There are many hair loss treatments out there, but the only true hair replacement options are hair transplants. It’s true that hair transplants cost quite a bit, but they’re a generally permanent solution for hair loss and look completely natural, since they use your own hair. In a lineup, 60% of men can’t even correctly identify which subjects have had hair transplants.
Hair transplant procedures generally fall into two categories. In both, donor hair grafts are implanted at the desired site (typically the top of the head or the hairline). In follicular unit transplantation, these donor grafts are harvested by the hair transplant surgeon removing a strip of the scalp (from the back of the head) and dividing it into thousands of tiny grafts containing one or two hairs each. In follicular unit extraction, the surgeon makes a tiny incision around each individual follicular unit (choosing donor sites all over the back and sides of the head) and pulls it out.
So which method is better? The best way to decide which is best for you is to talk directly to a hair loss doctor. But here are the basic advantages of each method:
Reasons to Choose FUT:
- Strip-harvested grafts are of higher quality
- Harvesting surgery is normally done in a shorter amount of time
- Patients experience fewer problems with their new hair falling out
Reasons to Choose FUE:
- FUE procedures leave only small, white dot scars, rather than strip scars
- Hair can be worn short in the future without scarring being noticeable
- There is a shorter post-op recovery time
For these reasons, FUE is often recommended for younger men who might want to wear their hair short someday as their tastes change, while FUT is the standard choice due to overall better results. FUE hair transplants can also be used to disguise the scarring left by previous FUT procedures.
Which of these hair replacement options do you think would be better for you? Join the discussion in the comments.