I’m told that there are two different processes for this procedure, one for a client with hair and another method for clients without hair. My understanding is the client must decide before the procedure which they want because the process for buzzed/shaved hair will not look right with the method used for longer hair and vice versa.

1. Is there two different methods, one for buzzed/shaved hair and one for hair with a longer length if so why and what is the difference between the two methods?
2. You indicated in an email that the same amount of dots are used for an individual with hair as one without. Why?
3. If the method for clients who want to leave some length to their hair is different from clients who have shaved/buzzed hair and the client must decide which method they want before the procedure, because the method for buzzed/shaved hair won’t look right with clients who leave some length to their hair what happens if the clients hair thins out in the future? Will it not look right?
4. I’m told the hair must be shaved/buzzed before the procedure. If that is the case, and the method for longer hair is used which they say doesn’t look right with shaved/buzzed hair is that going to look weird until the hair grows back?
5. How deep does the needle go?
6. For my situation being that I want to keep my hair longer than a buzzed/shaved length do you use dots or more of a blanket coverage. Can you explain? If you use dots what size would the follicle dot be?

There are two ways to harvest the donor hair for transplantation:

1. Take out the hairs one-by-one using a small (1mm diameter) punch. This is called the Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) method. To do this, you need to shave the back of your scalp so that that hairs will fit into the small punch. Without shaving the area, you can individually thread each long hair into the small 1mm diameter punch, but that would be a very, very long and inefficient process. FUE will allow you to have a buzz cut or keep your hair very short later on (when everything has healed) without seeing scarring… but if you shave your head completely, you will see thousands of white dot scars. So there will be scarring there, just not a linear scar.

The needle goes in the depth of a follicle, which is about 5mm, and the dots of the FUE scar can range from 0.8mm to 2mm in diameter. It all depends on how each person heals and the size of the instruments used by the doctor. To read more about the pros and cons for FUE, see here.

2. Another method (strip surgery) is to cut out a small section of your scalp and stitch it back together, like if you had a cut to any part of your body. This section of removed scalp is taken and dissected under a microscope into individual follicles. Your body will heal with a line scar, which won’t be visible if you keep your hair relatively long. The shortest haircut should be with maybe a #2 guard on the clippers, though a #3 guard should hide the scar without any issue. If you shave your head, you will see a linear scar. This type of procedure can be done without any hair cut or shaved in the donor area, so that when you leave the office you will not be able to see any evidence of surgery, as your hair will immediately cover the incision.

You will, however, have redness in the area where the grafts were transplanted. The severity of the redness depends on your body and where the grafts are transplanted to (if it was to a completely bald area, it will be evident — if it was to an area that had some hair, you might be able to cover it with styling).