After I grew my first goatee at around 20 I was disappointed with the density and hairline of my hair, mainly because the hairline is fairly low on my chin. Over the past 12 years the overall thickness has increased a bit, but that hairline has remained subbornly the same. Also over the time I found it annoying that I was shaving off hair just inches away from where I wanted it. Wouldn't it be great if the hair could just be moved? I found out that it can and a couple days ago I had a small "test" performed of 50 hairs to get an idea of the positives and negatives of this procedure. I found little on the web documenting a procedure like mine so I thought it might be a good idea for me to post my experience on this beard board. I plan to keep everyone posted on my progress until I stop partaking in the transplants or forget my login information 
The procedure I had performed is called "FUE" which is different from traditional hair transplantation procedures. In traditional hair transplants the doctor removes a strip of skin from the back of the scalp, stitches the scalp closed, cuts out the individual hair follicles from the strip, and then implants the individual hairs into tiny holes whenever they needed to go. The transplants will usually drop their hair in a week or two and then begin regrowing usually within 3-5 months. I was not interested in that procedure because:
1) I like keeping my scalp buzzed or shaved and that procedure would leave a large and permanent scar.
2) My scalp hair is different from my facial hair. It's thinner and doesn't have nearly the same number of red hairs. Filling in an area with a radically different type of hair may not match.
So FUE seemed like a good solution. Basically this procedure uses a tool with a tiny point to extract individual hairs from the donor site which leaves tiny and (hopefully) unnoticable scars, and then the follicles are trimmed and inserted into the skin like done with the other procedure. FUE has disadvantages over the traditional hair transplant process in that it's more expensive, you get fewer hairs from the same area of skin, it takes longer, and did I mention it is more expensive?
FUE is great for people extracting hair from locations where the surrounding hair will not be shaved, but is it suitable for extracting hairs from skin that will be shaved and is on the neck and face? That's what I wanted to know before going forward with a large procedure, so I had a small procedure done the other day with only 50 hairs to find out.
I expect it will take weeks, and possibly months, before I will have the confidence to say
"Yup, the scars are irrelevant! Let's go ahead"
or
"Nope, those scars suck! 50 is OK but I don't want hundreds!"
But I'm hoping for a "yup". It's only been about 50 hours since my surgery and I have already noticed healing. Immediately after the surgery the donor spots were swollen and bloody which really made them stand out. The recipiant areas are nearly unnoticable. Now that is switching: the donor areas are becoming less noticible while the recipiant areas are becoming more noticable (red and now have little scabs on the top) At this point the recipiant sites feel similar to the sensation of having those obnoxious pimples that refuse to make a head on the surface that can be popped to release the pressure. The donor sites haven't hurt at all until I put pressure on them.
(I just discovered that my ISP's ftp site is rejecting requests to upload content. Sheehs. Comcast. Pictures will have to come later
)
The process itself was interesting. I think it took 3 hours at the most and I'd say the bulk of the time was dedicated to extracting the hairs while the insertion process was much quicker. To extract the donor hairs the spots were chosen, buzzed down (I let my beard grow out so that everything was easy to see) and then injected with numbing and anti-bleeding chemicals (Yea, I doubt those are the medical terms) The recipiant site was given the same injections but also had saline injected too. I forget why they did that but my chin really felt funny after that. The saline was absorbed very quickly by my body. Then that was it. Going to the dentist is more painful, and being at the dentist is a lot more painful than my FUE procedure.
If the scars are too noticable I'm going to ask about donating chest hairs. They are a fairly close match to my beard hairs but not perfect. I'm also considering donating from the chest to the weak mustache area since donor scarring would be really irrelevant there, but I'm going to worry about the chin first.
I really hope the donor site scars are irrelevant because not only would it be nice to use them in my goatee area but it would be nice NOT to have them on my neck. I notice that the first place facial hair stubble drives me nuts is on my neck because that skin has to fold and rub against itself. It would be great to reduce the amount of hairs growing out of there.
Do I think the scars could be minor? I think it's possible. First off, when I look at my skin close up it's not some pristine porcelain surface, it has little tiny areas with colors that vary in intensity of red and beige. The skin also has lots of tiny small wrinkles, especially on the neck. I'm hoping that the donor scars will blend into the noise. With anti-scarring stuff like Vitamin E and Miderma scars may be minimized. Also, by removing the hair I'll benefit by not having the little hair shaft that would be popping out of the skin. I had a nasty crack on my head that was bad enough I should have gotten stiches but didn't. Actually, I didn't do anything to help it heal. It has eventually healed and faded to the point that it looks like the neighboring skin.
The procedure I had performed is called "FUE" which is different from traditional hair transplantation procedures. In traditional hair transplants the doctor removes a strip of skin from the back of the scalp, stitches the scalp closed, cuts out the individual hair follicles from the strip, and then implants the individual hairs into tiny holes whenever they needed to go. The transplants will usually drop their hair in a week or two and then begin regrowing usually within 3-5 months. I was not interested in that procedure because:
1) I like keeping my scalp buzzed or shaved and that procedure would leave a large and permanent scar.
2) My scalp hair is different from my facial hair. It's thinner and doesn't have nearly the same number of red hairs. Filling in an area with a radically different type of hair may not match.
So FUE seemed like a good solution. Basically this procedure uses a tool with a tiny point to extract individual hairs from the donor site which leaves tiny and (hopefully) unnoticable scars, and then the follicles are trimmed and inserted into the skin like done with the other procedure. FUE has disadvantages over the traditional hair transplant process in that it's more expensive, you get fewer hairs from the same area of skin, it takes longer, and did I mention it is more expensive?
FUE is great for people extracting hair from locations where the surrounding hair will not be shaved, but is it suitable for extracting hairs from skin that will be shaved and is on the neck and face? That's what I wanted to know before going forward with a large procedure, so I had a small procedure done the other day with only 50 hairs to find out.
I expect it will take weeks, and possibly months, before I will have the confidence to say
"Yup, the scars are irrelevant! Let's go ahead"
or
"Nope, those scars suck! 50 is OK but I don't want hundreds!"
But I'm hoping for a "yup". It's only been about 50 hours since my surgery and I have already noticed healing. Immediately after the surgery the donor spots were swollen and bloody which really made them stand out. The recipiant areas are nearly unnoticable. Now that is switching: the donor areas are becoming less noticible while the recipiant areas are becoming more noticable (red and now have little scabs on the top) At this point the recipiant sites feel similar to the sensation of having those obnoxious pimples that refuse to make a head on the surface that can be popped to release the pressure. The donor sites haven't hurt at all until I put pressure on them.
(I just discovered that my ISP's ftp site is rejecting requests to upload content. Sheehs. Comcast. Pictures will have to come later
)The process itself was interesting. I think it took 3 hours at the most and I'd say the bulk of the time was dedicated to extracting the hairs while the insertion process was much quicker. To extract the donor hairs the spots were chosen, buzzed down (I let my beard grow out so that everything was easy to see) and then injected with numbing and anti-bleeding chemicals (Yea, I doubt those are the medical terms) The recipiant site was given the same injections but also had saline injected too. I forget why they did that but my chin really felt funny after that. The saline was absorbed very quickly by my body. Then that was it. Going to the dentist is more painful, and being at the dentist is a lot more painful than my FUE procedure.
If the scars are too noticable I'm going to ask about donating chest hairs. They are a fairly close match to my beard hairs but not perfect. I'm also considering donating from the chest to the weak mustache area since donor scarring would be really irrelevant there, but I'm going to worry about the chin first.
I really hope the donor site scars are irrelevant because not only would it be nice to use them in my goatee area but it would be nice NOT to have them on my neck. I notice that the first place facial hair stubble drives me nuts is on my neck because that skin has to fold and rub against itself. It would be great to reduce the amount of hairs growing out of there.
Do I think the scars could be minor? I think it's possible. First off, when I look at my skin close up it's not some pristine porcelain surface, it has little tiny areas with colors that vary in intensity of red and beige. The skin also has lots of tiny small wrinkles, especially on the neck. I'm hoping that the donor scars will blend into the noise. With anti-scarring stuff like Vitamin E and Miderma scars may be minimized. Also, by removing the hair I'll benefit by not having the little hair shaft that would be popping out of the skin. I had a nasty crack on my head that was bad enough I should have gotten stiches but didn't. Actually, I didn't do anything to help it heal. It has eventually healed and faded to the point that it looks like the neighboring skin.
