Q: I never kept my hair really long, what length can I wear my hair after a hair transplant to hide that I had a procedure?

A: Hair transplants, whether using the strip method to harvest the donor hair or by extracting individual follicular units one-by-one directly from the scalp, will leave some scarring. If the hair is long enough so that the underlying scalp is not visible, these scars will not be seen.

The quality and density of a person’s donor hair will affect this coverage and determine how short a person may keep his hair. In some cases the back and sides can be cut to a few millimeters, in others it would need to be kept longer. Since there is no scarring in the recipient area (the front and top of the scalp where the grafts are placed) the hair in these areas may be kept at any length.

Q: Why should a doctor measure miniaturization in the donor area before recommending a hair transplant? A: Normally, the donor area contains hairs of very uniform diameter (called terminal hairs). In androgenetic hair loss, the action of DHT causes some of these terminal hairs to decrease in diameter and in length until they eventually disappear [...]

Q: I have read that some doctors perform something called a trichophytic closure. What is this? A: A trichophytic closure is a way to minimize the appearance of the donor scar in a hair transplant using a strip incision. The technique entails cutting the off the top of one of the wound edges and suturing [...]

Q: When a second hair transplant is performed, should there be a second incision or should it be incorporated into the first? A: It is a very common practice to make a second separate scar in the second hair restoration procedure. This is done to maximize the hair in the second session, and it is [...]