Hair Transplant and Alopecia Areata
Q:
Dear Dr. Mohebi,
Hello, I am really interested in doing hair transplant by you, as my friends in California highly recommended you. I wonder if you can please help me with this questions:
- Which method would you recommend, FUT or FIT?
- I have had Alopecia areata in the past in back part of my head. It happened several times, last time 3 years ago. I wonder how it will affect my chance for doing hair transplant. I really appreciate if you can please answer me in details.
Thank you so much for your attention and time.
Sincerely,
S T
A:
Thanks for you interest in our hair restoration services. I will answer your questions in the order they were received:
- Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT) is the gold standard method in doing hair restoration. FUT is done in two methods 1. strip technique and 2. Follicular unit extraction (FUE, also called FIT). It has to do with your goals in hair restoration and you can read more about advantages and disadvantages of FUE in my hair restoration blog. Planning on doing one vs. the other needs to be discussed with the patient during the initial consultation.
- Alopecia areata (AA) is an autoimmune disorder and usually a reversible condition in which a patient loses hair in a patchy fashion. It affects transplanted hair the same as normal hair. I generally make sure that patients don’t have active AA before proceeding with hair transplant. A physical examination is extremely important in differentiating between male patterned baldness and diffuse alopecia areata (a rare type of alopecia areata). In undiagnosed cases of alopecia areata, if a patient gets a transplant in the balding area that hair is lost due to AA, there is a risk that patient will lose the transplanted hair with the same mechanism.
Tags: AA, alopecia areata, Encino, hair loss, hair transplant, hair transplant surgery, los angeles hair transplant, male patterned hair loss, patchy hair loss
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Here is another question and answer that I received today:
Q:
I am a 24 year old girl. I have had Alopecia Areata ever since I was 4 years old. I have small patches on my head. They are not very severe and they have never increased in size. Over the past few years they have only got better. I am looking for some sort of permanent solution and I was wondering if Hair Transplant is a solution for me.
A:
Here is your answer in the last post on my blog:
http://ushairrestoration.com/blog/2008/12/hair-transplant-and-alopecia-areata/
I guess your best bet is only to wait and watch for now. It is good that you see constant improvement. If you stopped seeing improvement and your balding spots were unchanged for a long time you need more evaluation to make sure you don’t have active lesion before thinking of any other procedures, such as partial excision of lesion or hair transplant.