September 12, 2026 | Hair Restoration, Hair Transplant
Hair loss consultations are a little different from the rest of my practice. Nobody is chasing a look from a celebrity photo. They bring a picture of themselves from a few years ago and they want that hairline back, without anyone knowing they did anything about it.
A patient came in recently with exactly that. Rather than write around it, I pulled the answers straight from my consult dictation, identifiers removed. This is how the conversation actually went.
Patient: What are my options, strip or FUE?
Dr. Agullo: “Okay, so I do see that you have the temporal recession areas on both sides, and the front is also thinning out a little bit. And I got your wish picture, which creates a very tight straight hairline. So there is a lot of area we have to fill in to create that. But it is definitely doable. It looks like you have good donor hair.
“So there’s two ways of doing it. Are you familiar with the strip and the FUE?”
Patient: I kind of read it a little bit. Any recommendation of which one would be better?
Dr. Agullo: “Sure. I see that on the back you like to wear it short.”
Patient: Yeah, usually from the sides it can’t be that long. Usually I had it like kind of a high fade.
Dr. Agullo: “Right. So when people wear the hair short on the back, that’s where we get the hair from. So those are the follicles that we use to fill in the front. So one way to take them from the back is doing the FUE, which is the one by one, the neograft. We take them one by one, it heals in, and you don’t see any scars. The other one is doing a strip where I actually cut like a sliver of hair follicles or scalp, but it does leave a scar. So if you wear your hair short, you would see that long scar.
“So in your case, probably the best is gonna be the FUE, which is the one by one, so you don’t have any scars, and we transfer those from the back and we put them in the front one by one, so it looks very natural. I have a hair transplant, so it really looks very natural, and of course, you can do everything normal afterwards, so you can do sports, swimming, you can dye your hair, everything’s back to normal.”
Patient: For the haircut you gotta be like a little bit meticulous with that area?
Dr. Agullo: “No, after everything’s healed, everything’s back to normal. There’s zero special care.”
Patient: How many follicles, and how long does the day take?
Dr. Agullo: “The main thing here is filling in that area. It’s a pretty big area. With the FUE, we can do maximum twenty-five hundred, sometimes twenty-eight hundred follicles. The procedure takes about six to eight hours. We give you a little bit of sedation through an IV so you’ll be comfortable, you’ll sleep through most of it. And then you need about a week for everything to heal and set in.
“After a week, you’re back to normal. You can do normal activity, exercise, running, jumping, swimming, everything back to normal. For this procedure, we do have to shave the hair down all the way to be able to get the hairs one by one. We could spare the top, we could do just the sides if you want to keep the top, or we do the whole thing, whichever is better for you.”
Patient: Will one session be enough?
Dr. Agullo: “So the idea is obviously to fill in as much as we can and get the tightest hairline possible. It is possible you may need another treatment later to make it even fuller, more dense. I think with the first treatment we can get pretty close to what you want, but we may need to add density later. Your hair is good because it’s coarse and it’s a little bit curly, so that covers a lot more than fine hair. So I think we’re gonna get a really nice result for you.”
Patient: Does it matter whether I schedule it before or after my trip?
Dr. Agullo: “No, it really doesn’t matter, it just depends on your timing. You gotta keep in mind your haircut, but the hair grows really quick so you really just need a week where you’re here, and that’s all you need, whether it’s before or after, whichever works better for you, and my coordinator can help you find the right dates.”
Patient: When do I actually see results? And what is PRP?
Dr. Agullo: “There’s no rush. Remember the hair does take four to six months to start growing. So at six months we’re only like fifty percent of the results. At a full year, year and a half is when we have a hundred percent of all the hairs are growing. The graft take is very high, usually ninety-nine percent. We do use PRP, which means we draw a little bit of your blood and get the platelets, and we inject that into the area so that the hairs grow faster with the growth factors, and we get that really high take.”
Patient: I was completely bald, so for me it made a huge difference to have hair again.
Dr. Agullo: “Exactly. Psychologically, it really gives you more self-esteem and you feel better. So it is a procedure I highly recommend. There’s really no pain afterwards, it’s easy recovery. You may get a little swollen around your eyes for two or three days but it is, I think, one of the ones where everybody’s happy.”
The Short Version
FUE, not a strip, if you wear your hair short in the back. Twenty-five hundred to twenty-eight hundred follicles in one session. Six to eight hours under IV sedation, one week local, then almost no restrictions. Four to six months before anything grows, half the result at six months, the full result at a year to a year and a half.
I am a double board-certified plastic surgeon, a Mayo Clinic fellowship alum, and I teach plastic surgery as a Clinical Associate Professor at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.
Ready to Talk?
If your hairline has been bothering you and you want a straight answer about what FUE can and cannot do for you, let’s talk. Call the office at (915) 590-7900, text us at 1-866-814-0038, or book a consultation at drworldwide.com.
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