I am a technology freak so I liked your FUE2 process. I already had a couple of hair transplants and the frontal area is still thin, needing more hair. I figured that you can use your new FUE procedure just to thicken up the front area with less grafts and more hair. If that is true, the price is a real bargain.

I think you’re essentially asking if the doctor can just transplant 3-hair and 4-hair grafts. You could arrange to have a limited FUE² procedure performed (without shaving your head) to add hair to the frontal area or crown very cost effectively. I would ask the surgeon to take out mostly 3-hair (or more) grafts and as long as they are placed at least 3/4 inch behind the hairline (or the crown), these grafts will be more effective for thickening up the recipient area. This approach makes sense, as many people who would like to get their hair to appear fuller could just come in for a limited FUE² procedure and have limited pain or detectability after the procedure. I say “limited pain” because although most won’t experience any significant pain, I’m not going to BS you and say it’s 100% painless — we have to give you a shot to numb the area, and some people might find that part painful. After the area is numbed though, you won’t feel a thing.

Anyway, with this approach to a more limited surgery, you can get hair without a substantial recovery process and at a lower cost on a per hair basis than when compared to a traditional strip surgery provided that you have naturally 3 and 4 hair follicular units. Some Asians, in particular, may only have one and two hair follicular units. Normally, a strip surgery in a person with a uniform hair density of 2.2 hairs mm square, will have about 15-20% single hairs and 70% two hair follicular units and the remaining 3 and 4 hair follicular units. On a hair for hair cost, removing only two, three, and four hair follicular units will create more value for the patient if he has them to remove. The only problem I see with approaching the FUE² this way is that the number of grafts you harvest is limited by the area that is shaved and the distribution of 3 and 4 haired grafts that you are born with may be so widely spread out that it would be impractical to remove exclusive 3 and 4 hair follicular units because the area of hair that has to be clipped may become visible.

Can the back of your head around the donor area may not be shaven prior to the hair transplant? As with long hair, it is much harder to hide, and takes much longer time to grow. How much donor hair can be taken from the back of the head? as this is now to be my second attempt!

Thank you, Please Advise

If you are referring to the shaving doctors do before performing follicular unit extraction (FUE), it is not always necessary, but the number of grafts will be less than if you allow a larger area to be clipped. I am not sure what you mean by second attempt, but if you are saying that a first attempt at FUE failed, then be careful in selecting the same doctor who might not have the process mastered.

Doctors,

So how soon can we expect to see pictures of patients you’ve performed on using the new FUE procedure?

It takes 6-8 months for people to develop enough hair to see the impact of any transplant procedure, and while this technology has been in development for some time, it was only recently perfected and announced. The FUE² is just another way to do FUE (which has been around for 6 years), so I would not expect anything but better growth for the process. I’ll post photos in the coming months, though.

I am very interested in getting a HT using the latest FUE2 technique. I have a few questions regarding the technique. I know that performing FUE with longer hair takes more time than standard FUE. If I choose not to shave my hair, I wonder if the fee is higher and how many grafts can be transplanted in one session.

Thank you very much for your response.

The price per graft does not depend upon the amount of hair you allow me to shave. If you look at the photos below, you will see that there is a limited amount of hair that I can take. We might be able to get 500-700 grafts without heavily clipping the hair in the head if your densities are good. Much higher numbers of grafts can be extracted with more hair clipping.

Left: FUE grafts extracted; Right: Hair combed down to completely cover donor area

The fee for follicular unit extraction (FUE) is $8/graft for surgeries done by Dr. Pak in our Los Angeles office — and this is a special rate valid until November 30, 2008. This uses our new FUE² technique.