What should I do if I am told I have a weaker donor area?

Hello and thank you for your question. Unfortunately there is not any medication that will make new hair grow, it will only help retain the hair that you have. 

There is no medication for poor donor area.  Having a "weak" donor area means you are not likely a candidate for surgery.

While I would, of course, have to examine your scalp in person before I made any real diagnosis, I can say that if you were told that you have a “weaker donor area” it is most likely because you have fewer hair follicles available in this area for transplant. There are several different medications and non-surgical treatment options that can encourage existing hair follicles to produce thicker or fuller hair, but without a large number of healthy donor follicles to draw from, an extensive hair transplantation procedure that restores the fullness you once had will be challenging.

Follicular unit extraction (FUE) techniques, because they are able to draw scattered individual follicles from a more diffuse area, may be able to provide you with sufficient hair follicles to add coverage in specific areas. Depending on the extent of your hair loss, this approach may be able to provide you with the desired aesthetic effect. Moreover, even though medications like minoxidil and finasteride may not be able to make your donor area “stronger,” they have been shown to significantly slow the progression of many forms of hair loss, and in some cases to even regrow hair. Advanced hair restoration procedures like platelet rich plasma or red light therapy may also be able to do a great deal to help you keep the hair that you already have. Most forms of hair loss are progressive, and so a hair transplant without some other form of preventative maintenance plan will not prevent further hair loss from occurring. Fortunately, hair transplantation procedures are not your only hair restoration option. I would recommend that you consult a doctor with extensive experience treating hair loss so that you can figure out what approach is best for you.

I recommend you visit with a physician for an office consultation.  You need to clarify if there is actual loss or miniaturization in the donor or that you have a lower density.  If you have a lower density in the donor it shouldn't eliminate you from candidacy, although that may vary from physician to physician. Lower density may simply mean there are few grafts available for a transplant.

DUPA, or Diffuse Unpatterned Alopecia is a diagnosis of an overall thinning of hair globally across the scalp. I saw that a person below mentioned DUPA however did not explain the acronym. Yes there can be some interventions if properly diagnosed by a hair restoration physician. Finasteride and minoxidil may help. I definitely encourage you to have  a serious consultation to determine the DUPA or not.

Perhaps you were told that your hair loss is extending quite low on the back of your head?  Without a proper in-person examination, it is hard to know what is going on here. If we go with the assumption that you have low donor area available relative to a large area of need, then perhaps you should look into SMP (Scalp MicroPigmentation), PRP, and other non surgical methods to slow the losses and give you a cosmetic result that you will enjoy.   Whatever you do, get a second opinion before jumping into a procedure. 

If by "weak" you mean not dense, that does not preclude you from being a candidate.  There would be fewer grafts available, so long-term planning would be crucial to assure that as many of your desires as possible are met without overly thinning out your donor area. 

With FUE there is the option of taking grafts in the donor region from all around the ears, the sides of your head, the back of your head and the neck. You can even use Body hair.A great first step would be an online consultation. Often you can submit photos to top hair restoration surgeons for a complimentary evaluation and have multiple doctors analyze your donor region. This should help lead you in the right direction. Having multiple consultations with different doctors cannot hurt.