Q: If a person is graying on the top and sides and you do a hair transplant from the back, will the top look darker after the hair restoration?

A: The hair is taken from the back and sides of the scalp and the follicular units, once dissected from the donor strip, are randomly inserted into the recipient area. That way, the color of the harvested hair will be mixed and will match perfectly. Usually, people’s hair is lighter on the top because of the sun, so when you move the hair from the back and sides to the top, it will actually lighten to match the surrounding hair, if it didn’t match already.

Q: I have been reading about hair transplantation and I have a question concerning FUT (strip-harvesting). I understand, in this method, a strip is excised from the back of the scalp, the wound then closed. I wonder, then, is not the overall surface of the scalp reduced in this procedure? After two or three procedures, especially, (or even after one large session) will not a patient’s hairline also be shifted? That is, the front hairline would move back by the amount of scalp excised, or, more likely, the “rear hairline” (which ends at the back of the neck) must certainly be “moved upward.” At least, this is how I imagine it would be. Is my logic flawed? I’ve been trying to understand this in researching the procedure, but the point still evades me.

A: The hair bearing area is much more distensible (stretchable) than the bald area and just stretches out after the procedure. As a result, the density of the hair in the donor area will decrease with each hair transplant session, but the position of the upper and lower margins of the donor area don’t move much – if at all. As a result, the major limitation of how much donor hair can be removed is the decreasing hair density, rather than a decrease in the size of the donor area.

Q: I am scheduled to have a hair transplant next month and wonder if I should do scalp exercises before the procedure? A: For the majority of patients, scalp exercises are not necessary. The scalp in the donor area has a fair amount of redundancy. With a properly planned hair transplant, the donor area will [...]

Q: I had a follicular unit hair transplant performed by another doctor that was scheduled for 2,500 grafts and I ended up paying for exactly that amount. I was supposed to be paying per graft, so it seems strange that it came out to be exactly 2,500? How do I know what I really got? [...]

Q: What is the difference between the following ways of doing hair transplants: Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT), Ultra-refined FUHT, and Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE)? A: Please see the Bernstein Medical – Center for Hair Restoration website as it explains Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT) and Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) in detail. In brief, with FUT, follicular [...]