I'm extremely curious. How many people on this forum that had one or more Ht's are actually happy with their result? I don't mean learned to accept it either. While I'm only 7.5 months from my repair, I was suppossed to be an easy fix. While my hair looks good in photos, in everyday situations, it's completely obvious that there is something going on up there.

What exactly is it that you don't like about your transplant?

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I represent Dr Rahal. I can be contacted for advice and to arrange consultations.

Dr. Rahal is a member of the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians

Happy!

John, give it some more time, there is a very big difference between months 7 and months 12-14. You may reach your goals yet! Hang in there!

Jason

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Go Cubs!

6721 transplanted grafts
13,906 hairs
Performed by Dr. Ron Shapiro

Dr. Ron Shapiro and Dr. Paul Shapiro are members of the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians.

John, is your primary issue a lack of density or a lack of naturalness? What looks off-kilter that you can't see from pictures? Do you notice the negatives when you look in a mirror?

Even if you were an early grower, and it sounds like you definitely aren't, but if you were, your maturation process has *many* months to go in improving the "naturalness" of your HT. Since you pretty much aren't an early grower, you should expect impactful changes in density over the next several months, in tandem with maturation to come.

I'm pretty critical about HTs when I evaluate them -- post some pics or PM me if you want. I'll give you my honest take on what I'd expect your end result to look like, and how you currently match up with that expectation/goal.

I mean, I'm pretty elated with my HT, but if I couldn't or didn't style it in the various ways that I do I'd prolly feel pretty dissapointed.

More and more I think the majority of HTs performed by an elite doctor, assuming similiar graft/baldness ratios, could look equally excellent, and what seperates the "OMFGWOW" results from the people with some dissapointment is simply in how they go about styling their hair; which I think to be unfortunate since this doesn't mean you can't style your hair fashionably and it doesn't mean that it's difficult to do.

I guess I'll only be able to prove my hypothesis by opening up a HT salon and styling guys' HTs for them....

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*A Follicles Dying Wish To Clinics*

1 top-down, 1 portrait, 1 side-shot, 1 hairline....4 photos. No flash.

Follicles have asked for centuries, in ten languages, as many times so as to confuse a mathematician.

Enough is enough! Give me documentation or give me death!

I have to agree with thanatopsis on this one. I always find it kinda funny that so many HT patients end up with absolutely terrible hair styles, maybe for those who haven't had to style their hair since the 1980s that is excusable, but it seems that many people spend thousands just to have a permanent bad hair day. At least with a shaved head it can never look a mess!

hey guys,
Thanks for the support. But I guess it's my fault because I really did not think that a good HT came down to styling. I sincerely thought it was going to look completely natural except for a little lack of density. And even the lack of density I thought would not be visible to the naked eye. That's why I started this post to see how many people are happy with their HT. Kind of like a survey.
Anyway, my issue is with both density and naturalness. But, I think I could live with my hair if it just looked like I was thinning. It seems like my hair is growing in straight rows- it looks like corn rowed stitches at this point.
I am going to see the doc and Feller seems genuinely concerned. I'll be honest though. I don't know if the 3 hour drive has me stalling or if he tells me this is a good result. I really don't know if I can handle this much longer. my life has been a wreck since my first Ht in june of 08, and I think Feller's confidence may have given me false hope. Let's all pray the next couple of months are miracle months.
Thana, for whatever reason my digital camera takes the photos with too much memory. If you give me a personal e mail address, I will forward you some pics. You can pm me the address.
Thanks again guys--my wife is so tired of me worrying about this and its getting to the point that I'm upsetting her. She suggests I just shave it and not worry about the scar. She thinks more people notice the artificalness of the hair. Most people will think the scar is just a scar, but the hair screams fake.

Let's just say I have to wear a hat everywhere, and my friends and neighbors are catching on that there is something wrong. I feel that there are a lot of *white lies* and smoke and mirrors in progress. I have yet to hear of a physician taking the blame for a poor outcome (red flag). A house of cards if you will. If I come across crass, I apologize, I just don't care anymore.

It's not your fault, John, but I don't even want to assign "fault" here, because regardless of what your result will be....you *will* improve from where you are, so nothing bad has happened; I would be beyond stunned if you did not improve in both density and naturalness.

Styling is underplayed and overplayed at the same time. It's importance is underplayed; but how tough it is to actually style it is overplayed. I'm not saying it's some perfect thing that you "must" style your hair to make it look good w/ a HT, but the steps to maximize your HT are the same steps that will make your hair look its best regardless, HT or no HT.

I'll PM you my email addy later tonight.

Look at it like this, though:

Bad Styling + No MPB = bad hair

Bad Styling + MPB + HT = bad hair x2

Good Styling + NO MPB = flawless hair

Good Styling + MPB + HT = good hair

Scissors touched on this, and I don't know if this applies to you necessarily, and I'm not faulting you if it does, but I get the sense that many guys go into the HT with the expectation of simply wanting to have hair where you formerly didn't, and specifically with the expectation in mind that the basic look of their hair in years past will be smoothly replicated in basic.

Unless you have minimal loss, and/or get a good chunk of grafts, this won't be the case -- you won't have the head of hair you had X years ago, and you won't have just a lush head of hair that you can do nothing to and it'l look 100% like it always did.

Don't panic, though, because your result is *NOT* in yet -- this is undeniable! Save up your panic for if you are 3, 4 more months down the road and you feel the same way. Right now, IMHO, you're just going to drive yourself crazy, unnecessarily so.

__________________
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*A Follicles Dying Wish To Clinics*

1 top-down, 1 portrait, 1 side-shot, 1 hairline....4 photos. No flash.

Follicles have asked for centuries, in ten languages, as many times so as to confuse a mathematician.

Enough is enough! Give me documentation or give me death!

Maybe John should change his topic title in order to obtain more relevant info to himself.. :

"Any repair patients happy with their results at 7.5 months"

At the risk of repeating myself -
Long way to go till a repair patient such as John can assess the final outcome of his HT as growth can be slow due to scar tissue.

Assessing ANY HT at such an early stage (7.5 MONTHS) is as seen from experienced posters, unfair.

Gro well John.

John Malloy pictures of repair:











Post op:

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Consultant for Dr. Feller, Coalition Member and Dr. Lindsey, Coalition Member.

See my results --->>My Hair Loss Website

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own. "Research-Research-Research"

Hi John I sympathise with you but just give it a little more time. Could I ask at what density is the hair in the transplanted area? I was also under the impression that a good ht should look good without styling or maybe just running a comb through it a couple of times. Results of Shuffle and the like certainly give this impression. I think a person in the early norwoods or a diffuse thinner could even have good hair after hours of styling which is something I don't want to do and is why I am looking at hts. All the best