Strip method vs FUE? So confused!

[JoeTillman]

I agree with Dr. Epstein's latest post above.

1. The healing process for the donor site in the strip method is much longer than the Artas.

Or FUE in general. ARTAS is irrelevant.

2. The donor site pain after the strip procedure lasts about two weeks and can remain tender for about a month. Everytime you bend your neck forward, you will be reminded of the donor site for the first month. In contrast, the donor site of the Artas procedures is much less painful, needs no stitching, and by one month, the sites are hard to find even with the naked eye.

Or FUE in general. ARTAS is irrelevant.

3. About the quality of the grafts, I find the grafts very hardy and healthy when using the Artas.

But compared to strip?

4. In the strip technique, a large sliver of skin is removed from the back of the scalp. The strip is sliced into individual grafts for placement. In this process, many grafts are damaged, bisected, or otherwise deemed as not usable. These will be discarded. This is a big waist and those follicles are gone for good, and remember you only have a finite number of hair follicles.

You're doing it wrong.

In contrast, if the Artas transcects any hair follicle, that is done upon punching the scalp, and the top of the follicle will be removed. However, the hair bulb (the areas important for hair regrowth) is still in your scalp and that hair will regrow. So with Artas, there is less permanent damage to the follicles.

Unmitigated bullsh*t. I hope you don't tell your patients this.

However the one millimeter punch used to extract the hairs leaves such a small hole that once healed it is not detectable by the naked eye.

You can't guarantee this as there are too many factors to consider.

It is this type of blanket misinformation that leads to uninformed patients being unhappy. If you wish to promote ARTAS do so on the merits it possesses that separate it from other forms of FUE, not FUSS.