Hair Transplants: What Are You Really Paying Per Follicular Unit Graft?

The following response to a question from the Hair Restoration Social Community and Discussion Forums, was written by forum member “MrGio”, Online Representative for Coalition Hair Transplant Surgeon Dr. Patrick Mwamba:

The aspects of [tag]follicular unit extraction[/tag] [tag]FUE[/tag] [tag]hair transplantation[/tag] that patients should be mindful of is cost, transection rate of the [tag]hair transplant[/tag] surgeon, and experience of the surgeon’s medical assistants. Surgical [tag]hair restoration[/tag] is an investment for the patients that can be for better or worse. A patient shouldn’t pay too much and shouldn’t pay too little for an FUE session. FUE is more labor intensive than [tag]follicular unit strip surgery[/tag] ([tag]FUSS[/tag]), and hence there is a difference in the cost of the procedures.

Transection is the terminal damage of a patient’s precious donor resources. Since donor resources are certainly finite, patients should want to ensure that their surgeon is producing minimal trauma in their donor area. A good FUE surgeon can provide his or her patient with a relatively low rate of transection. Damaging a significant amount of hair will usually provide poor aesthetic results and insurmountable loss to restore future [tag]hair loss[/tag]. There is no better way of describing this atrocity than considering a patient to be a donor of their hair follicles to medical science. Wasting hair to inefficient harvesting methods essentially realizes a patient to be an unsuspecting victim and statistic. Paying twice for a graft is tragic.

Knowing just a few small details can help a patient explore the many options available by follicular unit extraction. Any surgery will produce scarring. Similar to strip surgery, FUE can also cause noticeable scarring when performed by untrained hands. Oftentimes, physical scarring will also cause emotional scarring that can have permanent effects. Taking advantage of available knowledge is the best way to identify a bad FUE surgeon.

MrGio
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David
Editorial Assistant and Forum Co-Moderator for the Hair Transplant Network, the Coalition Hair Loss Learning Center, and the Hair Loss Q & A Blog.