blood vessels, veins, nerves during donor strip harvesting

[hairgirl08]

when the donor strip is removed, do blood vessels, veins, and nerves get cut?

are the blood vessels in the same layer of skin as the scalp?

when they cut the donor strip, how do they know how deep to cut? is there something visible like fat or a certain color that shows them where to stop? is it possible to cut too deep and then damage blood vessels, or nerves? do they just do it by feel or is there some visual signal that tells them how deep to cut?

 

are there any major nerves or veins that are critical and which the surgeon needs to be particularly careful about?

or do the veins and nerves have "equal" importance?

if they cut an important vein or nerve then will you lose hair in that area?

 

also if you cut a blood vessel and it starts bleeding what do they do? i mean you can't suture the blood vessel back right? so how do they stop it from bleeding? do they just close each end? so then the blood vessel basically dies since its cut in half? it doesn't keep bleeding right?

 

what happens exactly to vessels that get cut? do they just endlessly bleed? since there are so many and you can't fix the end of every one of them? so will you have internal bleeding?

 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2011 by hairgirl08

[KM77]

Have you consulted with a doctor?

[hairgirl08]

do you mean about this question or just in general?

i dont think doctors usually have time to answer a ton of technical and scientific questions like this

i was just wondering about this

[KM77]

I guess in general.

[hairgirl08]

yeah i am about 3.5 weeks post-op

 

sometimes i wonder about the process

because you get a chunk of scalp taken out which kills a lot of blood vessels

so im just wondering how they do the cutting

and if they can control how deep they cut or if its just done by feel or what

and what happens if you break an important blood vessel or vein, i think i bled more than normal, like i had to change my gown because there was a lot of blood on it and i could feel blood dripping down my neck, they said it was normal but i just get anxious about these things

[KM77]

I understand getting anxious.

[NEWHAIRPLEASE]

do you mean about this question or just in general?

i dont think doctors usually have time to answer a ton of technical and scientific questions like this

i was just wondering about this

 

I think most doctors on this site would take time to answer a question like this.

[Ahairdown]

I would recommend using the search feature. Lot's of information on most of the questions that you've been posting up

[hairgirl08]

i tried searching about this but i can't find the answer

[fortune11]

Interesting question - I have wondered myself about this at times - would be great if one of the coalition doctors could respond. My general sense was there is a leyer of fat between the scalp and the skin and you can see that white part when the cut is made. Maybe I am wrong.

 

Of all the things detailed in the media and internet about the hair transplant, the strip excision part the most unglamorous and gory part and understanbaly so, not well publicized. While you see plenty of pictures of doctors making incisions and placing hair, not that many videos or pictures of the excision are made as widely available online.

[hairgirl08]

there are blood vessels and veins in the layer that needs to be cut right? even if theres a fat layer separating

yeah it would be interesting to see what a doctor says

[ziggy00]

First off, I'm not a doctor, but I think the circulatory system works like a tree. The big major arteries are like the trunk and the tiny blood vessels near the scalp are like the branches.

 

When ht doctors extract the strip, you're gonna lose some blood, but those tiny blood vessels are like tiny tree branches. Cutting them won't hurt the tree, and it won't be long before they regrow. Like trees, us people can regenerate body damage pretty quickly.

 

Of course, damaging a major artery is like damaging a tree trunk, and you could bleed out before your body has a chance to repair it. But again, you don't have major arteries in your scalp, so removing the strip is no problem.

 

But yeah, I'm no doctor, but I'm sure one will get to this thread eventually and contribute something better than a metaphor about trees.