Is it possible to have a hair transplant and have it immediately unnoticeable? (Photo)

Good question.  With FUE the donor site will need to be shaved.  If the hair between the donor site and crown is long enough it could possibly cover the donor site. The recipient site will show little scabs for up to 7 to 10 days.  Some doctors that have hair transplant will put a surgical scrub hat on to cover the recipient site.  The donor site will heal very quickly.

Unless you are 8 ft tall and never look up or sit down, the surgery will be noticeable for a few weeks. There are many options available to "hide" the immediate impact of surgery such as hats, dermmatch, toppik, etc.

Greetings doc,Whether you choose a strip procedure or FUE, the donor site will be relatively easy to hide with the surrounding hair, but a transplant to the crown area will result in small scabs and erythema for a week or so.  If you wear a surgical cap at all in your specialty, that would be a great way to keep everything inconspicuous until the scabs have fallen off.  Even without that, it would most likely be pretty unnoticeable.  good luck.

Hi Doc!You're asking a very important question about concealing the work of a transplant.It's not a problem in the donor area with either the FUT procedure or a smaller FUE procedure where limited grafts are harvested.  The bigger challenge is hiding the implants.  Can that be covered by the surrounding hair?  Possibly, but it's going to be a little more challenging on the crown.  That will depend upon the extent of the procedure, how you heal, the surrounding hair and a number of other issues.  And of course there are novel ways to hide grafts...in fact I had a young man go back to work in a relatively short period of time by wearing his sunglasses on his forehead.  So there really is a lot to talk about here and it may or may not allow you the affordability to work for you.  I too have debrided my share of wounds!  Good luck1John Frank, MDNew YorkOhio

All in all, it will be difficult to hide the appearance of surgery in your crown. With FUT, it will not be a  problem hiding the donor area - that's not even an issue. After 7-10 days, if you do a meticulous job washing and removing scabs, it will likely look only mildly red  in the recipient area with small hairs in the area. Provided you feel comfortable, a lot of people wouldn't really know, but a small proportion could suspect something is different. These are common scenarios in our clinic, and after helping many people with thinning crowns hide their transplant and get back to work/life without people knowing, I must say this can be challenging. The more thin one is in the crown, the tougher it is to 'hide'. If there is some hair in the crown, we sometimes get lucky and camouflaging is easier, but for areas of near complete thinning, it's tough. 2-3 weeks off work is helpful. A lot of medical professionals will elect to change the position of the room they work in, or wear a scrub cap. There are a few other possibilities that sometimes work too. We've even had patients use a hair system to cover hair loss in the crown for a few weeks or months, then have the transplant and then put the system back on for a few more weeks/months. That's extreme, but it can work. 

Your hair is more curly so it is possible but a bit more tricky in this case to keep it subtle. Regardless of the hair cut, the recipient site will be more of an issue with red/scabs for about a week.

My dear colleague ,When the donor site is long enough it is possible to cover the extraction zone with the existing hair but the amount of extraction is also minimised . Approximately up to 2000 grafts for an acceptable donor site is possible to harvest.As far as I see on the photos that you will need more than 3000 grafts , you may either decide the recipient area ( frontal or crown) or prefer FUT  method.Regards

Yes, it can be almost invisible the day after a hair transplant in 95% of patients if they follow our directions for washing the hair. All crusts MUST be removed at surgery and on the day following surgery and then, unless the patient has a tendency for redness (5% of patients) the grafts in the recipient area will only show a short beard. I have had patients come to our open house events which are monthly the day after a hair transplant and no one notice until I pointed it out. The recipient wounds must be very small. The washing routine can be seen in the web reference below

There is a couple of ways to harvest the donor hair. One is the FUE technique in which the head needs to be shaved and the other is the FUT technique in which you actually are better off keeping your hair long.  If you are concerned about how it looks immediately after the procedure, you can do the FUT and keep you hair long to cover and camouflage the areas transplanted.  If you naturally keep your hair long and don't buzz it then your best option would be FUT, however make sure that the specialist that you use is skilled in the latest closure technique.  The down time as far as the scabs go is the same using both harvesting method. 

  There are two ways of performing hair transplant surgery. First is the strip technique. Second is the FUE technique.  With the strip technique the donor area does not need to be shaved. The donor strip is taken, where hair bearing skin is approximated to hair bearing skin.