My dermatologist just recommended me to take accutane for my acne. I’ve been doing some research and I read somewhere that one should be off of accutane for atleast 6 months before having a cosmetic surgery, because of scarring reasons

No one really knows for sure. Accutane is supposed to affect the sebaceous glands and as such it had an affect on skin resurfacing. It has not been studied in hair transplant surgery, but the general rule of thumb is that you should be off Accutane for 6 months prior to a hair transplant. I’ve done a strip on a patient who did not tell me he was taking Accutane until after his surgery. He healed just fine. Patients on Accutane probably respond well to FUE. Going with the general rule though, you should wait 6 months after stopping Accutane prior to having a hair transplant.

There are also a few reports of hair loss on Accutane.

You can probably have a hair transplant and safely start Accutane a month later, but this has not been studied either.

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I had a consultation and the doctor said that FUT is more powerful procedure than FUE and has more advantages, What is Dr. Cole opinion?

FUE allows for the harvesting of hair all over the permanent zone. This allows for potentially more hair than one may achieve from strip surgery especially if strip surgery is limited to a single strip scar. The disadvantage to FUE is that you will thin out the donor area. This should be carried out in a manner such that the area is equally thinned out. Also FUE is not a completely scarless procedure. In some individuals white spots may occur at the extraction sites. Overall these white spots are considerably less noticeable than the strip scar.

Strips result in distortion of hair growth angles. Properly performed FUE does not distort the direction of hair growth angles. FUE is a far better procedure that is in the hands of the physician. Conversely, strip surgery yields fewer hairs per graft and the graft dissection is in the hands of the surgery technicians with varied degrees of skill and no medical license to practice medicine.

FUE is a far more advanced procedure with greater potential to the patient. Patients have the capacity to receive more hair from fewer grafts. This results in better results from fewer grafts. The transection rate from FUE is better than with strip surgery in nearly 100% of the cases.

Dear, Dr. Cole my nature of hair is curly can i use my body (leg. chest hair) in crown area by FUE in your clinic. i did no more donor area but the doctor said to me i can’t do FUE because my hair is curly!!! and the grafts will be damaged during extarcting. Is it true?

Those with curly hair can be good candidates for FUE, however, it is very important that these individuals select an experienced physician who is properly trained in how to remove such grafts.  The extraction process must be modified slightly because it is more difficult to detect the direction of follicle growth underneath the surface layer of the scalp.    Curly hair will generally take more time to extract but, as with all hair types, the transection rates and yield will ultimately depend on the physician’s expertise and skills.

One advantage to curly hair is that it provides more coverage value than straight hair, meaning that less grafts will be needed, per square centimeter, to achieve desired results.