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In general the term hair graft is synonymous with a hair follicle. A graft generally means a tissue for transplantation. In modern hair transplant surgery a hair graft is a hair follicle.
We try to standardize our language in the world of hair transplants but it can certainly be confusing. A graft is either 1, 2, 3 or sometimes 4 hair follicles. This is also known as a follicular unit. When micrografting was developed, the natural groupings of hairs (1, 2, 3 or 4 hairs) were called follicular units and were separated to create grafts. Therefore a follicular unit should be the same thing as a graft. This means if you have 1000 grafts, depending on how your hair follicles are naturally grouped, you would have at least 2,000 or more hairs. It would be unethical to take those same 1000 grafts and split ever follicular unit into a single hair graft simply to charge more by calling it a 2,000 graft transplant. FUE and FUT grafts will have the same terminology as I have explained above even though the grafts are removed differently.
In most clinics a follicle is one hair shaft of hair and a follicuar unit is all the shafts in one graft. The terminology isnt standardized across the baord so its important to know if you are getting hairs, follicles, or grafts and what that means.
Single follicle is a single hair string or a single hair shaft . But in our scalp anatomy , hair exist in form of small groups as a family which contains 1,2,3, or 4 to 5 hair follicles. During harvesting of hair we try to isolate a part or whole of this small hair family/bunch and harvested part is called as graft.
In the human, hairs grow in groups of 1-4 hairs each called Follicular Units. in 1997, I published the seminal article on follicular unit transplants (see web reference below) which I taught the art of using exclusively follicular units for hair transplants. That means that one follicular unit can have from 1-4 hairs each and these follicular units should only be used when transplanting people as this technique produces the most natural results as my article taught.
If you're under a bright light your hair will look thinner. If you are in dark place your hair will look thicker. If you want to know what your hair looks like to other people, you can simply ask them.
It is best to ask your doctor about using minoxidil on your donor area. In general it is not recommended and would likely have little to no benefit.
If you have issues after surgery , it is best to contact your doctor for treatment rather than treating yourself.
