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.

A: If the texture alone has changed there is nothing you can do except to wait. The texture should improve over time even though it has already been 18 months.

If there are signs of genetic hair loss (i.e. male pattern alopecia), then finasteride should be considered.

Is it likely all the hair that is going to be able to come back to life with Propecia will also mature fully eventually? At the moment there is a big visual difference between the front section and rest of hair. (I understand hair count per cm2 may differ more drastically- I’m thinking here just of the hair shaft thickness.) Also, when I have hair transplants – as I intend to when Propecia has done all it can – will the hairs from the back of my head (thick) stay that thick regardless or will they take on the properties of the new surrounding hair?

A: Hair that responds to Propecia doesn’t always regain the full character of the original hair, so the area may still look thin.

The transplanted hair, however, will look like the original hair and maintain, over time, the same character as the hair in the donor area (where it came from).