REPAIR work question

[Guest]

Hi all,

 

Let me tell everyone my current situation and what I would like done.

 

I had approximately 220 minigrafts by matt leavitt done in 1990/91 in approximately 3 rows each--I did have additional work of 900 mini/micro's done by mark pomerantz in 1994 also--but my MAIN concern is having most if not all of the first two rows of leavitt's work taken out--re-transplanted, and then dense-packing a new hairline lower than my norwood 3 now.

 

I did have of the leavitt plugs taken out by pomerantz and a physician's assistant without scarring via suturing.

 

My main question is which surgeon's could take out about 150 old mini's in about 2-3 procedures and then dense pack me a new hairline--in the third procedure?

 

I'm leaning towards Shapiro to do the NEW hairline but don't know if he specializes in removing old plugs--as I don't want to keep all these old terrible plugs.

 

If I didn't have these hairtransplants my frontal 1/3rd would be gone completely. I have used proscar for 5 years and my crown does not have any loss.

 

Any other poster's with experience of removing lot's of plugs would be appreciated.

 

steven

[Guest]

Hi all,

 

Let me tell everyone my current situation and what I would like done.

 

I had approximately 220 minigrafts by matt leavitt done in 1990/91 in approximately 3 rows each--I did have additional work of 900 mini/micro's done by mark pomerantz in 1994 also--but my MAIN concern is having most if not all of the first two rows of leavitt's work taken out--re-transplanted, and then dense-packing a new hairline lower than my norwood 3 now.

 

I did have of the leavitt plugs taken out by pomerantz and a physician's assistant without scarring via suturing.

 

My main question is which surgeon's could take out about 150 old mini's in about 2-3 procedures and then dense pack me a new hairline--in the third procedure?

 

I'm leaning towards Shapiro to do the NEW hairline but don't know if he specializes in removing old plugs--as I don't want to keep all these old terrible plugs.

 

If I didn't have these hairtransplants my frontal 1/3rd would be gone completely. I have used proscar for 5 years and my crown does not have any loss.

 

Any other poster's with experience of removing lot's of plugs would be appreciated.

 

steven

[Dr. Alan Feller]

Steven,

You are basically talking about FUE.

Give me a call

516-487-3797

 

Dr Feller

[ttaco]

Check out Dr. Vogel in Baltimore. I went for a consultation with him about removing my old minis/micros and re-distributing them as FU's, but the consensus from other quality doctors was that my old hairline was high enough that densely packed FU's in front of the old work would camouflage it, and that it was unnecessary to take out the old grafts. Vogel was hell bent on taking out the old ones, but I decided against it. That is his specialty though. You should at least call him. Good luck.

[arfy]

I believe Dr. Vogel has a good article about repair strategies, that you should read. There is also some good repair info on the NHI website www.newhair.com

 

Different doctors can have different strategies. Some doctors think it is important to remove plugs, and others think it can be okay to just surround them with good grafts. Part of it will depend on how many plugs, how bad they are, and where they were placed.

 

Try to get some different opinions and also read up on this. Personally, I think the removal and suturing strategy makes sense, however if you have lots of bad grafts, you may not be able to address every one. So a lot of this "depends".

[Dr. Alan Feller]

All planning for hair transplantation depends on multiple variables. Having written this, I would say that IF you have considerable hair BEHIND your hairline, then 25grafts/cm 2 is fine. If you don't,then you will need a higher density to achieve a natural look, say 35-40 (and perhaps even higher).

 

What you want to avoid is what I call "the Haze Effect". This is created by a low density hair transplant in the front hairline that consists of thick transplanted hairs. This is an UNNATURAL combination because hairlines usually consist of finer hairs than those behind it.

 

Practitioners who create the "Haze Effect" do it by mistakenly believing that spreading thick hairs out in the front line will create the "whispy" or "tapering" look of a natural hairline. That is, since they can't reduce the caliber of each individual transplanted hair to produce a thinner appearance, they beleive that simply spreading the hairs out over a greater area will adequately mimic a naturally thin appearence. This is an incorrect assumption, however, and it therefore becomes necessary to do what is COUNTER-INTUATIVE, that is, to go the other way by super-dense packing the front line.

 

If you want proof of this, just look at ANY of the photos posted on the sponser section of this or any other hair website. Look at the front hairlines. You can always tell the dense-packers from the rest of the crowd. No haze effect. They have all learned that it is the heavy "front loading" of the front that lends the most natural and credible look. As important as this is, it is rarely a topic of discussion in the HT world. Unfortunately, you will continue to see the haze effect produced by novices simply because it is much much harder to dense-pack hairlines.

 

Rest assured, however, that it is being done SUCCESSFULLY everyday by dense-pack physicians who are WILLING to spend 7 hours on a patient if that's what it takes.

[dodgedabullet]

Steven,

I also had Leavitt plugs on the frontal hairline back in 1995.They put in about 120 plugs, but I yanked almost half of them out myself the night of the surgery and let them run down the drain after I looked in the mirror and saw mostly grafts of between 3-6 hairs right on my hairline. If I remember right, I think they were about $20 each.

Shapiro recently did my hairline and it's looking great, but the plugs are too low to be totally concealed. I hope that FUE is the answer.