Dr Lam's Hair Restoration Forum

[T-Handrought]

Dr. Lam,

When a single graft consisting of one hair is taken from the doner area and transplanted to the top of the head, does that new transplanted follicle of one hair have the ability to grow more then one hair, or will it only grow one hair since only one hair was transplanted?

[dr. lam]

the hair will grow one hair with one exception. if the hair has a hair in telogen it may then grow out 2 to 3 depending on how many hairs are in telogen (sleepy phase). in most cases you can see the telogen hair when you transplant it so it may look like 1 but would really be a 2 or 3.

[ravimanohar]

Dear Dr.Lam
1.May i know,how you store grafts before transplant.I mean the time it is cut to the time it is placed in the slits.
Please can you elaborate on it.
2.At what temperature you store it.
3.Maximum upto how many hrs it can be stored without effecting its viability?
4.Do you use normal saline or ringerlactate for storing grafts?
5. Does your cutters arrange it immediately after each graft is cut or else they arrange just before placing.
6.How your cutters do slivering?under illuminated magnifers or stereomicroscope?if stereomicroscope,which one you use and under what magnification it is slivered?
7. How you keep your graft count in every case.

thanks in advance

[dr. lam]

we used a chilled saline bath with ice. we do not do stick and place but instead i create the sites and then my girls place about 1 hour after i finish making sites. there is no compromise in viability when done within an 8 to 10 hour window, which is how we do it. typically there is only a 2 hour delay to planting and a 4 hour time until completion from end of cutting. we use both stereomicroscopes and illumination. we have very good sight lines when we dissect. simply put, my girls are the best in the industry. we have the only published assistant textbook on the market, Hair Transplant 360, volume 2. graft counts are done as the girls cut. i also keep track of the recipient site counts per graft size so that there is a perfect match between the two numbers. thanks for the query.
best,
sml

[ravimanohar]

thanks for the reply.
May i know,what magnification you use for slivering the tissue under stereomicroscope.

[dr. lam]

We prefer 5 diopter maginification because it gives us the ability to see all the details necessary for good quality dissection and also provides a large field of dissection. I think you can get easily obsessed with the magnification but what is more important is the quality of the grafts that we believe is more easily attainable with 5 diopters than with 7.
best,
sml

[ravimanohar]

thanks for the reply.
May i know magnification in X .

[dr. lam]

honestly, i don't know. we go by diopters.

[ravimanohar]

thanks for your reply.
May i know,which steremicroscope you use(Model and company make).

[dr. lam]

Meiji microscopes. We also use broad-field mag illuminators.