Compare Scars of FUE and FUT

1. Donor Site Immediately Right After Surgery

FUE

FUE needs to shave a huge area to perform the surgery and no hair to cover the scars. The punched holes will show for a few days after surgery.

FUT

FUT, we shave only 2 cm wide and remove one cm so we still have a one cm shaved area. As long as donor site hair is longer than 3 cm in length, the shaved area will be covered and not detectable immediately after the surgery.

2. Donor Scars

FUE Scar With Short Hair (Not our patients-we do not perform FUE)
FUT Scars With Short Hair

FUE Scars When You Shaved Your Head  (Not our patients-we do not perform FUE)
It will show thousands of punch scars.

FUT Scars When You Shaved Your Head It shows one linear scar.

3. Worst Scenario

FUE-Worst Scenario (Not our patient- we do not perform FUE)
FUE doesn’t mean you can shave or cut your hair pretty short.
The photo shows the harvest area was too small, so it looks very thin at the donor site.

FUT-Worst Scenario
It only shows one linear scar.
To erase the linear scar just have a tattoo (not SMP) on it.
Please see the result with the tattoo at Invisible Scar.

Risk On FUE:  Over Safe Zone

The FUE procedure needs to harvest a wide area to harvest grafts.

The top and bottom of the hair are over the safe zone. It means they are not

The permanent hair, when aged, hair in that area will disappear.

Then at first, the thousand small punch scars will show, and the transplanted hair will fade.

4. Cover-Up Methods

Cover Up FUE Scar

  1. Leave air longer, but the donor might look thin. Because punched scars were not closed, the scar area is much bigger than in the FUT method.
  2. Camouflage products such as hair powder
  3. Tattoo for thousands of small punch scars

Cover Up FUT Scar

  1. Leave hair longer, Donor site doesn’t look thin. The linear scar is always not wider than 2 mm.
  2. Hair color foundation
  3. Tattoo for one linear scar.

5. Hairstyle After Surgery

Hairstyle After FUE Surgery

A. Shave head: will show thousands of small punches scars

B. Young people have a very popular Fade haircut: The harvesting area will need 8 to 10 cm wide. Will show the button of scars at the lower part of the donor site.

The hair can’t be cut too short or the punch scars will show as in the photo below. The gentleman was sitting in front of me on a bus.

Hairstyle After FUT Surgery

A. Shave head: will show one linear scar

B. Young people have a trendy Fade haircut: Only need one cm wide, Can harvest the donor at the higher part of the donor so a fade haircut is possible.

6. Compare the scar size of FUE and FUT

FUE

For 3000 FU grafts, FUE will leave scars a total of 30 sq. cm.

FUT

FUT will leave a 30 cm long but only 0.1 cm wide scar. So the total size of scar FUE is 10 times bigger than FUT. This is the reason the donor site hair of FUE looks thinner compared to FUT.

7. Compare Pain After Surgery

FUE

Pain happens three-four days after the mega session. When thousands of open punch holes got inflamed.

Itching, pain, and redness always last for one to two months.

FUT

The pain of FUT usually happens on the night of surgery and then gradually gets better.

We have been performing FUT for more than 28 years. The pain after the FUT surgery is depending on tightness and knobs at both ends of the suture. It is technique-dependent. We give Tylenol with codeine for post-op pain. About 50 percent of our patients don’t even take it. Only 1 to 2 % ask for a more strong pain reliever.

Learn More from a hair transplant surgeon’s experience as an FUE patient

Dr. Anastassakis presented his own FUE experience at ISHRS annual meeting in Oct 2014.

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