» It occurred to me that with all the excitement about plucked hairs bathed
» in ACell growing (and perhaps cycling) at their new recipient sites, has it
» been confirmed that these hairs are always growing back at the donor site?
»
» What if it’s a zero-sum game and the more of the follicle you pluck out,
» the more of a tendency there is for it to grow at the new site, but the
» less of a tendency it will have to grow back at the donor site.
»
» To me, the only way to confirm this is to cordon off a defined perimeter
» in the donor area, say by shaving down a 3 cm diameter circle, then letting
» the hairs grow long enough to pluck, and plucking out all the hairs in that
» circle (or, say, all the hairs in the center of the circle) and see how
» many actually grow back.
»
» I think we can’t just assume plucked hairs ALWAYS grow back. In general,
» yes they do, but just how reliably? Could it depend on the plucking
» technique? Maybe the best plucking technique to generate a new hair
» elsewhere, is also the one that can destroy or eliminate the follicle at
» the donor site.
As long ago as the early 1960s, I remember hearing that plucked hair will regrow. I also heard back then, that the more you shave your beard, the stronger it will grow–and we know what happened to that theory.
And I supposed that old statement about plucked hair regrowing, has been made so often since then (and probably long before then), that everyone–doctors and scientists included–accept it as gospel, not thinking to take a look at the studies that were done to prove plucked hair regrows–or even if there ever were such studies.
More likely this rule about plucked hair regrowing was the result of anecdotal observations, and not the result of a controlled experiment.
And the anecdotal evidence that plucked hair regrows being so strong, it is pretty safe–for now–to assume that the donor follicles Cooley and Hitzig plucked hair from, did regrow.
BUT since we are now talking about plucking on a large scale with the ultimate purpose of giving someone more hair overall than they started with–as opposed to the plucking of unwanted hair–it is important that a controlled scientific experiment be done to demonstrate that not only will plucked hair regrow—
But that also if a follicle repeatedly has its hair plucked from it, it will continue to grow hair.
I have suspected there is a possibility hair follicles are genetically programmed to cycle a fixed number of times in a person’s life.
If so, each time a hair if plucked from a follicle, you might be shortening by 3 to 6 years, the length of time that follicle will continue to produce hair.
Even if my suspiciion of a genetically limited number of cycles is incorrect, there is still a chance that repeated plucking of hair from the same follicle may eventually result in scarring alopecia.
Until either case is tested scientifically, it seems best to be prudent by not plucking the same donor follicle more than once, by carefully documenting where the hair is harvested for each plucked hair transplant session.
And when conducting such a scientific experiment, one must remember to be careful not to confuse any regrowth seen in the plucked donor area, with the hair growing from follicles in that area that were in the dormant phase of the hair cycle at the time of the plucking.