Do I have to shave my head for a hair transplant?

[M Law]

Hi everyone,

I appreciate all of the the responses that I got about the difference between FUE and FUT, and think if I decide to move ahead I'll be having an FUT. The scaring in the back does not bother me since I do not plan on shaving your head.
My question now is do I have to shave my head to have a transplant? I notice in the photos that some the heads appear to be shaved. What's the advantage of shaving the head?

Thanks in advance!

[TeeJay73]

Hey M Law,

I don't think it's a necessity to shave your head for a hair transplant, but I do believe some IAHRS doctors may recommend shaving your head to (1) increase their visibility (2) maximize prevention of damage to local follicles during extraction of the donor strip and during placement of grafts in areas where hair still exists and (3) they can precisely see the angles that they place the transplanted grafts in (front hairs have a forward angle, rearward hairs may not).

I can tell you that with my surgery, Doctor McAndrews only shaved the local area where he excised my donor strip. He didn't shave any other areas at all. He used alot of water to keep my hair wet during the surgery, which I think helped with his visibility. I was back at work about 10 days later and no one could tell I had any inconsistencies with my hair length in the area where he shaved.

TeeJay

[Laserhead]

Hi everyone,

I appreciate all of the the responses that I got about the difference between FUE and FUT, and think if I decide to move ahead I'll be having an FUT. The scaring in the back does not bother me since I do not plan on shaving your head.
My question now is do I have to shave my head to have a transplant? I notice in the photos that some the heads appear to be shaved. What's the advantage of shaving the head?

Thanks in advance!

I’ve been wondering the same thing. It does seem like many surgeons now shave the head.

[Spex]

M Law,

I get asked this a great deal and here is a recent post Dr Hasson of H+W to help understand the importance of shaving down the recipient area.
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There are multiple technical factors that come into play during the creation of recipient sites and the subsequent graft placement. These include:

1.) When thinning areas are shaved down the “thinning process” takes on a different meaning. With the use of magnification it will be seen that some follicular bundles are absent (and there are wider spaces between remaining bundles) and that some bundles are significantly miniaturized. It will then be possible to place new recipient sites in the place of absent bundles and alongside miniaturized bundles to recreate the density. This can also be done in a uniform manner so that if the pre-existing hair eventually disappears, due to progression of hairloss, the transplant can still look reasonably natural. If the recipient site is not shaved the surgeon must part through the hair again and again looking for any empty spaces and trying to fill the spaces as best as possible. This is not really as exact a process but much more hit or miss.

2.) The hair exits the scalp at an exact angle. The only way to precisely match that angle is to buzz the recipient hair down (in a way similar to how ALL doctors need to shave the donor hair when taking out the donor strip).

3.) Transection of existing hair below the skin surface is possible if the incisions are not made exactly parallel to the surrounding bundles. We often see this as a “halo” type effect when performing repair procedures.

4.) When inserting grafts the technicians can easily identify the recipient sites and ensure that all sites are filled. This can be achieved with no trauma to the pre-existing hair.

5.) When hair is buzzed no manipulation of the pre-existing hair is required at all. When the hair is not shaved it needs to be combed through (hundreds of times) by the physician who makes the recipients sites and again by the technician who places the grafts into the sites. This repetitive trauma of combing through the hair again and again will result in “hair shock”, a shedding of the existing hair. When this hair falls out in 2 to 3 weeks there will be a 2 to 3 month wait before it returns. Whereas if the hair were buzzed it would grow from day one 1 and keep growing. A number 3 buzz cut often will look good at 10 to 14 days post operatively and blend in with the recipient site well.

All these factors are relatively unimportant if you are trying to place to 2 or 3 hundred grafts into recipient sites however if you wish to have the utmost of refined results the difference is night and day.

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Regards
Spex

[PayDay]

I'd like to hear from other from doctors about this. What do they think?

[baldymcgee]

I'd like to hear from other from doctors about this. What do they think?

It's even more complicated, some doctors (as Spex mentioned) implant grafts next to existing, miniaturized, hair. Other docs actually plant recipient grafts right through your existing hair:

http://www.bernsteinmedical.com/hair-transplant/answers/

"When we perform a hair transplant, we don’t transplant around the existing miniaturized hair on your scalp, we transplant through it."

Different docs, different techniques. Perhaps one of them can comment on the tradeoffs.