Is it possible to estimate how many follicles I'd need to be transplanted to lower my hairline
1 inch using FUE?
I am comfortable with my hairline at my temples and would like the top part of my hairline
to match my temples more closely since right now, there's quite a big difference.
I measured it and it's about an inch.
How many follicles would I need to be transplanted and how much would that cost?
Also, if I get the procedure, is it inadvisable to wear a fabric headband to cover the transplantation
site?
I'm assuming the answer will be yes, but I'm unsure.
I've heard that hats are okay to wear.
Thank you for your question!
You submitted a question with photos and expressing your interest in lowering your hairline about
an inch to try to match your temples.
And you asked how many grafts as well as the advisability of wearing a headband versus
a hat.
Well, when someone like you comes to our practice, there are some other questions that we also
have to answer before we move forward to a game plan or treatment plan.
So first of all for women, a lot of times a hairline can be high genetically which I
suspect is the case for you and other times, it can also be getting higher because of the
receding of the hairline.
For some people that's part of their genetic hairloss pattern and for some other people,
it's related to wearing very tight pony tails.
We call this traction alopecia.
So, you have to be sure that your hairline is stable.
The question is really not about just lowering the hairline but the stability of the hairline
in order to do a very good and accurate treatment as well as being able to anticipate on what
will happen in the future.
If your hairline is stable and in your family, the hairline doesn't tend to recede and we
eliminated those other hereditary causes and we can fairly predict that the hairline wont
change, then we can make a decision about how strategize the hairline lowering process.
Now there is a couple of options.
But in terms of the hairline transplant option, about the best of the number of grafts, there's
a number of grafts based on the donor area.
Otherwise known as the permanent zone and this is for men and women at the back of the
scalp where the hair never goes away and it's genetically resistant.
This means that the hair transplantation is limited to the number of hairs that can be
moved from one area to another.
So if you think about seeing people particularly men who had hair transplants at the past,
and you look at them 10-15 years later, you'll see where their hairline was made too low
when they were younger such that when they got older and the hair thinned, you can see
this as being grafts or as generally referred to them as plugs.
So understanding that there's limited hair, this means that we don't have unlimited hair
to transplant so it has to be done very strategically.
Now lowering the hair about an inch is about two and half centimeters so this is many ways
is a mathematical decision.
So when we do a transplant, we try to place 20-40 hairs per square centimeter.
So you can imagine that that density is good and it sound like a lot, your hair density
can look thick and may require 60-70 hairs per centimeter.
In other words, when you do a procedure like this, in my practice, we work from the back
to forward.
And that's opposed from making a line from the front and back.
When you work that way, unfortunately, you can plenty of hairs into those areas but they
can be so wide apart that they can look so sparse and very artificial.
So what I tell my patients is that we take the maximal amount of hair that we can at
just one time from your donor area, whether it's a strip method or FUE method, and then
we'll count the amount of hairs or grafts that we have.
And then we'll work at the beginning point of your hairline and build forward.
This way there's a feathering effect and it doesn't look as obvious.
And if the goal is to move the hair one inch down, well, we might be able to accomplish
some significant amount of what you want but usually for hairline lowering procedure, you
can anticipate a second transplant if you want to get the maximal density you desire.
In our practice, we try to maximize the yield of the transplant through a method of Hair
Regeneration technology we developed using extracellular matrix and platelet-rich plasma.
The reason is that hair transplant surgery is not about how many hairs you move, it's
about how many hairs will actually thrive.
You see it's a graft.
It's taken away its blood supply, its follicular hair unit and then being placed into a new
place and we can't assume that if you move 1500 grafts, you'll get 1500 grafts growing.
And we have seen the full range from people coming to use from all over the world where
they can get anywhere from 10% loss to over 90% loss of the hairs that have been grafted.
So what we do to maximize our results is we'll actually not only employ excellent surgical
technique but we'll also use our Hair Regeneration technology.
Even if you're looking for the number of hairs and the pricing, what you actually need to
do now is to meet with some qualified experienced hair restoration specialists and learn about
your options and consider the range of what would make you satisfied with the results
that you would ultimately get.
Sometimes people want one inch lower hairline but when you look at a natural hairline, the
beginning of it can look a bit higher it actually it when you think about where every hair is.
So you be able to get away with moving down three quarters of an inch and feathering the
hair in a way so that the density flows very naturally.
A lot of times, you see actors and people in the public eye have an unnatural look because
the hairline looks to straight and a natural hairline is variable and feathered and curved,
you can't tell a good transplant when you see it because it looks very natural.
Meet with some specialists and do some research.
Learn about the limits of the number of hairs you have and also when it comes to hair transplant,
the factors, not only critical is the hair density, donor area and the thickness of the
hair.
if you have thin hair, you are only able to cover less scalp than thick coarse hair.
this are the things that I examine in a physical examination and when I examine people, I do
measurements and I do drawing and I show how much we can cover so that we can have a good
communication with our patients and we know what we can do as long as we are in the same
page.
So I wish you the best of luck, I hope that was helpful and thank you for question!