Hair Transplant FAQ

FUE — follicular unit extraction — means we remove individual follicular units from your donor area at the back and sides of your scalp and place them where your hair is thinning. Micro FUE is the same principle performed with a smaller extraction punch. A smaller punch takes less surrounding tissue with each graft, which is what lets us place your grafts closer together.

The punch is the instrument we use to remove each follicular unit. Most clinics work with punches around 0.8 to 1.0mm. We use 0.75mm, so each extraction takes less tissue with it — less trauma to your donor area, smaller healing points, and grafts compact enough for us to place at higher density.

It is how our team distributes your grafts, rather than how we extract them. Our team places single-hair grafts at your hairline, where fine individual hairs make the transition look natural, and multi-hair grafts behind it — through the mid-scalp and crown — where the job is volume. Matching graft type to zone is how we make your donor area go further.

Our team numbs your scalp with local anesthetic before we begin. The injections sting briefly; after that, most of our patients describe pressure and sound rather than pain. Most of the discomfort comes in the days afterward, and is generally manageable with the medication our team sends you home with.

No. Our team performs Micro FUE under local anesthesia, so you are awake throughout — you can talk with our team, listen to music, eat and use your phone. We do not use general anesthesia, which is part of why recovery is quicker than most people expect.

It depends almost entirely on your graft count. Smaller sessions can finish in a few hours; larger ones take most of a day, with breaks. Our team estimates your timing at your consultation, once we have set your graft count.

Yes, and it is worth saying out loud — almost everyone is. Tell our team. Walking you through what happens next, step by step, tends to help more than anything else.

Most of our patients go back within a few days, and what decides it is usually visibility rather than how you feel — the recipient area is visibly healing for roughly the first week to ten days. If your work is physically demanding or spent in the sun, plan for longer, and ask our team at your follow-up.

Small crusts form around each graft and generally separate within about a week to ten days, as long as you follow the washing routine our team gives you. Do not pick at them — your grafts are still settling underneath.

Not immediately, and not a tight one. Anything that rubs or presses on new grafts risks dislodging them. Our team will tell you when a loose cap is safe — generally after the first several days.

Yes — and this is the part that alarms people who were not warned. Transplanted hairs commonly shed within the first few weeks. The follicle stays in place; only the hair shaft is lost, and new growth begins from those same follicles a few months later. We expect this. It is not a sign that anything has gone wrong.

New growth typically begins around three to four months, becomes clearly visible around six, and keeps thickening and maturing through roughly twelve to eighteen months. Our team follows you through all of it. A hair transplant rewards patience more than almost any other procedure.

Our team takes the follicles from the back and sides of your scalp, which are genetically resistant to the hormone that drives pattern hair loss, and they keep that resistance after we move them. What a transplant does not do is stop hair loss elsewhere — untreated native hair can keep thinning around it, which is exactly why we spend so long on your plan.

That is mostly a question of design rather than technique — the shape of your hairline, the angle and direction we place each graft at, and how density grades from front to back. Done well, nobody can tell. It is exactly what we would ask you to look for in our gallery, and in anyone else's.

Some of our patients do, some do not. It depends on how much area we need to cover, how much donor supply you have, and how your hair loss progresses afterward. Placing more hairs per graft and at higher density is how we try to reach your target in fewer sessions.

Broadly: stable, patterned hair loss and a donor area with enough healthy follicles to draw from. Beyond that it is a medical judgement Dr. Adler makes in person — your loss pattern, donor density, scalp condition, age and general health all bear on it. That is what your evaluation with us is for.

There is no single number, but our team often advises younger patients to wait. Hair loss that is still actively progressing makes it difficult to design a hairline that will still look right in twenty years. It is one of the most important things we will talk through honestly with you.

Nearly all of the hair loss we treat is androgenetic alopecia — male pattern loss — where follicles sensitive to DHT gradually produce finer, shorter hairs until they stop producing altogether. It is genetic, progressive, and it follows recognizable patterns, which is precisely what makes it treatable with Micro FUE.

Often, yes. Female pattern loss more typically shows as diffuse thinning across the top with the frontal hairline preserved, and there are more possible contributing causes — thyroid, iron, hormonal change, medication — that we want to rule out first. Our team determines candidacy at your evaluation.

Grafts start at $3 each, so your graft count is the main driver of the total — which is why we will not quote you a real number before assessing your donor area and your goals. Surgical supplies and other charges are billed in addition to the graft cost. You leave your consultation with Dr. Adler holding a written plan with your exact graft count and final price.

Fifteen minutes with one of our hair restoration specialists, at no cost and no obligation. Our team uses it to establish whether you are likely a candidate for Micro FUE, roughly what your procedure would involve, and to answer whatever is holding you back from booking.

It is $125, and we credit that $125 toward your procedure when you book — so if you go ahead, the evaluation costs you nothing. Dr. Adler assesses your donor area and loss pattern, and you leave with a written plan showing your exact graft count and final price.

It is a fair question, and worth thinking through properly rather than being talked out of. Prices in some countries are genuinely lower. What you are weighing against that is everything that comes after the surgery: whether you can come back and see your surgeon, who handles a complication three weeks later, and what recourse you have if the result is not what was agreed. We are here in San Juan, and aftercare and any revision are far simpler to arrange in the same city than across a border.