In December’s first blog, we addressed the reasons you’re seeing more and more hair in the shower drain every morning. From male pattern hair loss in men to alopecia areata in women, there are many different causes behind hair loss.

And exactly none of them are welcome changes in your life.

That’s why Dr. Barrera specializes in hair transplantation using state-of-the-art hair transplantation using micro and mini grafts.

Follicular unit transplantation

If you’ve been looking into hair restoration, you’ve no doubt heard about follicular unit extraction (FUE). In this method, the donor area at the back of the head is shaved and the hair grafts are taken out one by one with a very small round knife.

Dr. Barrera is familiar with FUE, but he feels another method is superior — follicular unit transplantation (FUT). In this method, also known as horizontal donor ellipse, a narrow, horizontal strip of scalp is harvested from the back of the scalp. From this strip, Dr. Barrera then separates out micro and mini grafts to transfer to the thinning areas. Instead of single follicles, each of the grafts have 1-2 or 3-4 hairs in them.

Dr. Barrera feels FUT is a more successful way to perform modern hair transplantation. The strip is taken and then this is closed with minimal stress across the incision. Then Dr. Barrera carefully dissects the strip under magnification and background lighting into micro grafts (1-2 hairs) and mini grafts (3-4 hairs). Using this method, he is able to ensure each graft is intact, which makes a big difference in the final success rate after they are transplanted.

The problem with FUE is that when the follicles are removed one by one, some of them don’t come out whole, so when they are transplanted, they may not grow hair as well as a complete follicle. Plus, most of the back of the scalp has to be shaved for FUE, requiring a much longer period to fully grow back hair to camouflage the area.

By taking a strip and then immediately closing the incision, the area is immediately concealed the same day. That’s another reason Dr. Barrera feels FUT is a better approach.

Micro and mini grafts

This approach, using micro and mini grafts rather than single follicles, was first developed in 1991 by Dr. Uebel. In the 30 subsequent years, Dr. Barrera has been refining the technique. He has increased the number of grafts taken and transplanted in a single session from the original 1,000-1,200 grafts to up to 2,500 or even 2,800 grafts in a single session.

These have produced excellent results for our hair transplant patients. See for yourself by looking at our hair transplantation gallery. Then give us a call at (713) 468-5200 to schedule a consultation with Dr. Barrera to see if follicular unit transplantation is right for your hair loss.