FUE Hair Transplant Overseas

Why are hundreds of patients traveling overseas to get their hair restoration procedures? Since hair transplantation is generally not covered by health insurance, there is little incentive to pay top dollars in the US, when a top surgeon in another country offers the same procedure. Medical tourism is a common practice among people in the U.S. and Canada. Most people cannot afford the cost of having the best procedures for hair restoration available today, and certainly the high cost of a hair transplant is not a good indicator for quality. Another very important advantage is anonymity. It is extremely advantageous for certain individuals to go “on vacation” and return home without anyone suspecting they’ve had hair transplant surgery.

No matter what your reason if for traveling, the most important consideration should always be the quality of care you receive. A good experienced FUE surgeon can guide you through all that is needed to have a complete hair restoration.

The best part is the price tag. The total price of an overseas treatment—with airfare, accommodations, and even a few days of vacation tacked on—is often far less than the procedure by itself would cost in the United States. The worldwide demand for plastic surgery rises every year and as more individuals who desire a hair transplant realize they can afford VIP treatment with a top surgeon in another country they're packing their bags and heading to the airport.

Advantages and disadvantages of the Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) hair transplantation

FUE hair transplants, or follicular unit extraction procedures are another alternative for hair restoration surgery. With FUE hair transplants, no blades or scalpels are used. Instead, we use a surgical instrument small enough to extract one single follicular unit at a time. The results are the same natural results as a normal strip procedure, but with very little bleeding, no visible scar formation and less recovery time for patients. With FUE, patients can benefit from having no visible scar formation and still have the option of shaving their heads throughout their lifetime.

FUE technique:

With FUE, a0.7 mm cylindrical punch instrument is used to take the follicular unit from the donor area. Then, the follicular units are placed in a special medium solution, and are delicately placed on the recipient area where they grow permanently, following a special pattern and providing density as dense-packing is carefully measured.

Although the follicular unit extraction (FUE) technique is based on a simple principle of obtaining follicular units one at a time, the procedure and the consistency of the results may vary with each doctor. The technique is also very time consuming and requires a high level of skill from the hair restoration surgeon. Please take the precaution to ask for further information on the FUE procedure with each doctor you approach. Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) is ideal for patients who wish to wear their hair very short or are afraid of surgery.

Advantages of FUE hair transplant

Faster healing time:

Having an FUE procedure has its advantages as it is more comfortable during the healing period, and activities can be resumed in less time. Complete healing from a follicular unit extraction procedure is about 5 to 7 days, compared to two weeks for the traditional hair transplant.

Noscarring:

There is also no visible scarring in the donor area, so patients can feel free to wear their hair short and avoid having a linear scar in the back of their heads.

Easier identification of gray hair follicles:

One advantage of FUE over the traditional strip hair transplant is that it is easier to identify and extract (or avoid extracting) gray hair follicles. With the traditional strip method, the use of a backlight or a special microscope is essential, or gray hair could be damaged during the identification and separation process. With FUE, each follicular unit remains intact during extraction, or FUE can selectively harvest hair that has not gone gray.

Disadvantages of FUE hair transplant

Sessions limited to 2,500 grafts per day:

One of the major disadvantages of FUE procedure is that it is time consuming, and a limited number of follicular units can be harvested in the donor area per session. That is not the case with a normal strip hair transplant where as much as 5,000 grafts can be transplanted per session. For FUE hair transplants, the average amount of grafts extracted in a single day may vary from 800 to 2,500 depending on follicular unit architecture and skin conditions. If more grafts are needed, the use of more than one session is suggested.

Shaving:

For a session larger than 1,000 grafts, having the donor area shaved is a requirement. Since FUE technique requires that the surgeon view the follicular unit groupings as they extract them, it is necessary for the patient to shave the sides and back of their head.

The content of this article was provided by Dr. Luis Nader, Medical Director of Nader Medical, hair transplant clinic. Dr. Nader’s experience with FUE has placed him as one of the top leading FUE hair transplant surgeons worldwide. He is also member of several hair restoration organizations such as the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgeons, and the European Society of Hair Restoration Surgery. His clinic in Mexico is exclusively dedicated to hair transplantation, being FUE procedures an important part of his practice.