lmdavies,
Like myself you have a wider hair-to-scalp color contrast. It appears that you are only concerned about the front from your post. Is your crown doing okay? Are you on Propecia and or minoxidil?
Your goals are very realistic and obviously you are not going for a low hairline which is a good thing. I doubt that you will even need 1,000 FUE grafts and hopefully you do not have advanced classes of male pattern baldness in your family history.
FUE is great for patients like yourself that want little work, touch up their hairlines, etc. I would not advocate you doing a strip right at this time. Many guys like yourself desire to wear a buzzed look because it can visually help detract with our appearance of hairloss. I also think that a FUE session of 1,000 grafts or less probably won't affect the post-op appearance of your donor zone once everything heals. But you'll never know until you get there. The wider color contrast may show some light spots especially in the summer months but I doubt that will make any real visual difference since 1,000 extractions are not that many for the entire donor zone.
The thing you want to ALSO consider in your decision is "how much work might you need in the future" since male pattern baldness is progressive. If you do have advanced classes of male pattern baldness in your family history (on either side) than you possibly may want to wait on hair transplants for now. I mean if you are like most of us with male pattern baldness, chances are you are looking at additional work in your lifetime of 3,000 plus grafts, easily. If you think 3,000 plus extractions in the donor zone will have no visual impact when everything heals, think again. Some have an agenda to propogate that "isolated extraction methods" leave no visible scarring or moth-eaten visual affects. DON"T BELIEVE IT FOR ONE MINUTE!!! :shock:
Might it make more sense to wait a little longer to see where your hairloss is headed because you may consider doing a larger session with a FUHT procedure down the road. There are a few talented surgeons utilizing a tricophetic closure technique with strip. Dr. Rose calls it a "ledge closure technique" whereby the skin tissue at the suture is beveled so that the hair follicules in the underlying lip will grow up and through the suture line. It not only strengthens the closure but also greatly aides in hiding the thin scar. There's always the option of later touching up a thin scar with a little more implanted hair in the scar line and above/below it.
I am just encouraging you to think of all of your options. No doubt you have calculated the cost differences too. Best wishes in your decisions. :wink:
