Questions and Answers
November 15, 2010
“The information on this site is solely for purposes of general patient education, and may not be relied upon as a substitute for professional medical care. Consult your own physician for evaluation and treatment of your specific condition.”
Q. Probably my biggest concern is having to take propecia – I believe this is recommended in order to keep the remaining hair? I had a definite decrease in my sex drive when I took it previously and have read some pretty nasty stories about peoples long-term side effects on it. Is there any alternative to this you would recommend?
A. Minoxidil is the other thing you can use. If you have these side effects from propecia, just don’t take it or any related medications anymore.
Q. Is that strip method little old school than the SFET method?
A. Strip surgery is the more traditional and widely available HT method. Single Follicle Extraction and Transfer – SFETSFET is my technique for what most people refer to as Follicular unit Extraction – FUE. FUE type techniques being a less invasive method that does not create a linear scar and enables the expansion of donor supply by incorporating none head hair to the donor pool (body hair transplantation – BHT, may well be the future direction hair restoration takes. I will advise you to watch this video which explains the difference clearly:http://www.youtube.com/user/DrSUmar#p/u/13/oaciCGrSW-g
Q. Do you have any pictures of previous African American patients, including their outcomes, that I might be able to see?
Q. In your experience has there been an increased rate of complications with transplanting African Americans (i.e graft transection, scarring, ingrown hairs)?
A. Generally, the African American with tight curls can have a higher transection that can be unacceptable in very severe cases. I do not do transplants when the transection rate approaches 10%. When I perceive a tight curl in a patient, I recommend a test session before the full surgery. It is worth noting though that the reason for higher transaction rates in African Americans is not solely attributed to the tightness of the curls. The texture of the skin and the relationship between the graft and surrounding tissue appear to have an equally important role.
Q. Would it be best to schedule an in person consultation so I could have an idea of what to expect in terms of results?
A. This is not usually necessary. A good portion of my patients come from other states and countries. We have two forms of consultation:
Free on line consultation: Most patients use this. This is done by completing the free on line consultation form on this link of our website:http://www.dermhairclinic.com/free-online-consultation-hair-restoration-los-angeles/
Q. In your opinion would body hair be an appropriate source of donor hair to augment the transplant?
A. Body hair is not used as a first resort. It is resorted to in patients with qualified body/beard hair when there is a relative or absolute lack of head donor
Q. What is the rationale behind SFET testing?
A. It is done in few instances particularly in patients of African descent where the hair is tightly curled and the tissue is harder in texture with more intimate connection to the follicle. In the test session I will extract about 25-50 grafts and transplant to your area of choice all viable grafts. In an African American, the primary objective of the test is to gauge your transect ion rate. in order words whether the procedure would be viable in you. We are able to determine this rather quickly. If successful, your definitive surgery can be planned right away. You can decide to use the test to determine for yourself the healing characteristics and yield etc In that event, the next surgery can only be planned after you have satisfied yourself on the areas that are of interest to you. For both yield and healing, it could be 6 months or more.
Q. Can this possibly be performed with fewer grafts to reduce cost?
A. Less grafts translates to less coverage/density.
Q. I have a lot of gray in my head donor area. I would like to use only dark hair for the HT. IS that possible?
A. It is possible to selectively extract mostly dark hair. It is impossible to assure that only dark hairs manifest in a transplanted area using donor hair from an area dominated by gray hair. Also note that this selectivity could impact the number of available donor hair for the procedure.
if by using body or beard as the donor site how many hairs equal a graft.
Or how many single hair follicles can be done in any one session.
How many hairs per sq centre metre are there on a natural head, & how many can you transplant per sq c/m.
Also the cost per hair or c/m with max density ie:- coverage or do you charge say per 3,000 or 5,000, or maybe 10,000 follicles per sitting,
I do look forward to your timely reply,
Kind regards Frank
What is the minimum number of grafts needed for a hair transplant?
There is no minimum! Contact dr umar drumar@dermhairclinic.com to answer more specific questions
My daugther had an MVA and had grafting done to her foot it ended up being darker and wrinkled than the rest of her skin is there anything you can do to make it better she is just 13 years old
thanks
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Best regards
Hi Dr. Umar,
It was a pleasure meeting with you yesterday to discuss web site design and development. Although these projects are very interesting and I feel I could make a strong contribution to your business growth, I prefer not to take on projects on the WordPress platform.
Regards,
Dolores Piazza
323-256-2257
Hello Dr. Umar,
I’ve been experiencing hair loss only to the hairline region since I pressed my hair (by adding a relaxer to it) about 10 years ago. I experienced an allergic reaction (itching/hives) to the product and pretty sure that’s what caused my hairline loss. I am very much considering your services but live all the way in Raleigh, NC. What will be the procedures taken from beginning to end? In other words, how many sessions and trips am I facing to achieve my results? To cut down on trips, I am willing to send multiple angle views (pictures) for the preliminary process.
If I were to have a beard hair transplant to repair previous graft damage at back of head how long would it take for the beard donar area to heal so that there was no redness or visible scarring that people may notice?