[Clough]

Hi, All!

Had a large area of skin cancer removed from my nose and slightly above my right eye a couple of months ago. The graft for it was from an area directly on the front of my collar bone.

Have now found some hairs growing out of the graft. They definitely aren't whiskers!

What might I do about the hairs in order to play it safe with the skin graft, please?

Thanks!

[thisisit]

Is the skin graft healed? If it is healed you could pluck the hairs with tweezers.

[Clough]

Hi, thisisit!

The skin graft would appear to be healed. Although, it's still a little bumpy around the edges.

Thanks!

[thisisit]

Tweezing should be safe, then. Are there many hairs? That is the thing about skin grafts... if the grafted skin grew hair at its original sight, it will grow hair at its transplanted sight too.

[Clough]

Right now, there appear to be only four or five hairs. But, remember that I had the surgery over two months ago.

Maybe more hairs are on their way?

[thisisit]

Could be... do you have a very hairy chest/collar bone area? It might seem inconvenient but the hairs growing is a good sign that the graft is healthy. One good thing about tweezing is that it takes a couple weeks, maybe longer, for the hair to grow back :)

[Clough]

Yes, I have a very hairy chest and collar bone area! You're getting pretty personal, there! :p

I'm glad that the hairs are a sign that it's most likely a healthy graft! :)

Am worried, that with tweezing, that I might damage something because I can't feel anything there.

[thisisit]

I would worry about that too if it were me...

Make sure you clean your tweezers with alcohol, just in case you accidentally pinch some skin. Wear magnifying glasses to help you get a better look at what you are doing, to minimize risk. You are lucky you can't feel it (as far as having to tweeze the hair goes), because pulling hairs out normally hurts!

I'm curious as to why the doctor used your collar bone skin instead of the inside of your upper arm, for instance... or someplace else that doesn't have a lot of hair.

How big of an area is the skin graft? Is it the size of a dime, a nickel, a quarter? Once it is completely healed and healthy, you can expect almost as many hairs to grow from it as there are at the site it was taken from.

[thisisit]

Also, a magnifying mirror would help you see better

[Clough]

I just looked closely last night, and there's A LOT of hairs on the skin graft! Most of them are very light.

The surgeon had stated the area on the portion of the collar bone would be the closest match for on my nose and that portion of my face.

The area of the skin graft is roughly a little more than the area that would be taken up by two nickels side by side.

I'll see about getting a magnifying mirror. I especially like the ones that stick out from a wall.

Do you think that using a cream that removes hairs would be okay to use on it? I know that might be a question that would be better to be asked of a health professional. However, maybe someone here has experience with using hair removers on a skin graft.

Thanks!

[thisisit]

That is quite a large area... the hair removal cream would be OK, its just that if any (and I mean even just a drop) gets on your eyebrow or in the hair on your head, it will also be removed.

[Clough]

You've got a very good point about that!

I hadn't even thought of that possibility!

Does a hair removal cream "kill" anything concerning the skin, please?

Thanks!

[thisisit]

No, it doesn't kill anything, though it might irritate the edges of the graft. The edges might not be completely healed yet. I know its been several months, but you had full thickness skin graft and that does take a long time to heal. It has been 3 weeks since I had my latest round of skin cancer spots removed and I still have some scabs. I did not get skin grafts but the wounds were deep and stitched up.

If you use the hair removal cream, you do have to be careful about where it touches. I can remember one time when my girlfriend and I used NAIR, (we were teenagers) she didn't wipe ALL of it off her finger before she wiped her bangs off her forehead and accidentally touched one of her eyebrows with it. It was such a small amount that neither of us noticed, until half her eyebrow came off.

You can do a test spot on your collar bone area before you put it on your skin graft. That way you will get an idea of how the stuff works before you put it on your face. Sometimes it is irritating to sensitive skin. You probably should also call the doctor's office and ask the nurse if it would be safe yet to use a cream like that.

In the mean time, tweezers are safe as long as you can see clearly what you are plucking :)