Need advice on beard to scalp transplant

[Luka]

How many grafts do you guys reckon I could get from this beard?

A rough estimate.

I am scheduled for a transplant and I have to use the beard because donor is banged up after 4 transplants.

Plan is to have a 50-50 spread and reinforce the frontal third and some of the midscalp.

Since beard is most dense in mustache and on chin, I will have the surgeon extract grafts from everywhere and not only under the chin and neck...

 

[Bigmac]

I would say at least 1000.

 

[Luka]

Since you have an extensive experience with beard transplant, enlighten me on this. Common wisdom is that the surgeon needs to mix beard grafts with scalp grafts to make a proper blend. However, in my case, I will be merely reinforcing the receiving area and this means that beard grafts will in theory be added to already present scalp grafts and thus constitute a blend with them, even if only beard grafts are placed in this last surgery, i.e. it's not a bald receiving area, but there are already native and grafted hairs. Am I correct?

 

[Understanding Hair]

Do your beard hair and scalp match sufficiently to not create an obvious difference between the two?

 

[Luka]

Do your beard hair and scalp match sufficiently to not create an obvious difference between the two?

There is no way to know for sure, but I think yes.
Plan is to densify the frontal third and midscalp.
I suppose beard can be predominantly used further away from the hairline and in the middle, where there are more implanted and native scalp hairs.
But yeah, I believe it's quite similar, beard looks thick enough, hopefully it will provide more coverage.

 

[Understanding Hair]

You need to be sure any difference in hair characteristics is minimal, or, at least will not contrast greatly with the surrounding scalp hair. Issues such as hair colour, your beard is mix of grey and dark tone, will this sufficiently blend with your scalp hair? The hair calibre, the beard is often coarser than scalp hair, as a result they can standout when position next to each other. Also to consider, beard hair is generally made up of one hair follicular units, consequently, the added fullness from beard hair is lower than the same number of grafts from scalp hair, with a higher number of hairs per follicular unit.

 

[MaxMidlander]

There's been some great cases posted that mixed the beard and donor hair. I think mixing it is the key