What's the Difference Between FUE and FUT Hair Restoration Procedures?

Pattern baldness (androgenetic alopecia) is hereditary and the most common type of hair loss, but you may lose hair for many reasons, including diseases, medications, and even some treatments. 

If you live in Southern California and are looking for hair restoration options that work, you can find help at Meshkin Medical with Drs. Michael and Alister Meshkin and our medical staff.

To regrow hair on your head, we offer several options, including two transplantation treatments commonly known as FUT and FUE. 

To learn the differences between the two and find out which one may be suited for your needs, let’s look at hair transplantation basics and the ways each process is done.

Hair transplantation basics

Typically, hair loss happens with thinning on the top of the head and receding from the front, though hair can fall out in patches or loosen in many areas. 

Hair transplantation takes hair growing in other areas of your head and moves it to the areas of thinning or loss. It’s a common solution for male pattern baldness, for thinning hair in women, or for people who have lost hair from burns or injuries to the scalp. 

The two procedures we’re discussing here are the most popular ways of transplanting hair, called follicular unit extraction (FUE) and follicular unit transplantation (FUT). While the processes are similar, there are key differences.

The FUT process

In this method, we cut a strip of skin to extract individual hair follicles, with the size depending on how much hair we need to replace. The procedure is considered best for people who:

• Are over the age of 25
• Have balding at the front of the head
• Have an M-shaped hairline with hair loss around the temples (known as Norwood pattern) 

These candidates tend to have an abundance of growing hair elsewhere on their head that we can use for transplantation.

The FUE process

This technique uses micropunches to extract a single follicle of hair, then we move it to bald or thinning parts of your head. With the FUE procedure, you need multiple sessions to achieve overall results. 

The primary difference between the two processes is the method of extracting and transplanting the hair, which affects the healing time. Since FUT restoration requires strips of skin to harvest hair, recovery and hair regrowth takes 6-9 months and may take longer. 

The FUE procedure can produce results in as little as three months and has become the more frequently used of the two techniques. The scarring is less noticeable with the FUE hair restoration procedure.

If you’re struggling with pattern baldness or other hair loss problems, contact us at Meshkin Medical to find the right treatment to get your hair back. We’re conveniently located in Glendale and Newport Beach, California, serving the greater Los Angeles area and Orange County.