Is it possible to have a FUE Hair transplant on crown area with African Hair at 26 years of age? (photos)

Yes you can have FUE, but most doctors may not recommend it.First you need an exam by a doctor to confirm a diagnosis of Male Pattern Balding.Second you need to be tested for FUE to make sure you would be a candidate for FUE since curly hairs do not always cooperate with the FUE harvest with unacceptable transection rates.Third you need to have a recommendation of your treatment plan with clear understanding of what is possible.I would guess based on your photos that no matter how much money you spend or how many grafts you have transplanted, it will never satisfactorily cover your entire head to achieve fullness.Why?  Because you are mostly bald and keep your hair very short.  Unless you grow out your hair much longer, a hair transplant surgery will not give you satisfactory results.  

It is great that you already understand the potential risk associated with undergoing a hair transplant at a young age. And indeed, at this point, it would certainly be best to anticipate the possible need for subsequent surgery.Aside from this, another factor that would determine your candidacy would be the availability of sufficient donor grafts. If there are not enough on your head, then body surfaces may be considered. Also, patients of African descent tend to have curved shaped follicles which have the risk of higher transection. Therefore, special Advanced FUE tools would be needed. However, it is often necessary to perform a test procedure on small areas to get a glimpse of what the results would be like in terms of transection and overall feasibility.

It is physically possible of course, but I would highly recommend against it generally and in your case particularly.Doing the crown now will consume a lot of donor hair in an area that will definitely lose my hair in an outwardly concentric manner. this has the potential to leave you with 'reverse' monk look of hair island and a ring of baldness! Yes you can chase it with more transplants but by the time you finish you may not have much left to deal with the front

Although it is possible to have a hair transplant to the
crown using robotic FUE in African American patients, given your young age and
that you state your hair loss is progressing aggressively while on
Propecia and Minoxidil, it is likely not a good decision to have surgery at
this time. The reason is that as your hair loss surrounding the
crown expands further over time, it may look unnatural to have hair transplanted
solely to the crown region. At your age, it is best to take Propecia and
Minoxidil, and if a transplant is indicated, to start at your frontal hairline
and top of your scalp, the areas that will be most important cosmetically
long-term.

Since your hair loss has continued to "progress aggressively" as you put, despite taking Propecia and applying minoxidil, it does seem that you have a high risk of having further loss in the crown at the periphery of the transplant site . If you are willing to face the risk of a ring of further hair loss around the transplant site and the possible need for an additional transplant (? years) later, then a hair transplant to your crown is still worth considering.  Though it is difficult to fully see your occipital scalp, the donor hair does seem plentiful in your occipital scalp, so I do not believe that is the issue.  

Please be sure to get many, many opinions from hair transplant surgeons in your area and abroad. A hair transplant is not a good option given the information you shared. 

Dear Lifeisdandy123,Yes. FUE can be performed easily for crown area. Genetic factor is the strongest predictor of alopecia for both men and women. You should be able to get nice results from FUE. I recommend that you seek out a qualified hair restoration surgeon anddiscuss all the options. Given your age, I would think a conservative treatment to the crown area would be the best.

At age 26 you are still on the very young side to proceed with hair transplant surgery. A better alternative would be to get on medications, topical creams, shampoos and PRP injections.

The best way to find out if you are a candidate for an FUE is to have a test FUE in the office on a regular office visit. We offer this to your African American patients. IF the test determines that you are a good candidate, then you can have either a manual FUE (this is what we do when we do the FUE test) or an ARTAS which may not work as well as the Manual FUE so the manual FUE must be held as a reserve option if you wish to start off with an ARTAS robotic system. Few doctors can do manual FUE on African American patients.

Based on your age and pictures, I would discourage you from having a hair transplant. If the hair were perhaps 2 inches long and you would be willing to keep your hair long, I might say otherwise. So much depends on the hair quality, the balding pattern and your expectations.