What hair restoration is, and who it is for
Hair restoration is not one procedure. It is the area that deals with a single complaint —«my hair is falling out»— using resources that have little in common: measuring, medical treatment, grafting and, where needed, camouflage. What decides which one is yours is not the catalogue: it is the diagnosis.
They arrive at very different moments: the 24-year-old whose hairline is receding and does not know whether to operate or wait; the woman nobody has ever measured; the patient already grafted elsewhere. Different problems, different plans.
The clinic in Colonia Bellavista, Puebla, was founded in 1971 by the dermatologist Dr. Francisco Arellano Ocampo, and the dermatologic consultation is still part of the house. Dr. Arístides Arellano, his son, is a plastic surgeon: the measurement, the surgical plan and the graft are his. If the picture points to a scalp disease that must be treated before operating, that ground belongs to the clinic's dermatologic consultation.
Measurement first: HairMetrix before any talk of grafts
Not every case of hair loss is a transplant case, and a graft placed on a scalp with active disease —or on loss that is still advancing quickly— is the most expensive way to end up worse off. So the first step here is a study, not a quote for follicles.
HairMetrix analysis is digital trichoscopy: magnified images of defined scalp zones, where the system counts and measures what the naked eye cannot. It produces numbers, and numbers can be compared: the same zone, measured six months later, tells you whether treatment is working or whether time is simply passing. Without that baseline, everything else is opinion. This is assessed before surgery is proposed:
- Density, calibre and miniaturisation: how many hairs per square centimetre, how thick they are, and what proportion has thinned. This is the figure that anticipates what is coming, not only what has happened.
- Pattern and stability: whether the loss follows a recognisable pattern, and how fast it is moving. Operating in a fully active phase means operating again later.
- Donor area: how much hair is available at the back and sides. It is finite and non-renewable: it sets the ceiling on what any surgery can achieve.
- Signs of scalp disease: inflammation, scaling, scarring loss, recent diffuse shedding. If these appear, the order reverses.
- What you bring with you: medication, anaemia, thyroid problems, pregnancies, aggressive dieting, traction from tight hairstyles. Many cases of shedding have their cause outside the scalp.
How the technique is chosen when surgery is appropriate
When the study does point to surgery, the question is not «robot or manual» but which combination of harvesting and placement suits your anatomy. All of them move follicular units from the donor area to the recipient area; what differs is how they are harvested, how they are implanted and what mark they leave behind.
A hair transplant has two harvesting routes: manual FUE, where the surgeon extracts each follicular unit with a punch, and the ARTAS iX transplant, where a robotic system assists the harvest, selecting follicles through image analysis. Placement is done with a Trivellini implanter, which introduces the graft with control over angle and depth. FUT (or FUSS) takes grafts from a strip of donor skin and leaves a linear scar instead of dots; Long Hair FUE implants without shaving.
The same reasoning applies away from the scalp: beard and moustache transplant and eyebrow transplant use the same follicular harvest, but demand far more precision of angle and density. The decision is made at the consultation, on these axes:
- How many grafts are needed and where they will come from: the donor area rules; an expectation larger than the available supply is not fixed by changing technique.
- Hair calibre, curl and colour: thick, wavy hair covers more per graft than fine, straight hair.
- Whether you are willing to shave, and which mark you prefer in the donor area: scattered dots or a line. Neither route is invisible.
- Whether you have been operated on before: scar tissue and an already-harvested donor area change the planning.
When the answer is not a graft
A share of these consultations ends without surgery, and that is a correct outcome, not a lost consultation. If shedding is active or answers to a treatable cause, what is called for is the medical treatment the doctor indicates, correcting the underlying cause, and measuring again. Grafting over that is getting ahead of the problem.
If there is a follicle and there is hair, but weakened, the aim is to hold on to it: that is the ground of in-office hair treatments —hair PRP and the regenerative and injectable line in this section— which run in sessions. None of them creates follicles where none remain.
And if the donor supply cannot meet the expectation, the honest alternative may be camouflage: scalp micropigmentation simulates density with pigment, transplanting nothing. Doing nothing for now, with a follow-up measurement booked, also counts.
What hair restoration does not do
Saying it in advance prevents most of the disappointment:
- A graft does not halt the loss of the hair that was not grafted. Available hair is redistributed; the underlying process carries on across the rest of the scalp, which is why the medical plan and the measurements do not end with surgery.
- No new hair is created. No technique, robotic or manual, increases the total number of follicles you have: it moves them.
- It does not give back the head of hair you had at 18. The reasonable goal is a frame and a coverage that look natural with your own hair.
- It is not a procedure without a trace. Every harvest leaves something in the donor area: small dots or a line.
- It does not replace the diagnosis. If the cause of the shedding is systemic or inflammatory, a graft does not treat it and may fail on top of it.
Recovery and the real commitment
It is a long procedure with a relatively comfortable recovery: local anaesthesia, much of the day at the clinic, and the patient walks out. The hard part is not pain, it is patience.
In the first days there are small crusts in the recipient area and swelling that can settle towards the forehead; return to work is a matter of a few days, with instructions on washing, sun and exercise. Between the first and third month the grafted hair falls out and the area appears to return to its starting point: that is part of the process. Growth becomes evident around the fourth to sixth month, and the full result is seen at around a year or more.
Every medical or surgical procedure carries risks and requires a prior assessment. Results may vary from one person to another, and so do the timelines. The commitment worth measuring before you start is maintenance: session-based treatments are sustained over time, and follow-up measurements exist because the underlying process continues.
Approximate cost, and why the figure is approximate
A hair transplant by manual FUE starts at approximately $55,000 MXN, and the robotic ARTAS iX transplant at approximately $70,000 MXN. These are reference figures: the real amount depends on the number of grafts, the state of the donor area, whether this is a first surgery or the correction of a previous graft, and whether the plan includes medical treatment or sessions. The strip technique (FUT/FUSS) and the non-surgical treatments —which run per session or per package— are also quoted at that consultation.
Every figure published on this site is approximate and is not a quote. Any procedure or treatment first requires a private assessment consultation with Dr. Arístides Arellano —$800 MXN, charged separately— and it is at that consultation that the definitive cost of your case is determined.
Who performs it
Dr. Arístides Arellano Huacuja is a plastic, aesthetic and reconstructive surgeon in Puebla: he qualified as Médico Cirujano at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Xochimilco (1986) and practises under Mexican medical licence D.G.P. 1125959 and specialty licence 0002008, both public in the National Registry of Professionals. He trained in his specialty at Hospital General de Agudos Dr. Abel Zubizarreta, Buenos Aires (1987–1989), has been a Fellow of the International College of Surgeons (F.I.C.S.) since 1994, and in 1999 was granted United States patent US 5,928,158.
He practises in the clinic his father, the dermatologist Dr. Francisco Arellano Ocampo, founded in 1971: Calle 20 Sur 2539, Col. Bellavista, 72500 Puebla. Monday to Friday 8:00–20:00 and Saturday 8:00–14:00; telephone +52 221 155 2228. Trust is verified, not promised.