because about the only thing I would trust Cole with is working on a scar. His history in repairing patients hair who have been disfigured is an ugly one, and I'm not going into detail, other than to say I have first hand experience and realized he is not proficient in repairing your hair. I had that part done by Dr. Umar, who also dropped close to 2000 beard hair grafts into all the scars (over multiple sessions) and the results were amazing. But you are still dealing with less hair in the scars than the surrounding area, so what one needs to do is camouflage the area with SMP. I had Nicole at Shapiro add this to my scars and it gave the confidence to shave my hair to a #1 in back, and I have 100% confidence in my appearance, at least regarding my 10 strip scars.

    This is the reason I'm commenting on this thread: Shaving my hair in back to a #1 guard has actually proved to be better than leaving it long in back. If I had it long in back I would not only have the wiry beard hairs sticking out but it would be noticeably thinner in spots. With it cut very close like I have it, the beard hair helps fill in the gaps but the SMP makes it look like there is hair in the scars and fills in the areas without beard hair. So my advice to anyone wanting to fix their scars is:

    First step: Add beard hair to the scars. There is no substitute for actual growing hair when it comes to concealment. Beard hair works great, it is thicker than scalp hair and gives more coverage. The problem with this is there is only one doctor that I know of in the U.S. I trust with this, and that is Dr. Umar. I'm fairly sure there are plenty more doctors in the U.S. who have gained experience since I completed my repair (2014) but I don't know who they are. If you go with someone without the requisite experience you waste valuable resources: $$ and beard hair, and one (maybe both) are finite resources. You dont want to waste either.

    Second step: Now you need camouflage to the scars to fill in the gaps left by the beard hair addition. I personally would never recommend permanent SMP. That can easily create new, and permanent, problems. The risks far outweigh the gains. Temporary SMP works great, and touchups cost $400. They say you can go for a year between sessions but I go for two, and I'm going to go three on this one.

    It's fairly simple: Add hair and camouflage. And when both are added, you might be surprised to find out cutting your hair shorter provides better concealment to your scars than having long hair that is noticeably thinner in some areas. It did for me.

    Also, northeastguy, you started this thread 5 years ago and you are still working on this? What is preventing you from finishing up your scar repair? I wish you the best and hope you come to a conclusion soon. I never thought that I would cut my hair to a #1 guard, but then again I never thought I would go out in public without wearing my hat. Without beard hair, I would be doing neither. I barely had enough scalp hair to repair my hairline, and the rest was all beard, over 5000 grafts. Not to sound dramatic here, but the truth is, beard hair saved my life. I didn't know how much longer I could keep wearing a hat after 20 years of doing so.

  8. #408
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    I want to thank both of you (Northeast and Wiley) for sharing your story. There is at least hope out there for guys with strips that wan't to cut their hair short.

    To all the guys who have had their strip scars repaired (Northeast and Wiley) I was wondering how many grafts/cm2 do you guys have in your scar to get to where you are today. Native hair is 80/100 grafts cm2. I am just wondering how close you need to get to that figure for the hair to blend nicely at a #1-#2. Also, how many passes did it take for you to get there. I am assuming I will need at least 2 passes of maybe 30 grafts/cm2 each. That would get me to around 60 grafts/cm2 if they all grew. Do you think that is enough to get the job done if I supplement with Trichopigmentation?

  9. #409
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    I am so glad that you responded to this thread I was afraid you stopped checking. Every SMP place I have called has said that it looks best shaved down or at a 0 guard so that the SMP most closely matches the stubble. They said keeping your hair at a 1 or 2 guard would deem it noticeable. These are the opinions of Matt Lullo from scalp micro USA and Jae Pak from NewHair (some of the best known and most successful SMP providers in the entire business and their results speak for themselves). I've also spoke to another clinic and they told me the same thing. While they say it will still be noticeable if one is examing and scrutinizing the scalp, about 90% camo is achieved and it will go fairly unnoticed by just about any casual observer. I asked if I were to pack the scar with hair would it look okay grown out at different lengths and they said yes while it may help, grown out at a 1 or 2 guard would still be more noticeable than 0 guard and probably not achieve the camo you would want and def draw more attention. That is why I am so intrigued with you actually having gone through it saying a 1 or 2 is better than a 0 (assuming you have hair in it). Northeast guy is there any way I would be able to speak over phone or email? You've been a complete inspiration to many patients like myself I just needed some insight and help from someone who has been trough the journey. I've gotten many different opinions from many different people and just need some clarity. Please let me know.

  10. #410
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    Pictures like this make me skeptical of Dr. Cole's work. The description says 447 grafts were added + 3 sessions of SMP. That strip scar is compleltey unnnoticeable and just seems to good to be true. Is that photoshop perhaps? I would LOVE for it not to be but man..what do you guys think? Dr. Cole has many cases of FUE into scar where the coverage is outstanding..I can recall two other cases also where the scar seems to be tremendously camoflauged and just about gone. How can such a result be possible? Pictures like this give me hope and I pray these are the actual results Dr. Cole has produced and not some form of editing because that would be downright wrong.
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