FUE Donor Exchange?

Dear Dr.

This is the scenario, I am 28 male, balding on the front 1/3 of my head, I am currently using Proscar and Rogaine. I am most likely going to lose the rest of my hair and be a worst case hair situation one day if I don’t act on it now. So here are my questions:

1. Would you recommend I do FUT or FUE hair transplant as I want to reserve the right to shave my head of use the clippers on 0 blade if things don’t work out with the way I want it to look?
2. If you said FUE, would you do donor exchange which DR. [name removed] recommends in order to not deplete the donor hair and less visable scarring?
3. In the FUE scenario, how do you find a doctor who is going to give you the best price and the best job? Is it ok if a doctor is in 3 surgeries per day or would you reommend a doctor who is just working on 1 patient?

I will answer your questions in the order you asked them:

1. FUE will give you what you want if you eventually want to shave your head.
2. In my opinion, replacing hair from the body into the FUE donor sites in the back of the scalp (“donor exchange”) is crazy and I doubt that there is much proof that this technique results in anything worthwhile. Why would you consider being a guinea pig and paying for that privilege?
3. This is a Buyer Beware market. Too many unsubstantiated claims are made and the search I performed on the internet to research your question. I found a site which had a blend of famous, credible doctors mixed in with the scum of this business. One of the ‘doctors’ on the site I just referred to, is not even a doctor (I previously looked into his credentials). FUE can be done in one surgery (our group did as many as 2600 in a single patient in a single session) or it can be done multiple day surgeries. Just because a doctor does these procedures, this does not mean that the FUE will produce viable hair. You won’t know the results for 8 months and by that time, the money you paid will clear the doctor’s bank account.

Sounds like human experimentation, metaphorically similar to something Dr. Josef Mengele did. This is an ethical and medical licensing issue for the doctor if you were to have this procedure and were not fully informed about the ‘experimental’ nature of this process. Even with adequate informed consent, the legality of performing such ‘experimental’ surgery without proper institutional review and approval, is ingrained in our legal system.