Going for "less is more" result. Modified fue or regular fue?

[flewsmcgee]

Hey all, I'm currently considering a surgery for the Cole "less is more" result where you buzz your hair to 1-2mm post surgery to create the illusion of more hair. My hair was never all that good long, and I have the features to pull off a buzz cut very well, but my hairline is destroyed and I've begun to thin a lot on top. My debate is choosing between the Feller/Lindsey modified fue or a hair/beard fue with Dr. Umar. I need about 4000 grafts per the doctors.

My highest concern would be scarring since at that level of buzz the scarring starts to come into play, but price is also a secondary concern (I assume modified fue is much cheaper since it is essentially mini strips which can be broken down by techs). Anyone have any input on what they would do? I realize that either way I'm going to have SOME scarring, but one of them will surely be less noticeable than the other...

 

[flewsmcgee]

Bump...anyone have any thoughts?

 

[shookwun]

:worthless:

 

[flewsmcgee]

This is actually a thing? I thought I was the only guy who had this idea (and was actually OK with it).

Look at the thread in my signature, you will see that no scarring is visible. My surgeon used a 0.8 mm manual punch.

Iiiiiiiinteresting. How short can you go before scarring becomes unsightly? To put it another way, if your hair went to **** when you were 40 and you decided shaving it was okay, would you feel disfigured in the back? And no, you're not the only one. I look fantastic with a buzz cut since I have very sharp masculine features. It's my damn hairline that's the problem!

 

[shookwun]

The shortest possible, I shave the back and sides with no guard. You got me wrong, you never see the scarring, at all. But I'm an odd case, I don't scare much and my redness was gone after two weeks.

That's messed, my scalp was obliterated for literally five months.


That redness took forever to subside.

 

[neuromet]

Shookwun, the redness was from FUE? Was it in the donor area? I'm surprised that after five months your donor area wouldn't have covered it up.

 

[shookwun]

I was referring to the recipient area.

Most fair skin people are looking at a good 3+ months before the skin isn't pink-red

 

[arfy]

"Modified FUE" as referenced in the first post seems to be (IMO) a bunch of crap. First of all, it's extremely misleading to call it FUE - it has nothing to do with the spirit or intention of FUE.

If You don't know, "Modified FUE" (aka mFUE) is a technique where the surgeon cuts out "mini" strips. This is highly inefficient use of your limited donor supply. During the scalp tissue extraction, every hair follicle that the blade comes near (on both sides of the "border" of the tissue being removed) is at risk for transection and damage. This essentially wastes too much donor hair, and wasting donor hair is a cardinal sin in hair transplantation, because nobody ever has enough donor to begin with!

It's ironic that patients will argue about the size of an FUE punch, and which punch causes more/less damage, but here is this extremely crude technique, which is actually regressive: doctors used this same strategy as a "bridge" technique between the old "dolls hair punch" era, and the strip technique era. Some doctors were experimenting with larger punch-outs, and then dissecting that tissue into smaller pieces. Eventually, they switched from punch to scalpel, then began removing strips.

If anybody can defend the doctors calling this technique "FUE" I'd like to hear it. If this technique can be called a type of "FUE" then "dolls hair punches" and Minigrafts are FUE too (hey, they're extracting follicular units too!) Don't fall for this, it's only a time saver for the doctor, with no advantages for the patient. The only advantage is if your doctor sucks at regular FUE, and has no business doing it in the first place. And for somebody who wants to shave their head (original poster) mFUE is a terrible idea. Especially for the original poster, who wants to get 4000 grafts this way.