Quality of Donor

[BaldBadger]

When a Surgeon looks at your donor area for quality etc what are they looking for?

 

I understand the thicker the hair the better, but they must be also looking at the quality of the hair, how do they determine quality?

 

My donor area has thinned out. Can a surgeon work out which hairs are not going to fall out in the future by looking/examining the hairs? or can this not be determined?

 

I'm just concerned that if I was to have a hair transplant that some, or maybe a lot of donor hairs/follicles will also fall victim to hairloss.

 

 

Hope this makes sense. Thanks.

[MrGio-WHTCClinic]

There are many ways to examine the donor area in terms of hair quality. The curvature, color, and thickness, in many ways, become the most important characteristics to judge donor quality.

 

Under high magnification, the donor area and safe zone will be determined by measured units, and many calculations of density will be more visible for judging donor dominance and strength.

 

From region to region within the donor area, there will be slight differences in density and hair quality.

 

From the process of analysis, we can accurately estimate and describe the strength of one's donor area supply.

[JohnCasper]

Good points by "MrGio". You didn't mention your age. One important factor for me was... my hair loss stabilized in my mid-thirties. I had my first surgery at age 50. My donor area had been stable for many years which allowed the doctor to consider that when extracting grafts. I've had over 7,000 grafts harvested and could yield even more. I hope your situation may be similar.

[MrGio-WHTCClinic]

When a Surgeon looks at your donor area for quality etc what are they looking for?

 

I understand the thicker the hair the better, but they must be also looking at the quality of the hair, how do they determine quality?

 

My donor area has thinned out. Can a surgeon work out which hairs are not going to fall out in the future by looking/examining the hairs? or can this not be determined?

 

I'm just concerned that if I was to have a hair transplant that some, or maybe a lot of donor hairs/follicles will also fall victim to hair loss.

 

 

Hope this makes sense. Thanks.

 

You may require an in-person consultation that involves measuring hair diameter, the number of follicular units, and the number of hairs per follicular unit. This approach helps monitor your donor strength over time as hair loss progresses.

[ArochaHair]

Surgeons also look at how many hairs per follicular unit you have. How many doubles do you have? Triples, etc. If you are considering FUSS they'll also test your donor laxity to estimate how wide of a strip can be removed.

 

If your donor area is thinning then most likely a hair transplant is out of the question because contrary what you might hear in a clinic there is no reliable way to determine which hairs will fall out and which will not. At any given time we have ten to fifteen percent of our hair in telogen and when a doctor looks at your scalp, even with a densimeter, they can't really know which hairs are terminal and which are miniaturizing because those that are miniaturizing might actually be coming back into anagen from the telogen state. The same is true for the opposite as well. You should visit a dermatologist and have them give you an assessment about your hair, not about a hair transplant. If they determine your donor hair is in a telogen effluvium of sorts then you'll need to isolate the reason why, if possible, before you consider any surgical options.