I was watching HairlossRemedy.tv last night and some of the hair transplant surgeries that they were showing were horrifying. Has technology improved much in the past few years? I would hope that Follicular Unit extraction is much more advanced today then it was just a few years ago.
Has Follicular unit extraction advanced any?
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sphlanx2006
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I am not sure what you mean, but from what i understand you have not checked the hair loss treatments for many years. If that is the case then hair transplants have improved a lot either FUE or FUT strip, and they can produce excelent results if treated by good doctors and if you have enough donor hair.
Intercytex on the other hand is a whole new deal. In case your baldness is too advanced so that your donor area could never cover your whole head, we are hoping that they will manage to multiply cells that produce hair, so, potentionaly, you could extract only some hairs from the back of your head, and produce enough to cover you whole balding area.
Intercytex on the other hand is a whole new deal. In case your baldness is too advanced so that your donor area could never cover your whole head, we are hoping that they will manage to multiply cells that produce hair, so, potentionaly, you could extract only some hairs from the back of your head, and produce enough to cover you whole balding area.
You referred to "the scar" -- That does not sound like FUE transplanting. That sounds like strip surgery, where a long strip of scalp skin is literally cut off and then the wound is sewn closed.
FIT, FUE, FUSS, these are all different abbreviations.
FUE work is the newest thing right now. It's where they remove single grafts at a time with a needle/punch device. Grafts are gathered by making a couple thousand individual little 1mm-sized holes all over the donor area.
FUE is expensive as hell, the growth rates have been somewhat inconsistent, it thins out the hair coverage in the donor area, and it still leaves some scarring. But it is the least-invasive with the easiest recovery. And out of the several ways to gather hair transplant hair, FUE currenly allows you to buzz your hair down the shortest without showing anything.
FIT, FUE, FUSS, these are all different abbreviations.
FUE work is the newest thing right now. It's where they remove single grafts at a time with a needle/punch device. Grafts are gathered by making a couple thousand individual little 1mm-sized holes all over the donor area.
FUE is expensive as hell, the growth rates have been somewhat inconsistent, it thins out the hair coverage in the donor area, and it still leaves some scarring. But it is the least-invasive with the easiest recovery. And out of the several ways to gather hair transplant hair, FUE currenly allows you to buzz your hair down the shortest without showing anything.
elguapo
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cal, are you sure? I think they still cut a strip of hair from the back, and then they put that strip of skin on a table, and remove the grafts from that strip. So stitching is still required for the FUE process. But I could be wrong.
I do know that they make little incisions on the balding donor area of the scalp to place each individual grafted hair follicle. But I don't think they can extract each individual donor follicle without cutting, can they?
My answer to the original question of this post would be that although nothing "new" may have come about since FUE, they probably learned a lot and have honed the FUE process by now.
I do know that they make little incisions on the balding donor area of the scalp to place each individual grafted hair follicle. But I don't think they can extract each individual donor follicle without cutting, can they?
My answer to the original question of this post would be that although nothing "new" may have come about since FUE, they probably learned a lot and have honed the FUE process by now.
sphlanx2006
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No, FUE is about extracting each follicle seperately using something as a needle to "suck" it out. The proccess of placing the grafts on the bald area is almost the same in both FUE or strip procedures. I think the only reason why someone could pick FUE over strip is the fact that it leaves no scar on the back of the head so there is no stiching and you can wear your hair very short.
elguapo
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Interesting, I didn't know that. Now my question is, does the FUE procedure render have the same ratio of donor hair - to - healthy transplanted hair as a regular hair transplant, or is the ratio less/worse? If it is worse, I wonder what it might be if they simply took a strip of hair from the back, and THEN did the FUE transplant one hair at a time.
sphlanx2006
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please explain what you mean because i didnt quite understand what you are trying to say here
elguapo
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Ideally you want a success ratio of hairs donated:hairs transplanted to be 1:1. I heard that Hair Transplants don't always yield this ratio - that some of the hairs donated don't do well when they are transplanted. So let's say you donated 100 hairs during a single hair transplant procedure, and 5 of the hairs don't end up "sprouting" after they are transplanted. Then the ratio would be 100:95.
I was thinking that the ratio might be lower for the FUE technique if the 1mm punch didn't extract the complete hair follicle every time, or something like that, whereas for a regular hair transplant, it seems to be that it would be a lot easier to extract every hair follicle from a strip of skin on a table using a scalpel. But this is just an assumption, I really have no idea.
Going back to my previous post when I said that I never knew FUE used 1mm punches for donor hair extraction, I found this link where Dr. Keene states why she does not use this extraction method for her FUE procedure. Instead she takes the full strip from the back, much like the extraction method of a regular hair transplant procedure. But it is good to know that the other method is out there, too.
http://www.hairrestore.com/fue.htm
I was thinking that the ratio might be lower for the FUE technique if the 1mm punch didn't extract the complete hair follicle every time, or something like that, whereas for a regular hair transplant, it seems to be that it would be a lot easier to extract every hair follicle from a strip of skin on a table using a scalpel. But this is just an assumption, I really have no idea.
Going back to my previous post when I said that I never knew FUE used 1mm punches for donor hair extraction, I found this link where Dr. Keene states why she does not use this extraction method for her FUE procedure. Instead she takes the full strip from the back, much like the extraction method of a regular hair transplant procedure. But it is good to know that the other method is out there, too.
http://www.hairrestore.com/fue.htm
sphlanx2006
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Okey now i get it. From what i have read though, the ratio you are talking about seems to be a little lower for FUE than for strip procedures. I dont know why is that but i have heard many experts on the field questioning the reliability of FUE in general.
FUE extraction with a needle-like tool versus removing a whole strip of donor skin for the hair . . . the difference is basically just in the removal of hairs from the back. Once the donor strip is divided up into thousands of individual little 1-4 hair sized grafts, then both FUE or strip-hair transplant work will mean having the re-implantation work done the same way.
The result inconsistencies between strip-hair transplants and FUE work are mostly because of the extraction differences. Cutting out the grafts FUE-style means a lot of painstaking work while they're still on the head. The work runs much greater risk of mis-cutting a graft as it is removed, and that will kill it and/or damage other hairs nearby. And the doctor has to basically eyeball the scalp area and make a good guess at the angle for the follicle under the skin, or else he transects the graft even if he had gotten the tool squarely on top of it when he made the punch.
With strip work, the grafts are divided up with surgical knives while the donor strip is sitting on a well-lit worktable and the technicians can comfortably do it better.
Strip work tends to yield more hairs (all from the permanent areas) off the head in total before the donor is exhausted than doing FUE only.
The real downsides of strip work are the potential for scalp tightness when there is big/many hair transplants done. And the recovery is more significant. But more than anything else, it's the line scar: That bastard is BIG, it's permanent, and you can't buzz down without showing it. With a scar that huge across the back of your skull, a hair transplant is probably the least-severe operation that someone could imagine causing that sucker. To untrained eyes it really looks like you got a lobotomy or something.
If Juvista or some other future scar treatment ever renders the line-scar a much smaller issue, then I suspect the popularity of FUE work will take a sharp dive. Hair-for-hair, strip work is much cheaper and more reliable even with the best doctors in the business.
The result inconsistencies between strip-hair transplants and FUE work are mostly because of the extraction differences. Cutting out the grafts FUE-style means a lot of painstaking work while they're still on the head. The work runs much greater risk of mis-cutting a graft as it is removed, and that will kill it and/or damage other hairs nearby. And the doctor has to basically eyeball the scalp area and make a good guess at the angle for the follicle under the skin, or else he transects the graft even if he had gotten the tool squarely on top of it when he made the punch.
With strip work, the grafts are divided up with surgical knives while the donor strip is sitting on a well-lit worktable and the technicians can comfortably do it better.
Strip work tends to yield more hairs (all from the permanent areas) off the head in total before the donor is exhausted than doing FUE only.
The real downsides of strip work are the potential for scalp tightness when there is big/many hair transplants done. And the recovery is more significant. But more than anything else, it's the line scar: That bastard is BIG, it's permanent, and you can't buzz down without showing it. With a scar that huge across the back of your skull, a hair transplant is probably the least-severe operation that someone could imagine causing that sucker. To untrained eyes it really looks like you got a lobotomy or something.
If Juvista or some other future scar treatment ever renders the line-scar a much smaller issue, then I suspect the popularity of FUE work will take a sharp dive. Hair-for-hair, strip work is much cheaper and more reliable even with the best doctors in the business.