Fue Without Shaving Head?

I have had four strip procedures in the past and my hairline is pretty good now. I decided to have an fue to make my frontal hairline a little stronger as well as have about 200 grafts put into a donor scar. Everything was a go until the consultant told me they would have to shave my head. While I find shaving my head very unpleasant I also have about 6 or 7 donor scars on the back and sides of the head. I have made hotel, flight reservations as well as given them a 1000 dollar deposit. I'm really starting to freak out over having my head shaved with all those scars. I was very careful on my four prior procedures that even friends and family don't know I have had anything done. Again, I need about 200 grafts for scar revision and I was thinking around 600 or so to make my hair line stronger. Any help would be appreciated as I don't know if I can mentally cope with looking like a freak for at least a month.

thanks,

Richard

Who is the Doc?

Its impossible to perform FUE extractions without shaving down. The clinic should have made you well aware of this prior to any booking was made.

Did they tell you prior you wouldnt need to shave and then only just told you they would ?

Could you in light of your numerous strip surgeries previously opt for another small strip surgery and revise some previous scar whilst harvesting appropriate numbers for the hairline.

This could be done with minimal downtime required as only a small track would need to be shaved down to perform the scar revision and with some length in the donor region which i assume you have already you could easily cover this area.

Dr Lindsey for example does this with minimal shaving in donor and also wouldn't need to shave the recipient area either for a small number into the hairline.

SPEX

Spex, would it be possible to shave donor but cover with existing hair? Does recipient always need to be shaved for FUE?

Thanks for the reply Spex. It was actually Dr. Charles who I know is a great Doctor. I spoke with his receptionist on the phone and she even made hotel and flight reservations for me. Nothing came up about shaving my donor head until I spoke with Dr. Charles after I gave them my deposit. He was very understanding of my concern and proposed that he could do a small procedure of perhaps 500 or so grafts by just shaving different areas on the scalp. I thought about this for another day and decided that is was not worth having a procedure this small and called his receptionist and told her I changed my mind. I feel really bad as I don't think i'm going to get my deposit back and no mention of the shaving was conveyed to me until after they took my deposit.

Haha. Dr. Bauman calls it a stealth shave. Sounds funny.

Richard...... First things first, Dr Charles is a very good. If you decide to go ahead and get past the shaved head aspect of the procedure, your results will be great. As for Spex saying FUE can't be done without shaving down....that is not entirely true. Dr Cole does a version of the FUE procedure that allows the patient to leave their hair long. It is called C2G:

"Patient’s who do their homework prior to a hair transplant procedure know that strip procedures offer few benefits over CIT®. The only true benefit up until recently has been the capacity to keep one’s hair longer with the strip procedure. CIT® on the other hand required patients to shave their heads in order to perform a larger procedure. For some this required careful planning so that they could shave their head and migrate back into their usual lifestyle. Shaving the head can make the patient nervous because it can result in a drastic change in one’s appearance.
For some, this simple factor became the driving force behind their decision to undergo a strip procedure rather than take advantage of the less invasive CIT®.

Not anymore. The new C2G technique allows the patient to keep their hair at their normal hair style during and following the CIT® technique. Now patients can have the best of both worlds. They no longer have to put up with the pain and the strip scar associated with strip procedures and they can still maintain their normal hair style."

... The procedure obviously takes more time and the cost per FUE is a bit more but if your goal is to not shave your hair it's worth looking into. As for me, my hair is short and I have a job where I can use a surgical cap daily so I can get away with the shaved cut for a month.


.....hope that helps.

Umm,

I just watched the video that was made to help show that you dont have to shave down for FUE on that link....

However the video just said that we ask the patients to grow their hair out as long as possible pre op. Why ?

They then show the donor area covered and layered down - not combed up to expose extraction sites) Why is that ??

Was the donor area shaved as im confused ? :confused::confused:


Can someone show me a clear link to a NON shaved FUE donor site post op ?




You would have thought the video might have been clearer, however gosh strip surgery is frowned upon on that page hey. Its even put the fear in me..

Best
S

I think Richard made it very clear he wanted to start working on hiding the scars not make them longer. He simply asked if there was an option to do FUE without comletely buzzing all his hair. The link is there if he chooses to contact them and ask how it works. As can you. Even better, maybe someone from CIT can explain.

I'm sure it is similar to the post ZMHAIR had.....most likely a modified version.

The main thing is it looks like he has options to meet his goal.

I think if I posted the reduculous scars left by strip surgery it would definetly put the fear in most. And I went to a very well known guy. Does it mean all should avoid? Never an easy decision.

Having a HT without shaving the RECIPIENT area is possible yes and many Docs do it, as mentioned above Dr Lindsey does HT surgery without shaving the recipient area upto 2500 grafts, however..

Having FUE extractions done without shaving the donor area are still yet to be seen.

You can grow your hair long as seen and advised in the video above to help hide the shaved down areas however, thats why the longer the donor hair the better. More hair to cover shaved down extraction sites.

Best
Spex

Ahhh…..let me ease your weary mind....I spent hours upon hours researching the technique just so we could figure this darn dilemma out and convince those disbelievers. OK, actually I just spent a few minutes.... For the record, the guy in the video from the link in my first thread I was told is an actual patient pre and post FUE. Regardless, here are a few more links....

I think the confusion is in the concept that the follicular unit is removed with the hair in its long state. Obviously it is not. Basically a hair clip holds up a section of the long hair to get access to the donor section of choice. He then cuts the hair at scalp level from the follicular unit he will be transplanting before he extracts it. He only cuts the hair arising from that particular unit (I’m guessing he might be using the edge of the punch attached to the CIT tool. If it is designed in a way to cut into scalp, it can certainly trim a hair). He then moves on to the next FU and repeats. Any FU's not being extracted do not have their hairs cut. The result is what you see in the photos and from what I'm guessing is what Richard is trying to achieve......Not buzzing his entire head down to the scalp. The procedure takes a lot longer, hence the price difference.

And there you have it..... I FUE procedure without buzzing ones entire scalp with a #0 clipper.

...Hope that helps.

The second link you posted directs you to the patient known as "Wassup". He used to be very active on the boards and I always considered him to be a good guy. However, it appears that there is a discrepancy with how he is being presented currently.

Wassup had three strip procedures with Dr. Cole for a total of 5750 grafts. He had an 1100 graft CIT procedure in July 2004 after he had his three strip surgeries for a grand total of 6850 grafts. On the link you presented he is classified as a NW3V with a total of 5600 grafts in only three procedures . If you're wondering where I got my numbers I got them from a post that Wassup made himself back in 2008. Here is a screen shot of the post...

http://www.hairtransplantmentor.com/...pg?i=924659151

In this photo you can see the outline of the strip scar, again, taken from Dr. Cole's website showing the final result of the CIT surgeries...

http://www.forhair.com/images/phocag...fter%20cit.jpg

There is zero mention of strip being used on Wassup in the latest presentation but there is a small word in the upper left hand corner that says the result is CIT "(mixed)". You have to look really hard to see it.

I just wanted this to be clear as it is presented as a CIT result when clearly it is not. Oddly, Wassup is not listed in the strip gallery on Dr. Cole's website. Perhaps it was an oversight.

I had the non shaven FUE with dr cole back in 2008, only 1100 grafts. His staff came in an hour early and two of them thinned out my donor area with small scissors close to the skin. It was explained that they cut every other hair in the donor down to the skin and extracted the ones that were cut. I was back to work in ten days with no evidence that anything had been done. If my job allowed, I'd have opted for shaven since it is cheaper and faster.

It is real and it works. Spex, my donor pics etc are posted at hlh under Gary.

Jotronic... would you be able to post some before and after photo's from Dr Hasson and Wong of their strip revision work? Something that is at least 8 months out from the revision date would be great. This way most of the stretchback would have taken place. If people like Richard and myself choose to go the route of a revision it would be nice to see some results we can expect from of one of the better FUT surgeons.

Thanks Oracle for the input. Boy I was way off on how the hair is cut back.....Obviously it's not rocket science. Hope your happy with the results.

Hey Richard, I'm just curious to know how many grafts in total you had and were they placed all over the head or mostly in front.

Oracle... Did you have Acell applied to your donor site? Did you notice any benifit?

No Acell for me. I had my procedure in 2008. I'm not sure I'd pay 1k to have Acell added to my grafts given lack of evidence that there's a meaningful benefit.

yup...it is possible to have FUE without shaving the donor area! I had a small FUE done last year without any shaving at all.