Treatment Programs

DermHair clinic maintains an active complementary surgical hair restoration/repair program. Qualifying individuals are given the benefit of our state of the art hair restoration surgeries at no charge or highly subsidized rate. These are often
individuals with obvious financial difficulties that have typically been disfigured by hair loss and scarring from previous botched hair restoration surgeries, radiations treatment for cancer, burns, accidents or disease. Contact us if you think you qualify for this program.

Below is an example of a typical case that was managed under this program.

CICATRICIAL ALOPECIA OF LUPUS
Besides Male Patterned Baldness (MPB), there are myriads of other dermatologic conditions that cause hair loss.
A typical dermatology clinic would see these conditions either as a result of self referral or often times from other hair
transplant surgeons.

Many of these conditions are inflammatory in nature. Some of these conditions if not recognized and treated early could result in scarring with permanent hair loss. Lupus Erythematosus –LE (popularly referred to as "Lupus") is one such condition. Hair loss with scarring (cicatricial alopecia) is often the result, and if left unchecked could result in disfiguring lesions especially in the scalp and face.

The following patient has a diagnosis of Lupus that has resulted in problematic scarring in the face as well as the scalp (cicatricial alopecia). She is being treated at DermHair Clinic "Complementary Treatment Program.

Frontal view showing cicatricial alopecia in frontal scalp and facial scarring. Close up scalp lesion
(cicatrical alopecia)
Histologically, this lesion shows features consistent with Lupus Erythematosus. Scar tissue, fibrosis and degenerative
changes were evident.
 
The patient has resorted to an effective comb-over to disguise
the frontal hair lossand scar.
Facial lesions close-up.

At the time of presentation, the patient had been with LE condition for several years. It started with sun sensitive expanding inflammatory lesions that later became scarred. In the scalp, it resulted in hair loss in the affected areas.

She has been on lupus medications that consisted of injectibles, oral medications and topicals at the time of presentation. Upon presentation we took biopsies at strategic areas of the lesion and reformatted her treatment to suit the survival of hair grafts post transplantation.

Our findings upon examining the histologic slides encouraged us to proceed with plans for hair
transplantation as a viable option.

First an FUE test session was done on two separate foci of the scalp lesion 3 MONTHS PRIOR ~50 grafts were shared between the two foci.

PHOTO SEQUENCING OF FUE TEST SESSION:

Immediate post implantation of 20+
grafts to each of the two foci.
The grafts had grown within 2 months of implantation. Most did not shed. This is the appearance at 3 months. Encouraged by the aforementioned test session, we proceeded with plans for definitive treatment with FUE transplantation.

DONOR HARVESTING:
In female FUE patients especially, hair length and volume tends to be a concern, the nature and extent of hair shaving options and downtime implications(if any) must be discussed ahead of time. In this patient, the recipient area was not at issue.

The merits and demerits of different options were discussed; The patient felt comfortable with having the extent of her "safe zones" shaved since she has adequate hair length and volume, both above and below these areas to cover the
area in the weeks it would take for hair re-growth to catch up to pre-surgical states. Doing this also enables better spacing of extraction sites as well as a higher graft yield per session.

Upon shaving the back and sides (so called "safe zone"), more isolated alopecic Lupus lesions were evident. Donor area soon after 1000
grafts extractions.
Patient is able to cover up the donor areas soon after surgery utilizing ample hair located both below and above the donor area.
 
RECIPIENT IMPLANTATIONS :
At the start of surgery. Soon after 950+ scalp
hair implantation.

MONTHS AND COUNTING
It takes 9-12 months for the cosmetic result of a typical hair transplant to manifest.
This patient is being seen every month. We had the opportunity of taking some
photos at her 2 month visit. At this point the following are of interest:

1. Yield
2. Donor healing thus far
3. Donor hair re-growth (a very important issue for a woman)
4. Signs of Lupus activity.

RECIPIENT AREA AT 2 MONTHS:

Before
At 2 months
 
Extraction sizes
(25G needle inserted)
Immediately after surgery. 2 months later. Hair re-growth
to patients delight.
 
 
At the 2 month mark a 2mm biopsy was done to verify disease activity. Patient's medications have been re-adjusted subsequently, and progress continues unhindered.
   
 
Further updates will continue.
 
 
Front 9 months after procedure
A new full head of hair