strip scar repair recommendations

[ID-LaChapelle]

I am 46 years old. I have had 3 strip procedures for about 5500-5800 total grafts.

All procedures were performed by Shapiro Medical Group out of Minneapolis MN.

The first procedure was about 10 years ago give or take a year and the most recent one was about 2 years ago.

I would say 95% of the grafts were successful and overall I am happy with the results.

Here comes the "however"....

Thing most of the doctors won't tell you is that, you will eventually need to deal with the continuing hair loss.

You may hear that finasteride will stop hair loss permanently but that is not true for most of us. Just google it if you don't know. Avg use is about 5-7 years then it stops working and your hair continues to fall out. then you either get more grafts or you shave your head. I guess there is a third option to just leave it as it is, but we have all seen folks with "hair plugs" and no one wants that look.

This isn't a huge deal if your an FUE patient but depending on how many of those you have had it may still be an issue.

But for those of you, like me, that were told that a strip would be better we will now have to deal with a huge scar on the back of our head. 

I have decided to throw in the towel and shave my head, so that is indeed what I am dealing with now and the point of this post.

My scar is about 1-2cm thick in areas and goes from ear to ear. Obviously if you've googled any strip scar pics you know they are brutal looking.

I am looking for a good doctor in the pacific NW that has had good results with performing a trichophytic closure and perhaps SMP afterward with FUE to reduce the scar. I have seen a lot of promising results on the internet but I would like to hear from anyone else with recommendations.

 

thanks guys

 

[Al - Moderator]

You will never be able to shave down to nothing without a scar line showing no matter what you do to fix it. You may be able to get away with a buzz cut with some FUE into the scar and possibly a scar refinement as well depending on what the scar looks like. Assuming you have a decent hairline and frontal half with hair due to all hair that was previously transplanted, a buzz cut may work well as you will still have a frame to your face with the hair stubble showing and may be able to hide the scar with FUE. Without pictures I'm just guessing.

 

[Al - Moderator]

Have you thought about the possibility of using some beard and chest hair to add density to your hair transplant rather than giving up and shaving? If you are going to have surgery anyway to try to correct the scar and have FUE put into the scar, perhaps you should look into just getting more hair added on top instead. Just something to think about if you haven't already.