Smaller sessions (~750 grafts)

[mrshikadance]

Hi all, 

 

Curious if anyone has done smaller sessions over time (years) and how that's gone for them? I was a NW6/7 and did a 3500 FUE session in 2019 with a fantastic hair surgeon and got great results (have very high caliber hairs and chest hairs that are very similar to head hair), which covered up the first two thirds of my scalp. My only down side was a ton of donor area pain in the week or so post surgery. My scalp was on fire and I didn't get any sleep for almost a week and half. And while I love having more hair on my head, I really don't want that kind of pain again so am thinking about doing smaller sessions over the next few years to build up the crown, etc. The obvious con of going with the approach is that it'll cost more and progress will be slow but I'm hoping the upside is less down time/pain killers/trauma. 

 

Thanks!

[A_4_Archan]

24 minutes ago, mrshikadance said:

Hi all, 

 

Curious if anyone has done smaller sessions over time (years) and how that's gone for them? I was a NW6/7 and did a 3500 FUE session in 2019 with a fantastic hair surgeon and got great results (have very high caliber hairs and chest hairs that are very similar to head hair), which covered up the first two thirds of my scalp. My only down side was a ton of donor area pain in the week or so post surgery. My scalp was on fire and I didn't get any sleep for almost a week and half. And while I love having more hair on my head, I really don't want that kind of pain again so am thinking about doing smaller sessions over the next few years to build up the crown, etc. The obvious con of going with the approach is that it'll cost more and progress will be slow but I'm hoping the upside is less down time/pain killers/trauma. 

 

Thanks!

Congratulations on your successful first ht surgery ....good that the pain paid off well....actually people do get such buring sensation on the donor bt it settles down in few days...you can use aloe Vera gel and other such stuff to reduce the buring effects....you can do it in smaller sessions as well...bt it would take too long if you require too many grafts and you have to go through all the tough process for years...better to bear some pain for few days....still small sessions are fine and it has one advantage that your donor will be well preserved for future surgeries and needs...

[gillenator]

We all react differently to this type of surgery regarding pain, healing, etc.

IMHO, doing smaller sessions by FUE is fine as long as you give each session enough time to heal…I would never condone doing multiple small FUT procedures, only by FUE would be okay.

[duckling]

no issues with smaller FUE surgeries. I like this approach you want to take as many people try to go one and done approach. But with this you can address small areas without mostly any shock loss to donor and recepient, very less anasthesia injections. and also donor depletion will be avoided.

[HappyMan2021]

3 hours ago, mrshikadance said:

only down side was a ton of donor area pain in the week or so post surgery. My scalp was on fire and I didn't get any sleep for almost a week and half.

using Aloe Vera should be enough for this. A mild painkiller such as codeine can also be used. 

The solution is NOT a bunch of micro-hair transplants. 

[gillenator]

As long as you’re not grafting within the same area over and over, creating unnecessary amounts of scar tissue and compromising the blood flow, you should be fine.

[Al - Moderator]

I had 9 small procedures in the last 9 years, basically doing 1 each year, averaging about 720 grafts per session. The smallest was 522 grafts and the largest was 1055 grafts. I didn't have to shave the recipient area and the donor was all beard and chest hair, so I didn't have to shave any part of my scalp at all. That enabled me to go back to work within 10 days of each procedure without anyone ever knowing I was having anything done. After a few years I started getting some comments that my hair was looking more full and a couple of people asked me what I was doing, but nobody knew I was having surgery except for a couple of girlfriends during the time frame .

[mrshikadance]

On 6/1/2023 at 11:38 PM, BeHappy said:

I had 9 small procedures in the last 9 years, basically doing 1 each year, averaging about 720 grafts per session. The smallest was 522 grafts and the largest was 1055 grafts. I didn't have to shave the recipient area and the donor was all beard and chest hair, so I didn't have to shave any part of my scalp at all. That enabled me to go back to work within 10 days of each procedure without anyone ever knowing I was having anything done. After a few years I started getting some comments that my hair was looking more full and a couple of people asked me what I was doing, but nobody knew I was having surgery except for a couple of girlfriends during the time frame .

Favor to ask - would you mind who did your procedures?

[mrmane85]

On 6/2/2023 at 4:38 PM, BeHappy said:

I had 9 small procedures in the last 9 years, basically doing 1 each year, averaging about 720 grafts per session. The smallest was 522 grafts and the largest was 1055 grafts. I didn't have to shave the recipient area and the donor was all beard and chest hair, so I didn't have to shave any part of my scalp at all. That enabled me to go back to work within 10 days of each procedure without anyone ever knowing I was having anything done. After a few years I started getting some comments that my hair was looking more full and a couple of people asked me what I was doing, but nobody knew I was having surgery except for a couple of girlfriends during the time frame .

Does it cost more to have many smaller sessions compared to a larger single session with your particular Dr?

[Al - Moderator]

18 hours ago, mrshikadance said:

Favor to ask - would you mind who did your procedures?

Dr Robert Dorin

[Al - Moderator]

15 hours ago, mrmane85 said:

Does it cost more to have many smaller sessions compared to a larger single session with your particular Dr?

 

Some Drs have a sliding price scale according to how many grafts they do, so the higher price for smaller sessions is built in. For example you pay X amount for the first 2000 grafts, then slightly less for the next 2000, then less for anything higher than that, so if you go to someone who has that kind of pricing scale then you pay more for small sessions simply because you will always be in the first X amount of grafts at the high price point. How other places work out the pricing, I don't know.

For me I paid more per graft than their standard FUE because mine was all body hair graft donor.

 

[TEXAN35]

You might have hit some nerve last time. I think the sweet spot for one session for me is around 2000-2500. The downside of mini sessions is that you are getting local anesthesia, antibiotics, pain killers more often and also going through recovery phase again and again.

[mrshikadance]

On 6/1/2023 at 11:38 PM, BeHappy said:

I had 9 small procedures in the last 9 years, basically doing 1 each year, averaging about 720 grafts per session. The smallest was 522 grafts and the largest was 1055 grafts. I didn't have to shave the recipient area and the donor was all beard and chest hair, so I didn't have to shave any part of my scalp at all. That enabled me to go back to work within 10 days of each procedure without anyone ever knowing I was having anything done. After a few years I started getting some comments that my hair was looking more full and a couple of people asked me what I was doing, but nobody knew I was having surgery except for a couple of girlfriends during the time frame .

A few more questions for you, Behappy. How was the healing process for you? Did you have to use pain killers after each of the surgeries? After how many days did you feel like you were back to your regular self? How well did your body hair blend in? Did you have any large bald areas to cover? I did about 1k chest hairs mixed with 2500 scalp hairs and I can't tell the difference but I do wonder about lack of equal growth phases making 1k chest <1k scalp. Not sure what this is ratio is though

[Al - Moderator]

My recipient isn't getting shaved, so I'm back to work between 7 to 10 days after each one. I usually get away without using pain killers, but I did take some tylenol a few times. I've had so many hair transplants that it doesn't bother me too much anymore. I had 25 HT surgeries back in the 80s and 90s, but I kept losing hair and ended up NW7 with thinning donor area, so most of the previous transplanted hair has all fallen out too. Over the past 9 years I've been replacing all the previous transplants with body hair. I'd say I have at least 80% body hair in my recipient area now and some areas such as my lower crown are 100% body hair. Everyone's body hair is very different, so results may be very individualized, but most people who had beard and chest hair transplanted to their scalp say it eventually blends in better than it does at the beginning. Mine takes about 2 years to really start to soften and it grows longer and faster than it did on my chest (never grew my beard long enough to know the growth of that prior to transplanting). My transplanted body hair now grows faster and longer than my natural scalp hair.