What is the average amount of time inbetween transplants?

[mmhce]

What is the average amount of time inbetween hair transplants?

[mmhce]

What is the average amount of time inbetween hair transplants?

[Bill - Seemiller]

mmhce,

 

This isn't an easy question to answer, but I wonder if you meant to ask how long patients should wait between hair transplants. Your question isn't really answerable since as far as I know, no study has been done on this, and some patients may wait several years between transplants while others may get a second one after 6 months.

 

The latter however, is a bit easier to answer. If we're talking strictly about strip surgery, I'd suggest it's best to wait a full year. Even if the second hair transplant is targeting an entirely different area, I still think it's better to give your donor adequate time for its laxity to return. In my experience, this can take up to 12 months.

 

Patients don't have to wait as long with FUE however, I'd suggest waiting at least 8 or 9 months if hair is being transplanted in between and around previously transplanted hair. It's really better to let all the transplanted hair surface above the scalp before making new recipient incisions in or around these areas.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

[HairHope]

Cleaning up off topic.

[latinlotus]

Hairhope:

I believe you are happy with your FUE result. Can you please share with us your result. So far i have not seen many great results from FUE.

 

What is interesting is that you already had a strip before, thus you are definitely not choosing FUE because you are afraid of the strip scar. Come to think about it, why did you go with FUE the second time?

 

Thanks.

[Dr. Michael Beehner]

The interval between surgeries will be different for different types of patients, and will certainly be a little different from one physician to another. However, to help understand the decision, there are basically four important reasons in my opinion for waiting 10-12 months between surgeries in most cases as a minimal interval:

1) As Bill mentioned, you want the donor laxity to return, so that a second donor strip can be taken and closed with a resultant thin donor scar.

2) The blood supply of the scalp has to recover from the insult of surgery and be capable of adequately supplying blood and oxygen to the second crop of tranplants.

3) The hair from the first session must be growing, so that the hair surgeon doesn't directly damage previously placed hair follicles. While it is true that most of these first session hairs will make their appearance between 3 and 6 months, sometimes there are stragglers and in some patients the initial appearance of the first transplants is a little longer than average.

4) It helps for the patient to see the evidence and be impressed with the growth of the first session before making the commitment of money, time, inconvenience, and donor hair to doing it all over again. The longer the hair surgeon waits, the happier the patient that is in his chair that second time.

With all of the above said, there are still some exceptions. I know that several years ago, when I did sessions 8, 6, and even 4 months apart, that the hair did in fact grow - but the big unknown factor is that our present day sessions are much larger than 10 years ago and the issue especially of whether or not the vascularity (blood supply) of the scalp has returned to an adequate level is the big factor for me in waiting. Two examples I can think of in which I will do the sessions 8 months apart are the patient with a hairpiece who is very anxious to get out of it and rely on transplanted hair alone; and the second one is a patient who has unusual time constraints, such as one of my patients who was from China and teaching at an American university, and wanted to get his second session in before heading back home. Other than these types of exceptions, in my own practice 10-12 months as a minimal interval works well.

Mike Beehner, M.D.

[stamos]

Very helpful things from Bill and Dr Beehner.

[HairHope]

Sorry for the off topic

[latinlotus]

Thanks - I just got the FUE (2nd HT) last Thurs, so there is no "result" except for my word that I am back in work walking around with no hat or anything and not one person has even given my head a glance.

 

This was the exact reason I chose FUE second time, my first HT took a long time for me to get over the rednesss - however I did drop my hairline whereas in this case - all the 1002 FUE were placed in between previously transplanted hairs in the front third of my head.

 

Take my word, there is no comparison in the surgeries - esp. if you don't have to shave down.

 

Hairhope:

 

You did not shave the recipient or the donor? I would expect that normally FUE HT requires you to shave the donor site (unless your hair is already very short), which will make the HT obvious. Do you have pictures to share? Good luck with the growth phase.

 

Note that recovery time for strip can sometimes be quick as well, when shaving is not required. I was able to go back to work after 3 days.

 

Thanks.

[HairHope]

I would wait a year.

[latinlotus]

Hairhope:

 

This was the exact reason I chose FUE second time, my first HT took a long time for me to get over the rednesss -

 

I don't get this. I assume you mean the redness at the recipient site? If that is the case, the healing at recipient area should be the same whether you have FUE or strip? I would like to know how FUE can reduce the redness at the recipient site, since the procedure of making incision and implanting of the grafts is the same for FUE and strip.

 

I do agree that it takes more time to recover from a strip scar when compared to the many FUE mini scars. Comestically, however, I would say that a strip scar is less visible since it is usually covered by hair.

[mmhce]

HAIR HOPE AND LATIN LOTUS,

 

 

While I respect your comments throughout the forum:

 

IT IS NOT THE INTENTION OF MY THREAD FOR YOU BOTH TO HAVE YOUR PRIVATE CONVERSATION HERE ABOUT FUE!!!!

 

PLEASE INITIATE YOUR OWN THREAD ABOUT THIS MATTER.

 

I WILL LEAVE IT UP TO YOUR DISCRETION IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO REMOVE THE MATERIAL YOU HAVE WRITTEN.

 

LATIN LOTUS, YOU ARE MENTOR NOW. YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

[HairHope]

Sorry about that mm - I'll Pm him about my FUE procedure!

[Dr. William Lindsey]

Excellent post by Dr. Beehner.

 

I agree with your points.

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

[latinlotus]

mmhce:

 

It is not my intention to hijack your thread. My inquiries to HairHope about healing is directly related to your initial post about time between transplants.

 

Although it is addressed to HairHope, I am hoping that other members can chime in and answer the issue that i raised: how can recipient site heal faster/better with FUE?

 

Last time i checked, Bill is the moderator of this forum. If he has an issue with my question, i believe he will let me know.

[mmhce]

Latinlotus,

 

Although it is addressed to HairHope, I am hoping that other members can chime in and answer the issue that i raised: how can recipient site heal faster/better with FUE?

 

Then start another thread with that question.

 

The open section for every one to chime in on is "Hair Restoration Questions and Answers" under which threads are started.

 

Last time i checked, Bill is the moderator of this forum.

 

I have no intention of usurping Bill's position as moderator.

 

 

If he has an issue with my question, i believe he will let me know.

 

Bill has his own priorities concerning illicit advertisers, spammers and the usual gambit of stuff ALL other moderators of ALL othe forums have to deal with.

 

He isn't that concerned about you deviating from the topic, BUT I am, because the sooner the root of the thread is manipulated away from the original topic of the thread, the further away it will be carried away by subsequent posters.

 

No hard feelings.

[Leeson]

I remember in 1994, the usual time was 3 months. The doc was telling me after post-op about setting up my second procedure in 3 months. Glad I got the hell out of there. I got my second 5 months later by different doc. They didn't seem to have a clue about growth times/scar streching, just wanted to get you back in the chair. Looking back, I think alot of clinics in the SE USA recommended 3 months. Crazy!