Are ARTAS hair transplants painful?

The only discomfort associated with an ARTAS robotic procedure is with the initial anesthesia, which is performed using a tiny needle to numb the nerves leading up from your neck to the scalp.  The numbness is deep once attained, but the nerve blocking drugs (like lidocaine, which is very commonly used) cause a chemical reaction in your skin when administered.  They cause the nerves of pain to be stimulated, causing some pain, and then the nerve goes numb.  There is a very steep exponential curve between the rate of injection and the pain experienced; for example, if the physician (or, as is sadly often the case, some technician) injects twice as fast, it's not twice as painful, it's about 40 times as painful.As a result, in clinics where multiple procedures are performed by one physician per day, and there is a need to be fast, then the discomfort can tend to be higher.  In clinics where one procedure per day is performed by the surgeon, such as at our center, the is no rush to complete the surgery, and the entire procedure is next-to-painless.  I have had dozens and dozens of patients tell me it's not even as intense as having your teeth cleaned by a dental hygienist.  My patient last Friday told me that the entire experiences "hurt less than a haircut."  I asked him to elaborate, because as much of a compliment as that was, I told him I didn't think that was possible.  He was insistent, and said, "you know when they shave under your chin there?  That hurts more than this procedure." 

The ARTAS robotic hair restoration procedure utilizes a robot to extract individual hair follicles that are used for the transplant.  Prior to the actual procedure the entire scalp is anesthetized with an injection of a local anesthetic.  Therefore the harvesting of the follicles by the robot is painless.  When a local anesthetic is administered there is a "burning" sensation associated with it.  This can be minimized with the use of mechanical vibration and by injecting the anesthetic slowly.  The quicker it is injected, the more painful it is.  
A strip procedure (FUT) obtains the hairs for the transplant by removing a strip of skin/hair from the back of the scalp.  The area is then sewn back together with stitches.  Prior to this the area is also anesthetized with a local anesthetic and will therefore not hurt.  The only discomfort from either procedure is the actual injection of the anesthetic.
Afterwards, the strip procedure tends to have more discomfort associated with it than the ARTAS robotic procedure.  With the strip procedure there is a linear incision which has to heal.  With the ARTAS procedure there is no incision to heal, just the tiny defects made by the robot when the follicles are removed.  These heal on their own and tend to be pretty painless.

Hello, ARTAS hair transplants are not painful because local anesthesia is injected into the donor area. It should be the equivalent of going to the dentist office for a procedure. Best, Anil Shaw

ARTAS hair transplants are similar to other types of FUE (follicular unit extraction) hair transplant methods like NeoGraft with respect to pain. During the procedure, numbing medicine is used to make the harvest process painless after the numbing injections are complete. Most patients are comfortable enough to be able to listen to music, read a book, or fall asleep during the procedure. 
Post-operatively, discomfort is usually mild and is less painful than the strip harvest technique. Patients may require a little bit of pain medicine for a day or two post-operatively, but most report that post-operative pain was minimal.
All the best,

The ARTAS Robotic Hair Restoration is not painful. It is completed using local anesthesia. A patient may feel slight discomfort from the onset of delivering the local anesthesia, but the entire procedure is virtually painless. 

ARTAS like any other FUE procedure should not be painful. The discomfort associated with local anesthesia is minimized by the administration of oral sedation. This takes the edge off the local anesthesia infiltration. A pain scale should be used where you report any discomfort to the doctor. One is very minimal and 10 requires going to the hospital for a pain shot. Most patients are anesthetized with only mild discomfort, and through the use of longer acting local anesthetic like septocaine or marcaine the block is maintained for a prolonged time.

Having an Artas FUE procedure is no different than any other FUE procedure in terms of pain.  The Artas is just a tool/device that facilitates and FUE procedure. Generally the only time a patient experiences discomfort is during the anesthetic injections which only lasts about 60 seconds.

FUE procedures are much easier on the patient than the strip FUT procedures. I always hear it from the previous strip patients that come for a secondary procedure : Doc, this was nothing in comparison with the strip surgery. Most patients do not even take pain medications and return to activities without delay 

There should be no pain during any type of hair transplant surgery.All hair transplant surgery is done under local anesthesia so it should not be painful at all.The recovery (after the local anesthesia wears off) you will feel discomfort similar to FUE surgery.

While the procedure is sometimes described as virtually painless, truth-be-told, any procedure that involves incisions is going to have some associated pain and all patients have different pain thresholds.This holds true for FUT and FUE procedures. All patients are different. The procedure starts with the injection of local anesthetic followed by site creation, harvesting and implantation. In some cases harvesting is performed before site making. During these parts of the procedure local anesthetic can be added if there is any discomfort.
After the procedure most of my patients only use tylenol and do not have a need for narcotics such as percocet. Swelling and pain subside by the 24 to 48 hr mark. As healing occurs there may be some intermittent pain that can last a few days but is generally described more as irritating than uncomfortable.