By Emina Karamanovski

The only predictable thing about the human body is that it is unpredictable.  Scarring and the way we heal is one of those unpredictable human behaviors.  I have been observing variations in scar healing of hair-transplant patients for over 20 years.

Medical procedures like other things in life, improve through trials and errors.  Over the years we learned what to do or not to do in order to improve healing and leave smaller and almost undetectable scars.  We learned to limit the size of the donor harvesting, whether the width of the strip or the size of the tool used for follicular unit excision.  Then, we learned to space out a hair-transplant session to allow proper donor healing and minimize tension on the new scar. We also learned that a tight scalp can cause more skin stretching after the procedure and we developed scalp exercises. Several years ago, a French hair-transplant physician developed a new suturing technique, the tricophytic closure allowing hair to grow through newly forming cars.

However, the best techniques, the most careful surgeon, the most detailed procedure can create scars wider than anticipated or desired. For that reason we have also worked on scar correction techniques. Some have tried excising the undesired scar but that procedure may cause another scar possibly as wide or wider than the original.  Always striving to improve, Dr. Lam offers new solution for scar correction: a combination of grafting and micropigmentation.

The purpose of the procedure is to put hair into the scar and break its visual “linearity” and add micropigmentation to camouflage the color contrast between the scar and surrounding hair. Scars have a tendency to be lighter in color than the surrounding scalp and adding pigment makes the scar visually blend. The procedure is quick and easy: the grafts are obtained through follicular unit excision; no change in hairstyling is required; and the recovery is quick.  Dr. Lam and his team are excited about results obtained from this unique combination of two techniques.