Is this normal for 1,000 grafts FUE?

[FrontTemp]

Hello. This is 2 years post my hair transplant. There were only 1,000 grafts extracted, so I didn't expect the sites to be noticeable. Was I right to think that or is this normal? Any insights are appreciated.

[baddecisions]

No, it is not normal. Who was the doctor?

[Britanium]

FUE will always show this small white scarring, going this short will always show evidence of the grafts that have been taken. 

It's not the best looking donor area I have seen, this was Eugenix? 

[Z--]

For only 1,000 grafts? Seems excessive -- any idea of the punch size?

[donpizmeov]

It does seem the extraction itself have resulted in many of the hairs have been extracted from the back of the head and the spread out the extraction of hair follicles have been not ideally done.

[SuperC]

Based on the photo you've provided, I would consider this normal, but not ideal. It'd be helpful to see some donor photos from just after the procedure, to see what the punches looked like, as it's possible that follicles surrounding the extractions were damaged, causing permanent loss around each extraction.

Edited February 11 by gaz9318054

[FrontTemp]

3 hours ago, Z-- said:

For only 1,000 grafts? Seems excessive -- any idea of the punch size?

Don't know right now, but this photo gives an idea.

 

59 minutes ago, gaz9318054 said:

Based on the photo you've provided, I would consider this normal, but not ideal. It'd be helpful to see some donor photos from just after the procedure, to see what the punches looked like, as it's possible that follicles surrounding the extractions were damaged, causing permanent loss around each extraction.

Hmm I see what you're saying. This is immediately post op taken at the clinic.

[SuperC]

2 minutes ago, FrontTemp said:

Hmm I see what you're saying. This is immediately post op taken at the clinic.

The punches seem clean to me, and mostly reasonable spaced out. Not the smallest punches, but it looks normal to me.

I think the scarring you're seeing now is to be expected. You've got dark hair and fair skin. Removing any single follicular unit from your first photo and replacing it with a light-colored extraction scar is going to result in a noticeable contrast when your hair is cut this short.

 

[GoliGoliGoli]

I'm really confused by the extraction pattern. Why did they take hairs so low from the nape of the neck. I suppose in order to choose soft hairs for the hairline? These generally aren't considered "safe zone" hairs especially because it looks like you have some retrograde alopecia. 

 

You should name the clinic. 

[asterix0]

Scarring seems too much for only 1000 grafts.

If you don't wish to name the clinic, can you share how much you paid?

[Britanium]

Definitely Eugenix, sure OP will confirm. 

[Berba11]

It's not not normal.

Some people do scar a bit more prominently than others, and hair at this length will expose dot scarring. Also donor areas can sometimes look and feel better when more hair has been extracted as you get a more even and homogenous extraction. In your case, you had a small number of grafts used for the temple corners so probably a lot of singles, soft singles (from the nape as we can see) and finer doubles will/could have been hand picked. You've also got jet black hair set against white dot scarring so the pigmentation contrast is exaggerated compared to someone with lighter hair or salt & pepper.

You could maybe argue the punches look a little on the larger side, or that maybe some hair around the extraction sites looks a little thread-bare in places, but otherwise I don't think it's too much of a concern. A tiny bit more length would conceal it easily and you'd probably be an excellent candidate for donor re-stocking if it really bothers you.

[YodaHead]

Everyone heals differently. If your post-op pictures were not normal then i would have blamed the doc but to be honest the post-op looks normal so probably not the punch size issue. 
 

May be look into SMP to camouflage the scars?

[jjalay]

It seems like they used a big size punch, something like 1,1 mm, the extractions were not spread out and there were made more than 1000 attempts to extract the grafts. This is definitely not how it should look for such a small procedure.