My Sister’s Hair Transplant Looks Artificial, Please Help.

Thank you for your inquiry. There are several issues with your sister’s transplant that need to be addressed. The first one is the issue regarding her “artificial” appearing result. Reputable, experienced physicians should be able to create a frontal hairline that appears totally undetectable as a transplant. Some of the factors that may cause an unnatural appearance are the use of grafts with too many hairs, improper direction or angulation of hairs, or a hairline that is too “linear.” These are all problems that can be addressed and corrected by an experienced physician using the proper corrective techniques.

The second issue, the appearance of less hair than she had before the surgery, is somewhat more difficult to address but there may be several reasons for this result. The first could be that she experienced shock loss of the preexisting hair to such a great degree that the overall number of hairs is in fact less than she had prior to surgery. The second is that the preexisting hair was moderately dense to begin with and the trauma from the surgery damaged some of those follicles and there was a net loss of hair following the surgery. The third reason could be that many of the preexisting hairs were “weak”from whatever process was causing the hair loss to begin with (for example female pattern loss) and the surgery caused shock loss and the weaker preexisting hair never recovered. Finally, the process of hair loss has just continued since the surgery and she has lost many of the preexisting hairs and now only has transplanted hair.

Your sister must be evaluated to determine the state of her donor hair. If she has very fine or miniaturized hair in the donor area she may never be able to achieve high density or may even find out that she is not a candidate for further surgery to achieve density. However she should be able to achieve a natural appearance at the frontal hair line with the proper corrective procedures. I would encourage her to visit an experienced, well qualified hair restoration to investigate treatment options with her.