Over the past almost 20 years of performing thousands of hair transplants, I have come to appreciate the challenges of achieving natural-appearing results, for which there is no “technologic” substitute to the artistic ability and proper planting steps of the surgeon and his team.
Several automated hair transplant devices have been introduced in the past few years by different manufacturers, in part designed to make it easier for inexperienced doctors to start performing hair transplants, and in other cases to help doctors who lack trained assistants critical for graft dissection and/or planting to overcome the hurdle of assembling such a team. What these proprietary devices have in common is that they perform the removal of hair grafts through the same technique – follicular unit extraction (FUE) – which removes the grafts one by one using tiny punches. This makes FUE an excellent alternative to the follicular grafting (FUG) technique, which obtains the grafts from a single donor site strip.
The FUE technique, which I have been regularly performing since 2009, has rapidly grown in popularity due to its primary advantage that it avoids altogether a linear donor site incision scar. Not only does this sound less invasive to patients, it also permits most patients to cut their hair very short or even shave their heads completely without a visible linear donor site scar. This aspect of FUE is of tremendous appeal to many prospective patients and contributes to the increased demand for the procedure – a demand that these proprietary devices are designed to meet.
Question:
Hi Dr. Epstein.
I heared that some candidates are not suitable for transplantation because of not having very good donner site area.
In such case can few donner hairs combined with body hairs???
can we use the combination of both to achieve a fuller looks???
Answer:
Yes Rahul, sometimes patients do not have a very good donor supply, in which case body hairs can be obtained by the FUE technique to supplement the coverage. These body hairs are less reliable for transplanting, but can in some patients be quite good- especially when they come from the beard and sometimes the chest. Additional scalp hairs can typically be obtained in addition to those from the strip by doing the FUE technique at the same or subsequent procedure.Posted by Jeffrey Epstein, MD, FACS
I am still very much interested in having Dr Epstein do some work on my hair. Dr Epstein was kind enough to give me an estimate of # of grafts and price after I sent in photos, suggesting something around 2,000 follicular unit micrografts. He did my last transplant in 2001. He examined my head and thought I had lots of good donor areas left. He suggested 400 micrografts to fill in what I have. So. Since I love the job that Dr Epstein did for my brother, I am still inclined to come down to Miami!
Question:
How do you know if you are a good candidate for hair transplant or not? Are there some people who do not make good candidates?
Answer:
In today’s work, it is possible to get good hair transplant results with almost every patient because of the many improvements in the field and our extensive experience with different kinds of patients. However, there are some people who, because of their hair color, hair texture and scalp color, are better candidates than other people. Patients who have extremely pale scalps and thick, dark, straight hair may have a little tendency to be more difficult to transplant naturally than others, however good work will make a good result on almost any patient there is. If you have any questions regarding the texture of your hair and your scalp, you can certainly e-mail pictures to us or get a consult and we will go over it in great detail.
Question:
Will Propecia re-grow my hair?
Answer:
Propecia works mainly to slow down or stop the progression of loss. It works mostly in the crown. Propecia is a DHT blocker meaning it helps stop the DHT from getting to the hair follicle and eventually killing it. Once a hair follicle has died at the hands of DHT, it is gone forever. Many men taking Propecia get disappointed when it doesn’t magically re-grow all their hair. Then, they stop taking Propecia and they then lose the hair that the Propecia was helping hold on to.
Posted by Jeffrey S. Epstein, MD, FACS
Question:
What happens if I stop using Propecia?
Answer:
The hair that the Propecia was helping to not fall, will fall if use of the drug is not continued. Propecia is a DHT blocker. So, once Propecia is out of the blood stream, DHT can then get through and attack the hair follicles on the top of the head, causing permanent hair loss.
Posted by Jeffrey S. Epstein, MD, FACS
Question:
How many procedures can someone have in their lifetime?
Answer:
The answer depends on a number of factors, but the average guy has about 7000 – 10,000 donor area grafts to use. So, assuming an average procedure of about 2,000 grafts (some are more and some are less) then a man can have 3 on up to 6 or so.
Posted by Jeffrey S. Epstein, MD, FACS
Question:
Or what is the life time of Transplanted hair?
Answer:
The hairs we transplant do not have DHT receptors which is the cause of genetic hair loss. No matter where we transplant them they are permanent hairs and therefore will not fall out.
Posted by Jeffrey S. Epstein, MD, FACS
Question:
Means that, after cutting or shaving the transplanted hairs, will those hairs have natural growth or regrow again
Answer:
The hairs we transplant fall out initially although the follicle remains under the skin. The follicle takes root and regains blood supply and after about 3-4 months starts to regrow. It will then grow at the rate of your native hairs which, on average, is ¼ – ½ inch per month.
Posted by Jeffrey S. Epstein, MD, FACS
