Why does it take one year for full growth after FUE?

The goal of a hair transplant is to provide fuller coverage while preserving a natural appearance. An assessment takes into account such factors as the apparent thickness and curl of your donor hairs, the color contrast between your scalp and hair, your hair loss pattern, your age, and many other factors. The state of the art technique is FUE (follicular unit extraction), performed with a hybrid blunt punch that minimizes graft transection to less than 4% while allowing for the use of the smallest possible punches to minimize donor site scarring while maximizing regrowth.
With FUE, the back and usually the sides of the head will be shaved down. Sometimes patients have a partial shave in which just the lower half of the back of the head is shaved, which either can be covered up by somewhat longer hair above it or if you have shorter hair it looks just like you had a “fade” hairstyle.  A no-shave FUE technique is also possible.
After a hair transplant we advise to carefully protect the transplanted hairs for the first 5 days, after which showering and increasing your activities is possible. The transplanted hair shafts will typically fall out in about 3 weeks and the new hairs will start to grow in at 3-4 months. Full growth is judged at 10-12 months. Sometimes the native hairs in the recipient area will continue to thin over time which can give the illusion of a failed transplant, when in reality most of the density is actually from the transplanted hair.
The hair follicle has to go through certain cycles, which takes a long time to go. Even naturally, hair grows slowly. It is not the fastest process, but it achieves amazing results. 

Gary Linkov, MD
Hair Specialist
Manhattan

ON average it takes several months for the transplanted hair to start to grow after a hair transplant.  Not all the grafts grow at the same rate or all at the same time.  After around a year, you should be seeing the completion of the results from the transplant.  

Hair grows in different cycles. As a result, some hairs will now grow until the 6-8 month mark. By 8 months, 80% of your transplanted hairs will grow.

Hello, great question. Everyone is different as you know but in general the transplanted hair grows at different rates in different places on your head. Typically it takes about 8 months to see near full growth (80-90%) and up to a year.

The area of the scalp can affect the hair growth rate. For example the frontal and mid-scalp often grow faster than transplanted hair over the vertex or crown. Skin healing will also affect the overall growth rate post-op. Traditionally it is considered around 12 months to achieve the maximum hair growth. Although your hair continues to mature as it goes through cycles and often changes in calibre and quality. You could easily achieve maximum hair growth before 12 months, it is not an exact time frame and differs from person to person. 

Transplanted are slow to grow . Naturally they take time to grow fully .
Stages of hair growth after hair transplant 
1) Dormant phase ( 0-4 months) . In this period hair sheds , typically no hair growth is seen in this period , however some patients may skip this shedding phase ,which is all normal infact you will see results sooner. Also if you haven't sheded in the 1st month , you may experience hair shedding in the next as this period last for 3 to 4 months. 
2) Emergent phase (4-8 months) when the look changes, normally 80%of transplanted hair grow by this time. Crown hair can be slowest to appear .
3) maturation phase -(8-12 months) .New hair thicken and become denser

Hi thank you for your question and this should help a lot of patients considering hair transplant, please hair transplant results are not immediate and does require a lot of patient throughout a period of 10 months: Day 1: procedure, post your procedure, you are usually advised to start washing your scalp from the 4th day onwards and continue to do so. 3-5 weeks post transplant: Majority of Your transplanted hair starts to shed and the grafts go into resting phase which should delay the growth by 2-3 months from Day -1 3rd - 4th month post transplant; You start seeing hair regrow and on an average our hair grow as low as 1cm / month. 6th - 8th month: Most of Your transplanted hair must have grown about 2-3 cms’s long which should be able to produce a good positive change from the way you looked prior to your hair transplant, this is the time you start seeing dramatic changes 10 months: More of less all of your transplanted hair should have started to grow by now and though it gets better until 16-18 months you may not witness any major changes post 10 months with your naked eye. You could consider your 10 months results are final results. 

I tell my patient that 95% of the growth from an FUE or a strip surgery will be seen by the 8th month to styling length, not a year