Hair Restoration Blog

Q:

Scar of face lift surgery

I believe I am a casualty of a brow lift gone wrong.  Three and half years after my brow lift surgery, I am seeing extreme hair loss on the top of my head, with itching burning and a crawling sensation at the affected area.

If this conclusion is correct will any treatment stop the hair loss? Will hair transplantation work?
Thank you

A:

Recession of hairline in a male patterned after a face lift surgery

The condition you are describing may be the beginning of cicatricial alopecia or hair loss secondary to a face or brow lift surgery.  You need to be seen by a good hair restoration surgeon or dermatologist for a close evaluation.  Brow Lift or face lift surgeries require incisions in the scalp that result in scarring and hair loss at the point of incision and around it on the temporal or frontal areas.  This hair loss condition could be seen as a complication of the face lift procedure with unknown mechanism.

Although a rare side effect of the face lift surgery, as a hair transplant surgeon with particular experience and interest in scalp scar revisions, I see many patients with hair loss after face lift procedures in our California hair transplant offices.  Your condition has two components; 1. the scar of incision in the hairy part of scalp; 2. the loss of hair on the temples and frontal areas.   Both these problems can be easily treated with transplanting hair into the scar and on the hair loss areas of the scalp.  If the procedure is done through follicular unit transplantation the result should be quite natural.

They have setup specific guidelines for identifying these physical traits as well as for performing hair transplantation and surgical excision in order to achieve optimal cosmetic outcomes and minimize postoperative complications.

Q:

Hi, My name is XX XX and I am from India. My age is 27 years. I am suffering from scarring alopecia from last 10 years. Initially I have 4-5 very small patches, but now they have increased slowly, these patches are very smooth and of red color. I never feel and pain, burn or sever itching on my scalp, but many times I feel sensation under my scalp area and on my face, it is just like something is moving. I have taken lots of treatments Dermatology, homeopathy, ayurveda but none of these worked, may be because I did not continue any one of them more than six month. One or two year back it was kind of arrest but from last one year it again starting and I can see some new small small smooth and red color patches. I am very depressed and don’t know what to do. Please tell me if you can help me in any kind of diagnose or treatment in your research center or by any other way, please help me out. I will be very grateful!!

A:

Scarring alopecia (Cicatricial Alopecia or CC) is a broad term that applied to a diverse group of hair loss disorders.  An inflammatory condition is usually present that causes destruction of the hair follicles.  Biopsy of the scalp is generally needed to establish the diagnosis. Treatment options are different based on the exact microscopic diagnosis.  In many cases the treatment of cicatricial alopecia is difficult and a complete recovery may not be achievable with medical treatments.

Hair transplant has been tried for the treatment of cicatricial alopecia for those who have a healthy donor hair with limited success.  In some cases the process of the disease may flare up and stimulate losing patient’s original hair along with the transplanted ones. I usually obtain a scalp biopsy from patients who have atypical patterns of baldness to role our cicatricial alopecia before planning for a hair restoration surgery in our Los Angeles Hair Restoration Centers.

My recommendation to you is to find a good dermatologist and stick with his or her plan. You need to understand that the treatment of cicatricial alopecia might be long and a complete recovery might not be achievable in many patients.