Calculating Your Hair Grafts
The amount of hair needed to create a cosmetically impactful hair restoration is an art as much as a science. It requires the aesthetically trained and experienced eye of a 
hair transplantation surgeon to evaluate each patient based on their goals, treatment plan, personal physiology, age, and a variety of other patient-specific considerations.
Donor Hair is a Finite Resource
Donor hair is a finite resource and must be treated as precious when mapping out a hair restoration procedure. Responsible physicians are always mindful of potential future needs accordingly, they do not want to waste a single graft where it will be of no cosmetic benefit.
When we begin to notice cosmetic hair loss with our naked eye, it means that hair density on the scalp has diminished below 50 percent of the original density. The illusion of fullness created by a hair restoration is dependent upon restoring hair density above the 50 percent threshold that can be detected by the naked eye.
Determining Proper Density
Determining what the proper density is for a given patient is one of the meticulous things that a surgeon will investigate during pre-op. In this way, a surgeon can make 
an educated decision about the approximate number of grafts that will be required to create a cosmetically satisfying density over the portion of the scalp that is being surgically restored.
On average, the donor area of the scalp (located in the back of the head and sides of the scalp) can yield as many as 8,000 donor grafts, with some lucky patients even yielding as many as 10,000 donor grafts. Extracting these donor grafts via either FUT (Follicular Unit Transplant Strip Harvest Method) or FUE (Follicular Unit Excision) will be dependent upon the preferences of the patient, and the size of the hair loss case. Different patients are better served by either FUT or FUE on a case-by-case basis. Once the patient’s evaluation is complete, Dr. Gabel will make his recommendation.
Contact Gabel Hair Restoration in Portland, Oregon
Our team at Gabel Hair Restoration looks forward to your visit and discussing these matters with you in greater detail. To learn more about hair loss, the latest medications, and the latest techniques in hair restoration and hair transplant surgery, contact us at our Tigard, Oregon office. We are located at 12115 SW 70th Avenue, Tigard, Oregon 97223, only 20 minutes from downtown Portland.
