Category: FUE

Posted on

I Want an FUE Procedure After Already Having 3 Strip Procedures – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

I had 3 strip hair transplants in the late 1990s, they came out OK but being that I’m around a 5-6 on the Norwood scale and got only a little more than 3,000 grafts total, it’s just too dang thin. All-in-all I’ve never quite decided for sure whether going the HT route was worth it or not, sometimes I think yes, sometimes I should have just shaved my head.

Anyway I’ve researched FUE quite a bit over the past year or so and have signed up for a 1,000-1,200 FUE procedure over 2 days with a doctor who is known as being one of the best in the business at FUE. My goal is fairly modest I think — no crown work or lowering the hairline or anything, just adding grafts on top towards the front to make it look less thin (I won’t even say thicker, I’ll settle for less thin). I’m hoping this final result meets my expectations (which I truly believe are realistic and not at all grandiose).

Does my plan sound reasonable to you? Or would you say there’s a big chance I’ll end up in the same unenthusiastic place about the whole thing, minus $8-$10K and a few more weeks of my life?

You put me in a very precarious position with your question. While it is understandable that you are seeking a second opinion on your decision to have an FUE procedure, you are asking me if the clinical judgment made by your doctor was correct without a formal examination from me. If you would like a second opinion, please make an appointment to see me.

That being said, if your doctor cannot answer the same questions you are posing to me then there is a communication issue. As a Class 6 pattern with 3000 grafts already in, I would expect (assuming that a complete pattern balding was your ‘before’ status) that the addition of 1000 grafts now to the 3000 that is already there may make only a marginal impact on the thin appearance. There are tricks in the art of this process that can make 1000 grafts act like 2000 grafts. Of course, what I am saying does not reflect the characteristics of your hair or its thickness, or the surgeons plan or in particular what you look like now and where these grafts are going to be put.

Posted on

Hair Loss InformationCancer and Hair Transplants – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi Doc,
I have written to you before. For a while I have been “shopping around” for the best techniques, as well as how cost effective the available procedures are. So far by comparison, NHI has the most natural looks I’ve seen. (in the mild or moderate cases, the more severe cases are less convinceing.) However, my question is this: If you have oily skin, is this a problem for surgery or healing. Also, I was close to have the transplant surgery. I postponed further pursuit of the surgery due to possible symptoms of cancer. (Tests were negative thank God). Now if that ever were the case, I am assumeing that if you had a transplant surgery, chemotheropy would cause all hair to fall out. In conclusion, Is scarring so severe, that being bald or even desireing a haircut style cut close (military style) would bring an alarming rate of attention? I thank you in advance for answering my concerns…

Block Quote

To begin, I am happy to hear that the recents test for cancer were negative. No, oily scalp is not a problem for a hair transplant.

If you drive your life in fear of cancer then you have a problem that needs professional help. Chemotherapy MAY cause hair loss anywhere in the body as chemo impacts rapidly growing cells in the body. Ask yourself what drives your life. When hair is lost with transplants, it almost always returns after the the course of chemotherapy is completed. You can live in fear of what may happen and play into those fears by creating a life around “what if”. Healthy people may have a worst case scenario, but live their lives for meaning, love, happiness, family, friends, and such.

As far as your concerns about scarring, I would suggest that you research the Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) procedure. You can find more information about this here, here, and here.

Posted on

Failure Rate of Graft Extraction in FUE – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

In FUE / FIT — Minimally Invasive Hair Transplants you said: “One tool worked consistently at 100%, while others methods had failure rates in the same patient ranging from 90-20%.”

Is that a typo (should it be 9-20%), or is it really 90-20%? Also by “failure”, do you mean failure to extract the graft, or failure for the graft to grow?
Thanks

My focus here was on the various tools that produce different results in different patients during the harvesting process. What I was doing was counting hairs that were successfully harvested with each tool I was using and keeping track of the hairs that failed to be harvested. One tool in the particular referenced patient produced 100% successful harvesting, while other tools caused more hair loss during the harvesting process. The problem that I was sharing was that one tool does not always work the same in every patient, so there is a great art in the harvesting process for FUE and the surgeon must be aware of all approaches to determine what works best for each patient. Still, with that said, not every patient is a candidate for FUE for either technical reasons (10% are not candidates) or for indications, matching expectations with reality, desires, budgets and the number of grafts needed to accomplish objectives.

Balding Forum - Hair Loss Discussion

Paid advertisements (not an endorsement):


Posted on

FUE for African American Hair – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Question / Comments:
How effective is FUE on African-American hair? What are some of the challenges with African-American proceedures. I would like to have side-burns which I have minimum growth now. Is scarring more prevelant with darker skinned people?

Thanks for your responses.

Block Quote

FUE on African-American hair is very difficult to perform, but if you are serious, we can test your hair to find out how good a candidate you are. If your hair is kinky, you might not want kinky hair on the side burns. This is a real risk. Darker skinned people usually have more scarring risk, but this is not the case in the scalp as much as other parts of the body. As I have an office in San Jose and you indicated that you are there as well, you should come by for a visit. If, after the consultation you want to take the next step, then a biopsy would be indicated to determine your candidacy for FUE. Call my office at 800-NEW-HAIR to setup a free consultation.

Posted on

Using FUE for Scar Repair – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

Trying to do scar repair on strip scar from 800 graft surgery. I was told the 500 FUE’s into scar would conceal it enough to shave my head or am I better off doing a Trichophytic Donor Closure. Scar is about 5 1/2 inches long and a 1/4 inch to slighlty smaller wide. Tryin to do this just once. Doctor told me he has about 80% growth with FUE (can that be true?). I would like to shave my head completely bald with a razor. please advise. Thank You

There is no guarantee that 500 grafts would cover the donor scar in a single surgery. Based upon that measurement, I would think that 250-300 grafts in two sessions might do the job. The problem is density per hair/graft and that they can not be placed too close in a single session, as that may be unrealistic in a scar (which is often not compliant as it does not stretch well). Packing the grafts too closely in the scar may produce a failure of some of the grafts to grow.

Growth in a scar varies between people. Most people will get 80-90+% growth if the spacing is properly placed. The FUE procedure itself is a reflection of the particular doctor’s skills in doing them (harvesting, graft preparation, placement). I cannot comment on the skill of a doctor I do not know and have not personally observed.

Balding Forum - Hair Loss Discussion

Paid advertisements (not an endorsement):


Posted on

Hair Loss InformationWhat is the Choi Implanter? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I am reading your site with great interest. I have also looked into the Choi procedure, and one well-known Choi advocate in the UK (where I also live) offers what seems to be a reasonable package, in Athens Greece. I was wondering if you could tell me more about the Choi procedure and does it yield the BEST results, with regards to density with least scarring as it is claimed? Why do some people say that FUE is not so effective? Is an “needle implanter” better than the conventional method? What about the use of Choi around the world? For instance USA, Japan, Australia? Any advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

Block Quote

The Choi implanter is just a surgical tool. It makes some aspects of the transplant easier to perform, especially for those people who did not develop the difficult placing skills with the more traditional transplant tools used throughout the world. An instrument is only as good as the person using it, so I can not package the tool with the technique. The Choi generally requires ‘skinny’ grafts, which tend to dry out more easily, therefore, this instrument requires special skills, different than those that do not have to make the grafts skinny. Some people believe that skinny grafts do not grow as well. I believe that in the right hands, with the years of experience, skinny grafts should grow as well a chubby grafts. The grafts we make are half way between skinny and chubby, just my preference.

The Choi implanter did not develop a following in the United States. In Asia and other parts of the world, it is very popular. I do not believe that it is any better than anything else that the surgeons have perfected in their native countries.

To answer your questions about FUE, I would suggest that you look at the FUE category of this blog.

Posted on

Hair Loss InformationWoods Technique and FUE – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Do you use the Woods style of hair transplant? Also are you in California?

Block Quote

Dr. Woods (in Australia) probably is doing something like what I published in 2002 and called Follicular Unit Extraction. He kept what he was doing very secret, whereas I always publish my advances as I prove and document them for the world to see. As such, Dr. Woods promoted what he was doing on the Internet and launched a marketing campaign to sell a technique that sounds just like what we developed in California and New York. But as Woods never told anyone what ‘magic’ formula he was using, I can not claim to be using his technique. The FUE technique was defined by me (see Follicular Unit Extraction: Minimally Invasive Surgery for Hair Transplantation). On my site, you can see what it is (see FOX Procedure Videos) and also the type of scarring that is produced (see FUE Photos). There is no secret with what we are doing and the world of competent and honorable doctors reference my publication as the inventive breakthrough in this field. Now, almost 4 years later, there are no other published articles on the FUE ‘technique’ that I have seen.

With that said, Woods did publish one article that shed no new light on the great ‘secret’ of his technique. The article contains a case study and there is no scientific methodology defined, nor anything that meets generally accepted standards for publishing, so I was very surprised that this reputable journal took an article of this type without a good clinical scientific base. The article appears to be another type of marketing promotion. According to Woods’ site, TheWoodsTechnique.com, his technique was “Published in the British Journal of Plastic Surgery December 2004″ and “First in the world to develop and perfect single follicular unit extraction (since 1989)”. There is no reference to my published article on it a few years earlier and his claim that he perfected it in 1989 is completely unsubstantiated. It is interesting to note the gap of 16 years from the date of the unsubstantiated discovery to the date of his first publication. Woods, in my opinion, approached this process like P.T. Barnum (best known as the 19th century American Huckster). My work in the development of FUE was started in the mid-1990s and I was unwilling to publish it for grandstanding purposes (this is not a sour grapes issue), because I would not publish something for the purpose of just getting the word out to create a reputation. I know that I am very critical of Woods, but that is because all I have ever seen, even in a lecture series that he set up, was a hyped up marketing presentation with statements made that neither his commercial video nor the photos from his web-site can realistically support. The most blatant example of this is his statement about no scars, yet I have video from his office in my possession that shows more scars then I got from the technique I published and with the smaller instruments I use today, our scars are even smaller than what I have published. If you are believer in everything you read, should I have mentioned that I am the inventor of today’s modern computer chip (I don’t believe anyone would really believe me on this last unsubstantiated statement).

To answer your last question — yes, I have offices in Southern and Northern California and would love to see you. I hope that this entry on FUE entertained you. I did try to spice it up a bit.

Posted on

Doctor Recommendation for FUE? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Who would you recommend for the FUE method in the Toronto area. (I’m sure your great but L.A is a little too far for me).

Block Quote

FUE procedures are difficult. There are doctors who claim expertise when they are not actually experts. See The Truth About Cheap Hair Transplants on this blog for more on that.

The best way to understand what you are going to get is to meet several patients of that doctor. Also ask the doctor about hair yield with FUE, not graft yield and ask the doctor how he accounts for the loss of hair in an FUE procedure. If he does not understand the question, I would not select that doctor. To answer your question for a doctor in your area, I can not get you a recommendation because I have not seen the results of FUEs from any doctor in Toronto. Buyer beware!

Posted on

Hair Loss InformationGraft Placement, FUE, and Body Hair Transplants – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

first:
i need your opinion concerning the placement technique of DHI Greece group.

Second:
i had a transplant with famous doctor in Australia, he is very good in FUE (body & head) but the placement is not good & transplant hair nature is changed. i think his way with washing hair not before one week of tranplantation is not good for hair, i need your opinion for that.

finally:
i think you are the best doctor in this field but i have 2 problems to proceed with you:
1- getting the VISA, my application was introduced from 18 months & there is no answer. i know this is not your fault, but this is the situation
2- i am Norwood 5 to 6, i prefer to use BODY HAIR & untill now you do not proceed with this option

finally thank you for this valuable website, i know everydetails of hair transplatation & made me have standard for quality procedure

Block Quote

Thank you for the faith that you expressed in my skills. To answer the first part of your email about DHI, please take a look at FUE / FIT — Minimally Invasive Hair Transplants.

It sounds like although you did your research, the “Buyer Beware” axiom still failed even after considerable research. If you are a Class 6 pattern balding patient,l the best and probably only real good source of donor hair is from the back and sides of your head and you need to exploit this first before you consider body hair transplants (most people never need them). You have clearly recognized that the art of placement is critical to the final result, which is something that many people do not differentiate from medical clinic to medical clinic. As the inventor of the Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) technique, I know that it is not always the best procedure for those who are extensively bald. I personally think that you must focus upon the quality of the transplanted hair, and body hair does not have that same quality or quantity as head and scalp hair. Performing body hair transplants will produce a poor quality hair transplant (when compared to a good transplant with scalp hair), which may be what you are observing and blaming on your shampoo and washing technique.

Please send photographs to the address on the Contact page as a starting point of a dialogue.

Posted on

Hair Loss InformationWhat If I Shave My Head After a Transplant? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

What is the average total cost of a hair transplant and what if I decide to shave my head, will there be noticible scars?

Block Quote

I’m sorry to tell you this, but there is no “average total cost” of a hair transplant. It varies from patient to patient and from doctor to doctor. However, you can usually count on a good hair transplant costing several thousand dollars because it is (or should be) a very detailed and labor intensive process with a highly trained staff.

As for shaving your head, any time the skin is cut, you will have a scar. The degree of your scar will depend both on the skill of your surgeon and how your body heals, but scars can be minimized through multiple techniques. If you plan to “go Marine” you might consider the FUE/FOX Procedure if you are a candidate (see FUE category ). This, too, will leave scars but they will be little white dots versus a thin line which will draw the eye and be more obvious with a shaved head.

For more information about Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE), please take a look at: