Temporary Hair Shedding
When you transplant into an area which has some fine remaining hair in it, those hairs that are in between the new grafts will probably "shed". What this means is that the hair follicles go into their resting period, the hair becomes loose and falls out. Again, these residual hair follicles will spend about three to four months in their resting phase before re-growing hair. Occasionally, some of these residual hairs will not re-grow because they were in the last cycle of their life. The way you can tell which hairs are not likely to grow is based on their degree of miniaturization. When male pattern balding begins, before hairs are lost, several years of miniaturization go by in which the hairs become smaller and smaller and their growing phase becomes shorter and shorter. Finally, they begin to die off and you have fewer hairs than originally. You can lose about half of your overall number of hairs before it is apparent that your hair is thinning. The more miniaturized the residual hairs are in the balding or thinning area, the less likely they are to re-grow with our new transplanted hairs.
Patient J.C. before surgery
Patient J.C. immediately after surgery
Patient J.C. 2 weeks post-op showing residual hairs temporarily "shed"
Patient J.C. one hair transplant session combed wet
Patient J.C. one hair transplant session combed dry
Patient J.C. finished result. This was split into four medium size sessions