Hair transplant: frequently asked questions

Your own hair follicles are taken from the back and sides of your head — the area that is genetically resistant to hair loss — and placed into the thinning or bald areas. Nothing artificial is added; the hair that grows afterwards is your own and behaves like the hair it came from.

A graft is a natural cluster of one to four hairs that comes out of the scalp together. Grafts and hairs are not the same number: 3,000 grafts can correspond to roughly 6,000–7,000 individual hairs. Quotes that count hairs rather than grafts sound larger for the same work.

Both take the grafts out the same way, with a micropunch of 0.6–0.8 mm. They differ in how the grafts go back in. In Sapphire FUE the channels are opened first with a sapphire blade, then the grafts are placed. In DHI the channel and the placement happen in one motion with a Choi implanter pen, which is slower per graft but works well between existing hairs.

That is decided at the assessment, not in advance. Broad coverage of a bald area usually favours Sapphire FUE; adding density between hairs you still have, or working without shaving, usually favours DHI. The physician of the partner facility makes the call after seeing your donor area.

Naturalness is decided by the hairline design and by the angle and direction of every single graft — not by the technique. A hairline drawn too low or too straight looks transplanted for the rest of your life, which is why the planning stage matters more than any piece of equipment.

Someone whose donor area at the back and sides is dense, whose hair loss has stabilised rather than accelerating, and whose general health allows a procedure under local anaesthesia. The donor area is the limit: it is a finite resource and it does not regenerate.

There is no upper limit — general health decides. The lower end is more cautious: in the early twenties the pattern of loss is often not yet settled, and transplanting into an area that will keep receding around it produces a result that looks worse in five years than doing nothing today.

Yes, when the donor area is unaffected and the cause of the loss has been established. Hair loss in women is more often diffuse, so the back of the head has to be checked for thinning as well, and reversible causes — iron deficiency, thyroid disorders, post-partum shedding — must be excluded first. We wrote a separate page on this: hair transplant for women.

Not automatically, but it has to be known in advance. Diabetes, blood-thinning medication, heart conditions, hepatitis and skin conditions of the scalp all change either the planning or the answer itself. Tell us before the assessment rather than on the day; this is the single most common reason a procedure is postponed.

Often yes, but it depends on two things: how much donor capacity you have left, and what was done to the recipient area. Send photographs of both areas. A repair case is planned differently from a first procedure and it is fairer to tell you that at the start.

The procedure is done under local anaesthesia, so you do not feel the extraction or the placement. What people describe as painful is the anaesthetic injection itself, which lasts a few minutes. Afterwards there is tightness and tenderness rather than pain, and it is managed with the medication you are given.

Six to eight hours as a rule, in one day, with breaks. DHI takes longer for the same number of grafts because each graft is placed individually with the implanter pen.

Yes. You lie down, you can talk, listen to music, use your phone and eat during the breaks. General anaesthesia is not used for this procedure.

For most male cases the donor area and often the recipient area are shaved, because it makes the work more precise. Unshaven and partially shaved procedures are possible — a narrow strip at the back covered by the surrounding hair — and this is the usual route for women. DHI is the technique normally chosen when nothing is to be cut.

The number follows your donor capacity, not a target you set. A single day’s session covers what the donor area can safely give without thinning it visibly; taking more than that trades one problem for another. If your case needs more than one session, that is said in the written plan before anything is booked.

Small crusts form around each transplanted graft and the donor area feels tight. Swelling of the forehead is common between days two and four and settles on its own. You sleep on your back with your head raised, and you do not let anything touch the transplanted area.

The first wash is done for you, before you fly home, and you are shown exactly how to repeat it. The crusts come away over roughly ten days with that washing routine. Picking at them instead is how grafts are lost.

That is shock loss and it is expected. Between weeks two and eight the transplanted hairs shed while the root stays in place. It alarms almost everyone and it means nothing has gone wrong — the follicle is what was transplanted, not the hair shaft.

New growth begins around months three to four. Visible density arrives around months six to nine. The final result — full thickness and texture — is at twelve to eighteen months. Judging the outcome before the first year is judging an unfinished process.

Most people return after about a week, when the crusts have gone. Whether it is visible depends on your job and on how much was done; the donor area recovers faster than the recipient area looks normal.

As a general frame: two weeks for heavy exercise, sport, the sea, the pool and sauna, and two weeks avoiding direct sun. Sweat and chlorine on healing skin are the immediate risk; sun protection is worth keeping up well beyond that, because new scalp burns easily. The binding version is the written instruction the facility gives you.

Three nights, which is what every package includes. The usual pattern is arrival and assessment, the operation the next day, then the first wash and the check before you fly home.

Airport pickup and all transfers between the airport, the hotel and the facility are part of every package. The VIP package adds a private welcome and a personal coordinator throughout your stay.

Language support is part of the package rather than an extra. You are accompanied at the assessment and at the facility, so nothing about your own procedure is explained to you in a language you do not follow.

In a licensed partner health facility, carried out by that facility’s physicians. Both the clinic and the operating surgeon are named in your written quotation, before you book. The name and licence of the facility are in your written offer before you commit.

It is not the plan we make. The first wash and the post-operative check are done here, and they are the point of the third night. Flying before them means leaving without anyone having looked at the result of the work.

Our packages run €2,000 – €3,000. The price follows the package — technique, stay, transfers, scope — rather than the graft count, and your exact figure is confirmed after we assess your photographs. The full breakdown is on the cost page.

A per-graft rate looks precise but hides the rest of the cost. Two quotes at the same rate can differ by a thousand euros once accommodation, transfers, coordination and follow-up are counted. Pricing the package keeps the comparison honest.

Yes. Sending photographs and receiving your assessment and a written, itemised offer costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Nothing is booked until you ask for it.

No one honestly can, and an organisation that does is telling you something about itself. What we can state is what is fixed in writing: the technique, the facility, the physician, the package contents and the follow-up at months 1, 3, 6 and 12. Biology is not part of a contract; the process around it is.

Some people do — most often when the loss continues in the untreated areas around the transplant, which is a matter of your own pattern rather than of the work done. Whether a second session is likely is something the assessment can indicate, and it is better said before the first one than after.

Follow-up at months 1, 3, 6 and 12 is part of every package. You send photographs at those points and you get an answer; that schedule is written into the offer, so it is checkable rather than a promise.