Follicles curve slightly toward the acute angle related to the hair’s exit from the skin. Here is an example of a follicle with more curvature than usual. Extraction of this curved follicle is tricky and presents a challenge to even the most skilled hair restoration physician. When placing these follicles, it’s important that it is not placed with the natural curvature skewed or reversed. Variables such as this related to hair growth cause me to have much greater confidence in the hands of a skilled surgeon as opposed to a hair transplant robot. I honestly wonder what a robot does with follicle variations such as this.
This kind of change of the hair’s curvature inside the skin is not so rare. This condition is a challenge for the hair transplant expert and this is where the human hand is proven more efficient than any robot.
You see the human hand can trace and control the changing of the angle when inserting the skin with the punch. Keep in mind that this kind of curvatures may differ on the same scalp from location to location and again the human hand can control this condition.
The human hand can also control the changes of the insertion depth of the punch in case of very curly or open like fun follicles in order to decrease the partial transection. The hair transplant expert can even feel if he transects the follicle inside the skin, so that to make necessary corrections on his tecnique. I do not believe that any robot can substitute the human hand except only in cases of fine straight easy to extract hairs.
To paraphrase “crocodile dundee” in the scene where he was being held up at knife point in New York
"you call that a curved follicle?..that ain’t a curved follicle…NOW. This is a curved follicle "
Hairsite, and those with long memories will remember the literally horseshoe shaped follicles I removed and which were shown on the front page of Hairsite in circa 2005.
Always great to hear from the inventor of FUE. Crocodile Dundee is worth seeing again and of course like everything else, even the knife scene is on You Tube:
[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by Norwood3[/postedby]
Wow, almost like a full circle. Do people go through tests to pre-screen how curvy their follicles are before committing to a hair transplant?[/quote]
I personally don’t ever need to do pre screens or tests.
Is this something that I have to worry about if I born with naturally straight hair? Will the follicles still curve underneath the skin for those with straight hair?
Even if the follicles are straight they can be aligned differently. There is a good photo showing this in the new start thread. Even if the hair all looks like coming out at the same angle under the skin the planes can be slightly different.
The extraction of very curly hairs can take place usually with a 1.0 punch in size and if the follicle has a ligament that is not so strong and hopefully not too deep, then the extraction can easily be done from a professional. The hairs inside the dermis are not so impressively curly, only once they are extracted they present their full curvature!
Below you may see a photo of curly follicles outside the dermis from a session done few days ago.
Placing the grafts in the recipient slit : (as pointed out by CITnews)even in the seemingly straight hair follicle, there is a slight curvature. Placing the graft at the correct acute angulation ensures a “shingling” effect.
Extraction of curly hair (a challenge for the ?robotic fue): Quite possible as long as fue is performed as a blind procedure. However, the expanding needle concept as shared by Dr. Arvind makes major part of the extraction/dissection under direct magnified vision in FUSE method.
More importantly in the dissection of the crucial lower half of the graft where the splaying of the hair follicles is noticed.
For readers that may have missed the video and presentation, here’s the link
Seeing is believing
Great work…DR WOODS…who else can do this precisely…except the the inventor of FUE…
We thank you again for inventing FUE …
To take your work forward…doc…i have started using custom modified hair ultrasound…with this i can see the shaft and root of the follicles slightly better…while extracting the grafts.
I am working on a fibrooptic fine wire Follicle scope…like opthalmic endoscopes…with a company…to give eyes to HT…wherein we can see the movement of FUE punch into the dermis…
[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by HairSite[/postedby]
Below were some photos posted on HairSite back in 2004, courtesy of Dr. Ray Woods.
This is an advertising site for paid
advertisers to showcase successful hair restoration results only. It is not the
mandate of this site to engage in the discussion of failed, unsuccessful
procedures, lawsuits, litigations, refunds or complaint cases. Surgical hair
restoration procedures carry risks. Please do thorough research, consult your
own physician and investigate a doctor's background carefully before making a
decision. By proceeding to use our site, you agree to abide by our Terms of Use & Privacy Policy at http://hairsite.com/terms-of-use/ where you can also find a list of HairSite's sponsoring physicians.
