Does a Hair or Beard transplant Leave Scars?
With the increase of technology, hair transplant methods have evolved and become safer and more accurate compared to the past. Doctors perform hair restoration surgeries with new techniques that leave no scar and their recovery time is faster than before.
Nevertheless, there are still lots of misconceptions regarding hair transplantation, especially on scarring after hair transplant or scars after beard transplant, due to the old methods like Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT), which is also known as the strip procedure, with an infamous linear scar.
As of Dr. Serkan Aygin Clinic, with this article, we want to clarify the actual risk of scarring after hair surgery and show our patients the best transplant procedures to avoid such risk.
Scarring in a hair or beard transplant: When does it happen?
As we mentioned above, thanks to the most advanced hair transplant techniques, the recovery in the post-operation phase became shorter and smoother, decreasing the chance of poor wound healing. However, some factors can still affect your final hair results and cause scarring.
Wrong Procedure
An inexperienced hair transplant team could lead to a poor result.
Sometimes, unqualified surgeons can wrongly perform a hair procedure by extracting too many grafts or using unorthodox techniques that cause excessive scarring in the donor or transplanted area.
For this reason, at Dr. Serkan Aygin Clinic, we are carefully choosing the most appropriate transplant method to achieve natural and aesthetically pleasing results for our patients, in accordance with their particular case.
Patient’s Condition
Age and different types of skin can give different results.
The success of the final results of a hair transplant or a beard transplant may depend on the different characteristics of the patients. For example, younger patients are expected to experience a faster and easier recovery thanks to the elasticity of their skin.
On the contrary, with time, the skin of older patients could potentially sag, and scarring would become more visible.
Also, some patients may suffer from a rare scarring condition, also known as a keloid scar. Those people are prone to suffer from more extensive scarring after hair surgery. This skin condition is more frequent among darker-skinned people, but most of the time is due to genetic predisposition.
Therefore, people suffering from such a condition should discuss it with their doctor before undergoing a hair restoration operation.
Not following post-transplant guidelines
Consuming alcohol and nicotine impair wound healing and increase scarring.
After a hair or beard transplant, patients should follow the post-procedure guidelines since there is plenty of aftercare information that they are expected to follow to achieve the best hair transplant result.
Smoking or drinking alcohol in the first days after the operation would severely affect your blood pressure and narrow and stiffen the blood vessel. Clinical evidence showed that the consumption of such substances in the early stage of post-operation causes a delay in your recovery process and leads to poor scarring.
Which hair transplant method does not leave a scar?
In the past, Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT), which is also known as Strip Method was one of the most predominant styles of transplant. In this technique, surgeons remove a strip of scalp from the donor area, extracting individual hair follicles from that strip of skin. Back then, the FUT technique was considered more appropriate for people who needed a high number of grafts. However, the procedure was more painful and used to leave a linear permanent scar in the donor site.
Therefore, at Dr. Serkan Aygın Clinics, we do not perform the FUT procedure at all because we consider it an outdated technique and for this reason, we prefer to offer our patients treatments that won’t leave a scar, namely Sapphire FUE and DHI.
These two methods offer a quicker recovery to patients, as well as stunning long-term results.
Sapphire FUE
The special type of blades with sapphire minimize scabbing and scarring through opening micro-channels in the recipient area. The small incisions are at the same length as the hair follicles, making them almost invisible.
Thanks to the sharpness of the sapphire blades and their antimicrobial component, the risk of complications such as scalp damage tissue, scarring, or infections are diminished in the Sapphire FUE method. This innovative technology also ensures higher density for patients with predominant hair loss, giving them a natural hair look.
DHI
The use of the Choi implanter DHI pen enables a better and faster hair grafting implanting, with no need for incisions, accelerating the recovery time and wound healing.
As said above, during a DHI hair transplant, the extracted follicles are directly inserted in the Choi pen and placed under the skin without making incisions. This procedure does not only increases the follicles’ rate of survival, but also minimizes the trauma, bleeding, and scarring that could be caused by damage to the tissues.
How to Treat Scarring After a Hair Transplant?
The newest methods of hair transplantation neither leave scars nor require stitches.
But in case of wrong hair surgery, that caused visible scarring, what should a patient do to treat it? Are those scarring permanent? Let us examine some of the best ways to cover scarred areas.
Scalp Micro-Pigmentation (SMP)
Micro-pigmentation is a medical technique used to cover bald areas or scarring by tattooing the scalp. This treatment aims to darken the treated area to obtain a fuller hair appearance.
Generally, based on the vastity of the area to cover, are required multiple sessions before achieving the final result.
Laser Treatment
The laser treatment used together with the micro-pigmentation can help to reduce the scar visibility. The laser therapy targets only the aimed area, eliminating the damaged tissues in the scalp or face. Furthermore, it can help stimulate collagen production, one of the most important proteins of the body. The stimulation of skin collagen can rejuvenate the derma elasticity. Accordingly, the scarring visibility will be reduced drastically after the laser treatment.
To conclude, hair and beard transplants become a safer procedure that gives the best result to patients suffering from hair loss. While in the past, most of the scarring was caused by the FUT technic, today the risk of a slow healing process is diminished thanks to new hair transplant methods such as Sapphire FUE and DHI.
However, choosing an experienced doctor before undergoing hair or beard surgery is the most important step. Thanks to the profound experience of Dr. Serkan Aygin in the field and the highly trained medical staff, the success rate of hair transplantation in Dr. Serkan Aygin Clinic is around 95%.
So, if you are considering undergoing a hair transplant procedure in Turkey, please get in contact with our team, we will be glad to help you.
