Hair, like you've
never lost it.
™
HAIR TRANSPLANT SPECIALIST
Unshaven FUE
There appears to be an increasing number of clients seeking hair restoration surgery, particularly FUE being performed unshaven. I believe this is partly being driven by a few articles appearing in the media about this being an improvement over traditional FUE procedures.
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I believe there is a room for unshaven FUE certain scenarios, but understanding the implications is of paramount importance before a client is counselled.
The basic mechanics of FUE dictates that the surgeon has good access to the donor area in order to pick the healthiest follicles & also not to cause any transection of the follicles. Whilst some surgeons claim to have the ability to extract thousands of grafts with unshaven technique, no one has shown any tangible studies and pictures of outcomes. The consensus from a large body of surgeons is that the transection rate is far higher with unshaven FUE thereby limiting the donor area & the outcomes.
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Secondly, some doctors claim to extract FUE grafts with long hair. Whilst this is a possibility, I believe again the difficulty is in numbers that can be extracted. Also, the fact that apparently these grafts cannot be transplanted with long hair, defeats the purpose.
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Lastly, based on the healing process of grafts, the consensus is that the scalp heals much better with short hair & also the uniformity of the healing process & the uniformity of the growth ensures that clients opting to trim their hair are a lot more presentable with the least possible downtime than someone who opts not to do so.
Advantages
and
Disadvantages
Advantages of FUE (Unshaven FUE)
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It is a perceived as an advantage that the procedure is performed on long hair. The reality is that the surgeon still shaves areas of scalp leaving patchy areas of hair loss behind.
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The downtime is perceived as less, as a matter of fact, the downtime can be longer as the client is left with patchy areas of transplanted short hair in between the native long hair.
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Disadvantages of UFUE (Unshaven FUE)
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Significantly higher transection rates compared to traditional FUE, thereby leading to a lot of wastage of precious donor hair
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The number of grafts that can be extracted are significantly lower than that with traditional FUE
Twice as expensive a normal FUE with far poorer outcomes
Significant scarring of donor area as the surgeons focus on one small zone to extract the follicles.
Long term sustainability of the transplanted hair might be poor as the follicles might be extracted from non-permanent zones
In short, I believe clients should exercise extreme caution whilst opting for a procedure that is significantly more expensive whilst it can cause more harm than good. The scientific community has every reason to believe that UFUE(Unshaven FUE) could turn out to false economy and an unscrupulous marketing ploy until the doctors can come up with any tangible outcomes.
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I believe clients need to understand that there are different ways of camouflaging and getting the maximum out of the surgery by experimenting with different hairstyles rather than paying over the odds for an unproven and potentially damaging surgery.
Main Issues That Are Generally Overlooked
When Counselling
Patients For A
Strip Surgery Are:
Quality Control
After the strip is dissected, it is generally passed on to a team of technicians who trim the strip into individual grafts. During the process of trimming there is an unknown entity that becomes into play. That is the skill and motivation of the technician. Hence it is a known fact that surgeons that have consistent teams achieve far better results than someone that relies on freelance technicians. Whilst exploring options of a strip surgery, it is advisable for a patient to meet the team and get to know the team that will be operating.
Scarring
It is a well known fact that strip surgery can produce significant scarring in the donor area, when performed by untrained hands. A simple test a patient can perform is to pinch the back of the scalp to check for signs of laxity. If the client is known to have a tight scalp the chances of poor scarring with a strip surgery increase exponentially.
Placement of
Grafts
Historically strip surgery has been promoted as a surgery that has better outcomes because of the presence of galar fat at the bottom of the grafts. Whilst it might offer better leverage for the technicians whilst replacing the grafts, studies have shown that the growth of the grafts is not dependent on the presence of the galar fat. With improvements in extraction and placement of grafts by FUE, the outcomes are much better with a strip surgery.
Quality of
Grafts
During the process of extraction of follicles using strip surgery, the number of follicles per graft is significantly less compared to that extracted by FUE. This is because most of the grafts that are extracted with a strip surgery have follicles containing single and double hairs. Whereas with a FUE, the surgeon has complete control over the grafts and he can pick and choose the ones that give maximum benefit to the client. Besides, the technicians are encouraged to keep the grafts skinny by dissecting most of the tissue surrounding the grafts as this helps in quicker placement of grafts. I believe the preservation of the pilosebaceous unit is key maintain the natural appearance of follicles and this is where FUE trumps FUT.
FUE Scarring
There is a common misconception that FUE leads to pitting scarring. Though it is a fact that badly performed FUE can lead to visible ‘dot’ like marks on the back of the scalp; with improvements in FUE, the chances of visible scarring is negligible and by following certain protocols and extraction there is evidence to suggest that the scarring is almost invisible.
Duration of
Surgery
Whilst everyone acknowledges the fact that FUE takes a lot longer to perform and hence the grafts might stay outside the body for a longer duration than in FUT, my argument is that one can achieve good outcomes with FUE with fewer grafts than with FUT. This helps with improving the yield as it decreases the duration of the surgery and also the fatigue factor associated with technicians replacing a large number of grafts associated with FUT surgery.
Our clients have voted our FUE as one of the least painful surgical procedures they have undergone. Most of our clients are back at work in under 48 hours.
Recommended
by many.
We believe in a business model that is solely based on recommendations and hence 90% of our clients come through a personal recommendation. With the personal trauma suffered from sub-optimal surgery, Dr Reddy has a personal motto of making sure that none of his patients go through the same
