Why Punch Size Matters For Hair Transplantation

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So I get a lot of patients asking about what is the smallest size punch we can safely use for the hair. In addition, some practices across the world have tried to market with this with set sexy terms is micro fue, mini fue the smallest fue punch. And to some extent, smaller punches are going to leave less growing than much larger punches. However, there's a cutoff here. The data looks at looking at this in science reports, that 1.5 millimeter punches and below the scarring is going to be the same all the way down to about 0.5, 0.6 millimeters. Below that you will probably have even less scarring and above that you're going to have much more extensive scarring. So as the hair patient, what size punch should you be looking for? Well, the problem here is you have to not just a voice guard, but you have to harvest the hair.

The smallest diameter you can harvest a hair from with a single unit of hair is 0.5 millimeters. And if you have a double unit of hair, he's going to be around 0.8, 0.9 millimeters. Most of our patients when we're harvesting hair are going to want ones, twos and threes. So you need a little bit larger than a 0.8. In a 0.9 millimeters is I think the safe spot and sweet spot for harvesting hair below that, although you can't harvest from a patient with that type of hair you're going to have a lot of transections for damaged hairs. So you might be damaging more hair than you're actually harvesting successfully. In addition, the difference between scarring between a 0.8 millimeter and a 0.9 millimeter is negligible. You as a patient will not be able to tell the difference. So you want to have the sweet spot of the largest punch to harvest hair successfully with the smallest size to avoid scarring. And that sweet spot in my opinion is around 0.9 Millimeters, rarely up to one millimeter.