Shock Loss After Hair Transplant
First of all, thanks for this great blogging avenue. I am very thankful that this website is around.
I’m a bit concern w/ my recent hair transplant. i’m only 27 years old, and had decided to have a 2nd hair transplant done one month ago. i was mainly just thinning in my front side, and was convinced by my hair surgeon that i should get a 2nd hair procedure done to add thickness in the thinning front side. Please note that the sides of my front have been pretty thick already, but i did have a few thinning gaps in the top center of my scalp. Overall, i had a total of 1500 grafts transplanted on the front and a few on the center of my scalp (crown).
Immediately after the surgery, i felt remorseful. i realized i should’ve done more research. It just didn’t occur to me until the day after the surgery that this procedure might cause me to lose my native hair faster. Right now, i notice a few shock loss on the frontal thinning hair. I don’t think the center had much (if any) shock loss, as it had pretty thick native hair already.
I was wondering, would this shock loss accelerate the affected hair to retirement stage? Lastly, overall, do you think this hair transplant will make my native hair to thin out faster had I not done the transplant? I recall that my hair surgeon informed me that it shouldn’t be the case, and that any thinning results would be directly from my own thinning pattern.
Please support. Thanks in advance.
A:
Many people who undergo a hair transplant have some degree of miniaturization (thinning hair shafts) on the balding area, which indicates there is active hair loss in those areas. Miniaturized hair is when your hair has already started the process of balding. Although the process of hair loss is usually very gradual and it may take years to complete, stressor (either physical or emotional) may accelerate the loss and facilitate the process of balding in prone hair (in thinning areas).
Shock loss is losing hair in an area with significant miniaturization due to a stressor. Shock loss after hair transplants used to be common in the past. However, using prescription medication for hair loss is proven to prevent this type of hair loss after hair transplant or significantly minimize it. I usually start all my patients on it a few days before their hair transplant and continue it for at least six to eight months if they do not want or cannot continue it for the rest of their lives.
In regards to whether or not this hair transplant can affect the thickness of your native hair, I cannot say without performing a miniaturization study (examining hair with a microscope to determine the rate of miniaturized hair). If you had a large number of miniaturized hair to start with, you would be running a higher chance of shock loss. The chance of shock loss is usually higher for the first hair transplant. It seems like if you were to have a lot of vulnerable hair, you would have lost them mostly at your first hair transplant surgery. I recommend that you go on it as soon as possible to protect your native hair if you are not already on it. That is all you can do at this point.