The donor area is the source of healthy hair follicles taken in hair transplantation. These hair folliclesare typically extracted from areas with genetically permanent hair that does not experience hair loss.
In hair transplantation, overharvesting refers to the situation where too many hair follicles areextracted from the donor area.
The donor area has been excessively stressed, and an attempt hasbeen made to collect more hair follicles than it can healthily provide.
Why does overharvesting occur? Preventing the occurrence of overharvesting is crucial. However, itis associated with the following reasons:
1. Limited Resources of the Donor Area:
This situation is more common in individuals with aweak donor area. Each individual has a certain number of hair follicles in the donor area.
If aperson extracts more roots than the natural limits of the donor area allow, the risk ofoverharvesting arises.
2. Careless Work and Excessive Graft Extraction:
The primary reason is related to the teamperforming the hair transplantation.
– Inexperience of the team
– The team working hastily or carelessly
– Pressure on the team from sales and marketing
These are the most team-relatedreasons observed in the hair transplantation process.
3. Extracting Too Many Grafts at Once:
Achieving the ideal result in a hair transplantationprocedure may not always be possible with a single operation. Especially in individuals withlarge open areas, planning should consider two operations.
If an attempt is made to achieveresults with a single operation when two operations are necessary, overharvesting occurs.
Therefore, the hair transplantation team generally adopts a balanced and planned hairtransplantation strategy to prevent this.
4. Damaged Extraction of Grafts:
The most critical stage of hair transplantation is the intactextraction of grafts. The team’s most significant success is the removal of grafts withoutpartial or complete breakage or cutting.
If more grafts than necessary are extracted due tooverharvesting, grafts can be damaged, especially when closely situated hair follicles areremoved.
What are the damages of overharvesting?
After the occurrence of overharvesting, it is challenging tocorrect, and often the problems it causes cannot be rectified.
1. Reduced Hair Density in the Donor Area and Limited Resources for Future Hair Transplant
Procedures:
Overharvesting can leave limited resources to meet the additional hair needs inthe future when too many hair follicles are taken from the donor area. This can restrict thepatients options for future hair transplantation.
2. Scar Formation:
Hair follicles should be collected at intervals. Extracting more hair folliclesmeans that the hair follicles are removed very close to each other.
When the tiny holescreated during the extraction of hair follicles come together during healing, scar tissue forms.
Scar tissue in the back of the head where the hair is thinning gives an unhealthy appearance.The treatment of scar tissue is difficult. It is usually not completely treated but minimizedthrough approaches such as laser, radiofrequency, and long-term cream treatment.
3. Disturbance of the Natural Hairline:
In cases of overharvesting in the donor area, a commonconsequence is the disturbance of the natural hairline, leading to an aesthetic imbalance.
4. Aesthetic Issues:
Overharvesting can negatively affect the overall aesthetic results of hairtransplantation, including gaps due to excessive collection resulting in a bald appearance,scar tissue formation, and an uneven density appearance left after hair transplantation.
Losing the natural appearance after undergoing hair transplantation for a better look is anundesirable situation.
5. Damage to the Donor Area:
Extracting an excessive number of hair follicles can lead topermanent damage to the donor area. While new hair does not grow in the extracted areas,the healthy skin structure of the donor area and the capillary vascular structure nourishingthe hair follicles may be disrupted due to excessive harvesting.
This can result in the loss ofhealthy growth and a natural appearance of the remaining hair.
How to avoid overharvesting?
Individuals considering hair transplantation should chooseexperienced and expert hair transplantation centers. Expert teams try to minimize the risk ofoverharvesting by extracting only an appropriate amount of hair follicles from the donor area andcollaborate with patients to create a personalized hair transplantation plan.
If there are extensive open areas on your head, especially at Stage 6 and Stage 7, and you are toldthat they can be completely covered with a single operation, be cautious.
If some centers claim that they can collect a large number of grafts from your donor area, and thenumbers they express are significantly high, approach with skepticism.
Extracting a large number ofgrafts is not the ability of the surgical team. The crucial factor is the undamaged extraction of ahealthy amount of grafts.
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