Hair Transplant Megasessions Versus Multiple Small Hair Transplants: How Do they Affect Donor Supply?

This question, asked by a member of our Hair Loss Social Community and Discussion Forums, was answered by Coalition hair restoration physician Dr. Cam Simmons:

Does having multiple [tag]hair transplants[/tag] and essentially trying to “maintain” reduce the number of grafts you will get rather than waiting till you need quite a few? For instance, would a person that had three 1200 graft procedures have the same remaining available donor as the guy who had one 3600 graft procedure?

You raise interesting questions! I tend not to do repeated small sessions so I can’t answer this from experience. My guess is that the total number of [tag]follicular unit[/tag] grafts available would be about the same for your hypothetical patient.

A guy who could get 3600 grafts in one [tag]hair transplant[/tag] would have a 30 cm to 35 cm long donor strip available from ear-to-ear. To get 1200 grafts, only a 10-12 cm long strip would be removed and there would still be 2400 grafts available from the remaining untouched area.

Another question: Would he ultimately have more hair in the same transplanted area after 1 session of 3600 grafts or 3 sessions of 1200 grafts? That is up for debate but I would be in the one session camp.

Hair transplants are meant to improve appearance; not to maintain it. [tag]Hair loss[/tag] medications like Propecia (finasteride) and Rogaine (minoxidil) are meant to maintain hair. Once you are committed to [tag]hair transplantation[/tag], you can transplant an area as soon as it is thin enough that there would be a noticeable improvement a year later. I don’t transplant an area until I can see scalp through the existing hair but I don’t make my patients wait until they are [tag]bald[/tag] either.

Cam Simmons, MD ABHRS

—-