Scarring in Donor & Recipient Area, Body Hair, FUE

Hi Dr. Rassman,

I’m considering going in for a FUE hair transplant and I understand that there is minimal scarring involved. I was reading up on the New Hair Institute web site and noticed there are many “mini” scars. Will these scars be only in the donor area or where there is transplanted hair?

I’m also considering using body hair as a viable source for donor hair. I’ve seen a few surgeons doing this. Have you personally performed such an operation? I would love to hear your thoughts on this procedure.

Best regards.

Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) produces very small scars in the donor area, usually less than 1mm (there are 25mm to an inch). The only way most people could see these scars is a complete shave of the head (not a short hair cut, which probably would not show any of these scars). In the recipient site, the grafts are always trimmed (in our office, anyway) to cut away the unnecessary skin so that these grafts should not produce any visible scar in the recipient area. My understanding from the recent ISHRS meeting in San Diego, is that most surgeons doing FUE do not trim the grafts and therefore may get very small recipient area scars.

I have commented on body hair transplants before, but I’ll recap the biggest problem with them. Due to the short growth cycle, body hair will not show up very well (quantity) because for every body hair that is transplanted, less than half of them will be in growth phase at any one time. That means that less than 50% of the hairs will grow according to what you can see. At the meeting in San Diego, one doctor who does a lot of body hair transplants showed two patients who had them done. The growth in numbers was far less than 50% of what the two patients and the doctor reported was put in at the time of the surgery. The only good news about what I learned at the meeting with regard to body hair is that the length of the hair does double to what the person had in the chest or back (natural position). I would want to have a face to face meeting to understand your focus on the body hair, why you wanted it, and to see what else was available to meet your needs.