Hair Transplant Surgery to the Scalp Using Beard Hair for Added Density?

This question, from a member of our hair loss social community and discussion forums, was answered by a staff physician from Coalition hair transplant clinic Shapiro Medical:

I’m close to committing to a 2nd follicular unit strip surgery (FUSS) in order to put as much hair in my vertex area as possible, but it likely wont be enough for a nice illusion of density unless I get scalp micropigmentation (SMP) or beard filler added later. But, those options are icing on the cake and I have to get the hair transplanted first.

I know some hair transplant surgeons will combine scalp donor with beard donor during their follicular unit extraction (FUE) procedure, but since I can yield more grafts from strip and it’s less expensive, I’m really tempted to do that in order to maximize my harvest from the scalp. But I want to make sure that if this strip leaves no more donor hair available on my scalp (which cannot be predicted for sure), that an FUE surgeon would be able to do a “beard filler only” FUE session.

Does anyone know the answer to this question? Can any surgeon here comment?

Beard hair can be an excellent source of “filler” hair once you have exhausted all of your available donor hair but you will never want to use it in a highly visible area such as the hairline. Beard hair is still very unpredictable in its yield and in its overall “value” in the final result.

In my personal experience, I have found some hair restoration patients to have had as low as 50% yield with the use of beard hair and as high as possibly 80% in others. Also, some people have very fine beard hair while others have very coarse hair. Even further still, most beard hair grafts contain only single hairs. Some men I have seen have a higher percentage of 2 – haired grafts. You can imagine that more 2 haired grafts might give better coverage than single haired grafts.

I agree, that FUSS right now is your best bet to obtain a large number of grafts for your next procedure. You will have to be evaluated by a hair transplant surgeon for your candidacy for beard transplant. How good of a candidate you are will depend on the above items I discussed. If you are able to use beard and you do get a good yield, the total number of grafts available range anywhere from 400 – 1000+. You can only get those totals with multiple sessions.

That was the long answer. The short answer is that you should have your beard evaluated by a doc before you make any decisions.

-Shapiro Medical
—-

David
Editorial Assistant and Forum Co-Moderator for the Hair Transplant Network, the Coalition Hair Loss Learning Center, and the Hair Loss Q & A Blog.

To share ideas with other hair loss sufferers visit the hair loss forum and social community

Technorati Tags: hair loss, follicular unit strip surgery, FUSS, scalp micropigmentation, SMP, hair transplant, follicular unit extraction, FUE, hair restoration