You paid once.
Do not pay twice for
the same mistake.
Revision is a different discipline from a first transplant. Your donor is partly spent, the scarring is already there, and the previous surgeon's design decisions are permanent until somebody undoes them. The second most expensive mistake in hair restoration is choosing the wrong repair clinic after choosing the wrong first one. This page tells you what can be corrected and what cannot.
What is actually wrong?
Most patients arrive saying "it failed". Repair planning depends entirely on which of these is true, because each has a different ceiling.
What repair can and cannot do
- ✓Pluggy grafts, by extraction and redistribution
- ✓Hairline that is too low or too straight, by softening and repositioning
- ✓Wrong angle in a defined zone, by removing and re-siting
- ✓Strip scar, by camouflage grafting or micropigmentation
- ✓Island effect, by medical stabilisation plus blending grafts
- ✕Donor hair that has already been extracted and wasted
- ✕Deep scarring in the donor bed that cannot regrow hair
- ✕Density beyond what the remaining donor can supply
- ✕Follicles destroyed by poor handling during the first surgery
- ✕Your original pre-surgery scalp. Repair improves, it does not reset.
Any clinic promising a full correction before counting your remaining donor density is repeating the mistake that brought you here. The count comes first. The plan comes second. The quote comes third.
In this order, no exceptions
- Donor audit. Physical density count per square centimetre across the safe zone, plus trichoscopy. This tells us what currency you have left.
- Recipient audit. Mapping of existing graft angle, direction, calibre, scarring and ridging under magnification.
- Ceiling statement. A written statement of the maximum achievable outcome. If it is short of what you want, you are told before you pay, not after.
- Staging plan. Extraction and redistribution first, new grafting second, usually separated by nine to twelve months.
- Fixed quote. Valid ninety days. No pressure to decide, and an explicit instruction to get a second opinion.
- 1Your original operative note or discharge summary
- 2The graft count you were charged for
- 3Pre-operative photographs if you have them
- 4Date of surgery and technique used
- 5Any medication you were put on afterwards
- 6Photos of the donor area with hair cut short
If the previous clinic will not release your records, say so. It happens often and it does not stop the assessment.
Revision work,
on the record.
Corrections are photographed to the same standard as first transplants, and captioned as revisions so nobody mistakes a repair for a straightforward case.
All documented resultsRevision surgery corrects hair transplants performed elsewhere. Pluggy grafts can be extracted and redistributed, a hairline placed too low can be moved back, and misdirected grafts can be re-sited at the natural angle. A donor area that was over-harvested cannot be restored, which is why every revision assessment at this clinic begins with the donor rather than the front.
Questions people actually ask
Can a bad hair transplant be fixed?
Often, but not always, and what is correctable depends on what went wrong. Pluggy grafts can be extracted and redistributed, a hairline placed too low can be moved back, and wrong angles can be re-sited. A donor area that was over-harvested cannot be given back, which is why the assessment starts there.
Read before you decide
Signs of a bad hair transplant, and what can be fixed
Seven things that go wrong, what each one is called, and which of them are correctable.
Read →How to choose a hair transplant clinic: ten questions
Ask these at every clinic you shortlist, including this one. The answers separate them faster than any before-and-after gallery.
Read →Your donor area is a budget you only get to spend once
The number most consultations never mention, and the reason a clinic that says yes to everything is not doing you a favour.
Read →