15,000+ grafts - the new normal in hair transplant

[Dr Arvind]

Dear readers,
Never ask your doctor “How many grafts do I need?”, till you have asked:

“How many grafts have I lost?”

Its true that for years doctors have been artistically trying to create an illusion of a head of hair with much lesser number of grafts. But those are “transplants with limitations”.

You owe yourself some truths before you start transplanting hair on your scalp.

1. The full head (before start of hairloss), contains approx 40,000 grafts.
   Just look at your head and honestly check whether you have lost 10%, 25%, 50% or 75% of your hair. Any person with a mirror/camera can do this. You do NOT need to depend on a doctor and definitely never a consultant/marketing agent to tell you this.
2. Aim for 50-70% replacement atleast. Good doctors can acheive those densities.
   You can go for a smaller area to cover ( e.g. opt for a high hairline) to reduce the number of grafts.
3. We can extract an average of 8,000-10,000 grafts in a single visit for most patients (barring people of oriental descent or those with thin beard). I have been showing such results for a long time and now some other doctors have also been doing the same.
4. If you permit us to overharvest the beard, then we can get 15,000 grafts to cover the scalp in most patients in their lifetime.

So, it will not be wrong to say that for most people we can transplant 15,000 grafts to fill their head.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Regards,
Dr A

 

[Edsarn]

I remember before my first FUE operation back in 2013 that many/some doctors stated that they could only remove around 5000 grafts from the donor area in the scalp, which would not have been enough for me. I've now had more than 9,100 scalp grafts removed and will be having some beard scalps in April. I am aiming for at least 1000.

That's interesting how many beard grafts you can transplant. I had one consultation last month where the surgeon stated she could only remove a few hundred grafts, despite me saying that I have no interest in ever growing a beard, so would be happy for more to be taken to fill my crown.

Thanks for posting Dr A!

 

[HairHunter]

Interesting Post, the industry has moved along way in terms of graft numbers. There was a time when 3000 fue grafts seemed massive.

The beard overharvesting is interesting. I have heard some comments that the yield from beard grafts can be as low as 50%, what are your experiences with beard graft yield Dr. A?

 

[Dr Arvind]

Interesting Post, the industry has moved along way in terms of graft numbers. There was a time when 3000 fue grafts seemed massive.

The beard overharvesting is interesting. I have heard some comments that the yield from beard grafts can be as low as 50%, what are your experiences with beard graft yield Dr. A?

Beard grafts are more robust then even scalp grafts.
Does the person saying negative about beard hair yield have much experience in beard graft extractions?
A lot of time, people say negative if they can't do it correctly themselves.
The yield in beard grafts is close to (if not equal to) 100%.

 

[HairHunter]

Beard grafts are more robust then even scalp grafts.
Does the person saying negative about beard hair yield have much experience in beard graft extractions?
A lot of time, people say negative if they can't do it correctly themselves.
The yield in beard grafts is close to (if not equal to) 100%.

The doctor I spoke with has a good reputation, his exact wording was yield can be anywhere between 50%-80%.
I didn't fancy taking a chance on punching 1000 holes in my face to only come out with 500 grafts.

It makes sense what you are saying, beard grafts being so coarse and robust are less likely to be damaged during the HT process.

I've also read that the hairs towards the Adams apple/lower neckline have a much lower survival rate, I'd imagine if you were taking a large number of beard grafts you would need to spread across the full neck area to keep it all looking homogenous? Leaving a n area to the perimeter of the neck untouched would surely give a beard/stubble an unnatural halo.

 

[Dr Arvind]

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Leaving a n area to the perimeter of the neck untouched would surely give a beard/stubble an unnatural halo.

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Very true. That is the sense of art that ht doctors should always have but is often missing (especially when taking out the beard grafts).
I come across instances when such wrong things are spoken
Example "We will first use up the scalp donor and when it is finished we will transplant beard donor hair".
What this will result in is a weird situation where the head of the patient will have finer scalp hair in one section and coarse beard hair in the other. Very bad, in my opinion.

 

[Kevboy]

Can you post examples on this thread showing 10,000 beard extractions? Beard hairs are different to scalp hairs, an imbalance on the scalp in favour of beard will look weird.

 

[Bigmac]

What ratio of beard to scalp do you place at? For example, 60% scalp grafts, 40% beard grafts.

 

[Parasol]

Please explain to me how extracting 10,000 grafts during a single visit is ethical? If for any myriad of reasons, the transplant yield is unsuccessful, or if certain areas need a touch up, wouldn’t the patient be depleted of grafts and have basically no options left?

I’m not being critical. If you believe this is the best practice for your patients, please explain so, and how you handle cases that don’t turn out how you or the patient had hoped. I genuinely would like to get your opinion on this.