A: There is not much you can do at this time. Depending upon the doctor’s suturing techniques; you may or may not have permanent hair loss from the trauma and subsequent suturing.

The problem is that if the sutures are placed too far from the wound edge they can strangulate hair follicles, particularly if there is any swelling. Hair loss may be temporary, but if it is permanent, it should be minimal.

Additional grafts can be added at your next hair restoration procedure to cover any area of hair loss and the scar from the injury, if it is visible.

A: Dying hair is a very common practice and hair loss in women who are 48 years old is also very common. The fact that the two have occurred together does not necessarily imply that there is a cause and effect relationship.

Women who are already losing hair often go to a great deal of effort to disguise this fact with dying, bleaching, and perming. These procedures, particularly if too aggressive, or done too frequently, can cause weakening and increased fragility of the hair shaft and increased hair breakage may result. This is more common if the hair is already fine in texture. This breakage is frequently interpreted as “hair loss” and it certainly does result in a significant loss of hair bulk, although the follicle itself is not damaged.

When there is a relationship between the hair dye and hair loss, it is usually an inflammatory/allergic or irritant reaction. If severe, there may be an actual burn. In these cases, there would be a history of redness and swelling.

An inflammatory reaction could cause hair loss but it would be unusual to damage follicles enough to produce scarring – although this occasionally does occur.

A scalp biopsy is often helpful to sort out these cases.

A: Staples are used for two main reasons.

The first is that being made of stainless steel; they don’t react with the skin and, therefore, cause little inflammation.

The second is that, unlike sutures which are used with a continuous spiral stitch, each staple is separate and this causes minimal interruption to the blood supply. The combination of little inflammation and minimal interference with the blood flow facilitates healing and minimizes damage to hair follicles.

Although sutures are generally more comfortable after the hair transplant, the doctors who choose to use staples do so because they are the least injurious to the hair in the donor area.

A: Not unless a person has a fair amount of existing hair that can cover the transplanted area.

Although surgical hair restoration techniques have improved dramatically over the past ten years, and wounds are so small that patients may shower the morning following the procedure, a hair transplant will be detectable for the first week. During this period, there may be some swelling that settles down on the forehead and some crusting and some residual redness.

Please visit the section on the Bernstein Medical – Center for Hair Restoration website entitled After Your Hair Restoration for more details. Also see the Instructions After Your Hair Restoration Surgery page regarding the normal post-op course following a hair transplant.