The donor area is the source of healthy hair follicles taken in hair transplantation. These hair follicles are 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 are extracted from the donor area.

The donor area has been excessively stressed, and an attempt has been made to collect more hair follicles than it can healthily provide.

Why does overharvesting occur? Preventing the occurrence of overharvesting is crucial. However, it is associated with the following reasons:

1. Limited Resources of the Donor Area:

This situation is more common in individuals with a weak donor area. Each individual has a certain number of hair follicles in the donor area.

If a person extracts more roots than the natural limits of the donor area allow, the risk of overharvesting arises.

2. Careless Work and Excessive Graft Extraction:

The primary reason is related to the team performing 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-related reasons observed in the hair transplantation process.

3. Extracting Too Many Grafts at Once:

Achieving the ideal result in a hair transplantation procedure may not always be possible with a single operation. Especially in individuals with large open areas, planning should consider two operations.

If an attempt is made to achieve results with a single operation when two operations are necessary, overharvesting occurs.

Therefore, the hair transplantation team generally adopts a balanced and planned hair transplantation strategy to prevent this.

4. Damaged Extraction of Grafts:

The most critical stage of hair transplantation is the intact extraction of grafts. The team’s most significant success is the removal of grafts without partial or complete breakage or cutting.

If more grafts than necessary are extracted due to overharvesting, grafts can be damaged, especially when closely situated hair follicles are removed.

What are the damages of overharvesting?

After the occurrence of overharvesting, it is challenging to correct, 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 in the future when too many hair follicles are taken from the donor area. This can restrict the patients options for future hair transplantation.

2. Scar Formation:

Hair follicles should be collected at intervals. Extracting more hair follicles means that the hair follicles are removed very close to each other.

When the tiny holes created 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 minimized through 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 common consequence is the disturbance of the natural hairline, leading to an aesthetic imbalance.

4. Aesthetic Issues:

Overharvesting can negatively affect the overall aesthetic results of hair transplantation, 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 an undesirable situation.

5. Damage to the Donor Area:

Extracting an excessive number of hair follicles can lead to permanent 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 nourishing the hair follicles may be disrupted due to excessive harvesting.

This can result in the loss of healthy growth and a natural appearance of the remaining hair.

How to avoid overharvesting?

Individuals considering hair transplantation should choose experienced and expert hair transplantation centers. Expert teams try to minimize the risk of overharvesting by extracting only an appropriate amount of hair follicles from the donor area and collaborate 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 told that 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 the numbers they express are significantly high, approach with skepticism.

Extracting a large number of grafts is not the ability of the surgical team. The crucial factor is the undamaged extraction of a healthy amount of grafts.

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