Procedure detail
Vonetta is a 35 year old woman who came to see us
about a large area of hair loss down the center of her scalp. This occurred as a
result of a childhood injury that not only caused hair loss but also very
noticeable white scarring due to unsuccessful surgery.
This had effected her self esteem her entire life and she always felt
self-conscious despite wearing a wig.She was unable to afford any hair
restoration procedures. The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery
has a program called “Operation Restore” for patients like Vonetta, who need
surgery to correct hair loss due to trauma but are unable to afford it. Because
I am a participating volunteer surgeon for this program, I agreed to perform all
her procedures at no charge under this program for needy patients.Hair
transplantation alone would not have completely corrected the problem because of
the underlying white scar tissue. Therefore I performed two scalp reduction
procedures (4/21/07 and 5/18/07) to remove the scar tissue. This was
quite successful and the area was now ready for transplantation.On 8/14/07 and 2/27/08, she underwent two 1,500 graft sessions of
follicular unit transplantation, totaling approximately 3,000 grafts. Generally
grafts grow surprisingly well in scars, as long as careful surgical techniques
are followed, allowing adequate blood supply to each graft. Although, the final
photos were taken only six months out from the second procedure,
the improvement is evident. One can also see the change in her self-image by the
expression on her face. The positive effect on her self esteem has been very
gratifying for all of the members of my team to see. She no longer wears a wig
and is much more outgoing. The ISHRS encourages patients who think they may
qualify to apply directly to them. If accepted, they will be matched with a
participating volunteer physician.
