Hair Transplant Questions, Answered Without the Sales Pitch

These are the hair transplant questions that arrive by message every week, grouped and answered in a few sentences each. Where an answer depends on your own scalp it says so, and where a longer page exists it is linked. Nothing here is a sales answer: several of the answers are reasons not to have the operation, or not to have it yet.

Techniques offered

FUE, DHI, Sapphire FUE

Areas treated

scalp, hairline, crown, beard, eyebrows, repair of previous work

Anaesthesia

local

Session ceiling

4,500 grafts

Package price from

€2,500

Follow-up

12 months

Who answers your photos

The surgeon who will treat you

Am I suitable

Is there an age limit?

There is no upper limit worth stating: what matters is donor density and stable loss, and a healthy man of 60 is often a better candidate than a man of 23. At the lower end the clinic is cautious. Under 25 the pattern is usually still moving, and a hairline designed for a face that is still changing ages badly. Who is a candidate sets out the whole assessment.

My hair is still falling out. Should I wait?

Often, yes. Transplanting into an area that is going to keep thinning produces an island of transplanted hair with a gap behind it, and the second operation you then need was avoidable. Stabilising the loss first, medically and with time, is not the clinic delaying a booking; it is the difference between one operation and three.

My father and my grandfather both lost the back of the head. Does that rule me out?

It might. The donor area at the back and sides is the whole budget for your lifetime, and in a small number of men that zone thins too. Donor density is measured before anything is promised, and if the safe zone cannot fund the area you want covered, the plan is either a smaller target or no operation.

I take medication for blood pressure and my blood sugar is borderline. Can I still be operated on?

Usually yes, with your own doctor’s agreement and blood results in front of the surgeon. Controlled hypertension and controlled diabetes are common among patients here. Uncontrolled diabetes, blood-thinning treatment that cannot be paused, active skin disease on the scalp and untreated thyroid disorders are the reasons a case is postponed.

Techniques

Which technique will I get?

Whichever your scalp calls for, decided after the photographs and confirmed on the morning of surgery. Large areas and crowns favour FUE. Hairlines, added density between existing hairs and unshaven cases favour DHI. Sapphire blades are used where dense packing is planned. Many operations here use two approaches in the same session, zone by zone.

Do I have to shave my head?

For a full session, yes, and it is shaved in the clinic rather than at home so the length suits the plan. Smaller sessions can sometimes be done without a full shave, with only a strip of the donor area trimmed and hidden under the hair above it. It costs you grafts per session, so it suits cases of a few hundred to around 1,500.

Can beard hair be used on the scalp?

It can, as a secondary donor, and it is most useful in repair work where the scalp donor has already been harvested heavily. Beard grafts are thicker and behave differently, so they are placed behind the hairline rather than in it. This is a case-by-case judgement, not a routine part of a first operation.

What punch size do you use, and does it matter?

It matters more than the brand names in most adverts. Punches here are in the 0.7 to 0.9 mm range, chosen against the thickness of your own follicles. Too large and the donor scars are visible at short lengths; too small and grafts get transected on the way out. The size used on your case is recorded in your notes.

Do you do strip surgery, also called FUT?

No. We do not do strip surgery at this clinic, and we do not offer FUT under any other name. Every case here is a follicular unit extraction case, taken graft by graft, which is why there is no linear line across the back of the head to plan around.

Will I be asleep during the operation?

No. The clinic works under local anaesthesia only: we do not offer sedation, and for this operation it is not necessary. You are awake, you can talk, eat, watch something and ask for a break. The injections at the start sting for a few minutes, and after that the sensation is pressure rather than pain.

Price and the package

Is the price fixed once you have seen me in person?

The written quote is the price. If the in-clinic assessment on day 0 changes the plan materially, for example the donor will safely give considerably less than the photographs suggested, you are told before the shave and you can walk away with your deposit conversation intact. What does not happen is a new number appearing after the grafts are in. Everything is on the cost page.

Do I pay for the consultation?

No. The photo analysis and the in-clinic consultation are free, whether or not you book. That includes the graft estimate and the technique recommendation in writing, which you are welcome to take to another clinic for a second opinion.

How do I pay, and can I pay by card?

€200 deposit holds the date. The balance is paid by card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express) or bank transfer, in euro.

Is the hotel really included?

the hotel stay are inside the package, along with pre-operative blood tests, the procedure with the medical team, post-operative medication and care products, hotel accommodation in Tirana, airport transfers, and the follow-up checks. Outside it: Flights and personal spending. If you want a different hotel or extra nights either side, you book those yourself and the transfer arrangements are adjusted.

What would a second session cost?

Some plans need two sessions from the start, which is normal at Norwood 5 and 6 and is said at the estimate stage rather than discovered later.

The trip

What documents do I need?

A valid passport. No visa is needed for UK, EU, US, Canadian or Australian passports for stays under 90 days. Bring your medication list, and the name and number of your own doctor. Travel insurance is your own arrangement and worth reading closely, since elective surgery abroad is usually excluded.

Is anyone in the clinic going to understand me?

Consultations run in English, Italian and Albanian. On the surgery day the conversation that matters is short and specific, and it happens before the anaesthetic: the line, the density, the plan. If your language is not on that list, say so when you write in and the clinic will tell you honestly how it will be handled.

My flight is delayed. Do I lose the transfer?

No. Send the new flight number and the pickup moves. The clinic runs one operating list a day, so a late arrival on day 0 means the tests and the hairline shift to the morning of day 1 rather than the case being cancelled.

Which months are best to travel?

Any, with two things to weigh. Albanian summers are hot and strong sun is the one thing a fresh scalp cannot have for a month, so a July operation means a hat for four weeks. Winter is easier for healing and cheaper to fly. If you are combining the trip with a holiday, plan the surgery at the start and the sea for another year.

The days after

When can I wash my hair normally?

The first wash is done for you at the clinic on day 2, then you repeat it daily with the lotion and shampoo you go home with. Palm only, no pressure, no shower head aimed at the recipient area. Scabs are gone by day 10 to 14, and after that washing is normal again. The recovery timeline has the routine day by day.

When can I train again?

Light walking immediately. Anything that raises a sweat, strains or risks a knock to the head waits until day 10 to 14, and contact sport longer. Swimming pools and the sea wait until the scabs have gone and the skin is closed, and a sauna is the last thing to come back.

When can I have a haircut or dye my hair?

Scissors over the recipient area from about month 1, clippers on the donor area from around week 3 to 4. Colour waits until month 3, and the reason is the skin rather than the hair: freshly healed recipient skin reacts to peroxide and ammonia in a way that intact scalp does not.

Is a swollen forehead normal?

Yes, on days two to four, and it can reach the eyelids before it settles. It is the anaesthetic fluid moving downwards under gravity, which is why you sleep at 45 degrees for the first three to five nights and wear the head band as instructed. Swelling that begins after day four, or comes with fever or spreading redness, is a message-the-clinic-today matter.

Results

When will it look like my own hair?

Transplanted hairs shed between weeks two and six, growth starts at month three or four, density is obvious by month six and the final result lands between month 12 and month 18, the crown last. Early growth is often fine and light in colour and thickens over months; texture normalises by the end of the first year.

Will I be on medication for life?

Not on the clinic’s instruction. The transplanted hair is permanent; hair that was not transplanted can still thin, and finasteride or minoxidil are what slow that. Whether you take them, for how long, and at what dose is a prescription decision with a doctor where you live, and nothing is sold to you here.

Can a hair transplant fail?

Poor growth happens, and it has causes: grafts handled badly, packing too dense for the blood supply, smoking, an undiagnosed scalp condition, or a donor pushed too far. The honest figure is that no clinic anywhere gets every graft to grow. Risks and complications lists what can go wrong and how each is prevented rather than pretending the list is empty.

Do you guarantee growth?

No clinic can guarantee how many individual grafts will grow, and any percentage you are quoted is a marketing number. What is written into the arrangement here is a written guarantee for life: if transplanted grafts do not grow as planned the corrective session is covered, which does not extend to the natural thinning of hair that was never transplanted, plus 12 months of follow-up in which poor growth gets looked at seriously rather than explained away.

Does the donor area at the back look harvested afterwards?

At normal hair lengths, no. Extraction leaves small round marks a fraction of a millimetre across, spread out rather than clustered, and hair of 3 mm or longer covers them. Shaved to grade 1 they can be seen on close inspection, as they can after any extraction-based operation anywhere. Over-harvesting is what makes a donor area obviously thinner, and it is the reason for the session ceiling.

Clinically reviewed by the treating surgeon. Last reviewed 25 September 2026.