TTP,

I commend you for coming on here and sharing your story with clear and fair photos documenting your case. There are many patients that appear to either have a great start or a slow start to their growth, but never follow-up with the final results.

I look forward to the results of your meeting with Dr. A.

M&M

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1662 with Dr. Ron Shapiro - Spring 2006
1105 with Dr. Ron Shapiro - Fall 2009
M&M Weblog

plunge,you come off as a sincere,honest and knowledgable person who has done everything right .you have aright to be disappointed it looks like you have about half of the 2500 growing.if all2500 would have grown and matured i believe your results would be astounding. the doc owes it to you to fix it for free.you waited long enough good luck.

I totally agree with you regarding this dissapointing and unfortunate result. I know its not what you want to hear, but for you age, your hair looks good. Regardless of this, like you have explained, you just wanted to have the option to style. Whatever is your next step, I wish you luck!

What does your doc say about this?

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1.25mg Finasteride
3000mg MSM
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Omega 3
Nizarol

My Hair Loss Website - Hair Transplant with Dr. Rahal

ttp, have you notived any less loss and or thickening/regrowth with the proscar?

Again, I can't thank the members of this forum enough for all your continuing support. I hope that my experience adds to the collective knowledge of this site and helps others make educated decisions about their own hair loss.

I've wondered a lot about what effect, if any, taking Proscar has had on my hair during these past 10 months. I've also been using Rogaine Foam twice daily and I've been taking Biotin for about six months. I think the fact that my hair is longer now than it's been in years makes it difficult to tell in photos. I don't believe I've grown any new hair in the crown but I do think that it has slowed the loss.

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David (TakingThePlunge)
Forum Co-Moderator and Editorial Assistant

I am not a medical professional. All opinions are my own and my advice should not constitute as medical advice.

View my Hair Loss Website

I saw Dr. Alexander today. Obviously, he said that we need to wait two more months before making a judgement call and deciding where to go from here. Most of what he said is what I expected. Everyone is different. Results are not guaranteed. He feels that there is a lot of fine, light hairs that may or may not become more robust. He also feels thaat there has been some improvement over the past two months. It's very hard for me to tell. It is longer and I think that makes it harder to compare. Tomorrow I plan to get a hair cut and I'll take another set of pics. It's just too thin to look good at this length in my opinion.

I agree with him that it looks a little better in person than it seems to look in photos but I was a little surprised when he classified it as an average to slightly below average result. He feels that 80% of my grafts have grown. He did say that the corners and the center need to be beefed up a bit and that the good news is I've got enough donor hair and a loose enough scalp to probably support two more sessions over the long run.

That's about it. I've tried to convey what I got out of the meeting as succinctly as possible.

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David (TakingThePlunge)
Forum Co-Moderator and Editorial Assistant

I am not a medical professional. All opinions are my own and my advice should not constitute as medical advice.

View my Hair Loss Website

Did he say anything about the # of grafts he shot for? I know you've had to defend yourself a bit multiple times saying that you weren't really pro-active in thinking over the number, and simply went with what Dr. Alexander recco'd.

Either way, hopefully you're an extremely slow grower and things thicken up in the next couple months. If not, what are your plans at the moment? Did you get a feel for whether Alexander would give you a discounted rate of sorts on a 2nd op, or consider a different clinic? If he really said that he feels this is basically an "average" result I would think you might not get a major break, but might want to broach the subject anyways if he hasn't done so himself.

You're taking this all extremely well, regardless, and I applaud you for that. I know how disillusioned you might feel about HTs right now, but I truly believe you are still one session away from being elated with your hair!

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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!

It would be nice of Dr A to offer you a discounted rate, but he's under no obligation to do so.

But saying you have 80% growth is nonsense, more like 30/40% by my reckoning.

If not, save up and go to another doc, you have a scar at the back now so if it's economically feasible in the future then get another one and if the same thing happens again then at least you know something about your physiology is not playing ball....maybe a small test case FUE to save yourself the cost and hassle.

As already mentioned some hairs in the front look a little wiry still and you could be a super slow responder, and I think you will improve a little more over the next two months, but I doubt it will meet expectations.

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My Hair Loss Website - Hair Transplant with Dr. Feller

Dr Feller Jan '09 1800 grafts

Plunge,

Thanks for keeping us posted about your meeting with Dr. A. I believe you have more improvement to come within the next few months, although it probably will not be what you initially hoped for. But just keep a clear head. I'm of the school of thought that once you are in, do whatever you can to make the best of it. So I'd strongly recommend another procedure, especially if Dr. A said you had the donor for it. But hang in there and good for you for being so level-headed about this whole thing. I know how hard that is when receiving a sub-par result you put so much money into.

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2008 Dr. G – presumably 1,000 grafts / 2,142 hairs
2009 Dr. Paul Shapiro – 2,348 grafts / 4,258 hairs
2011 Dr. Paul Shapiro – 1,999 grafts / 3,624 hairs

My Hair Transplant Journey with Shapiro Medical Group

I have to say ---this is a very sad story. I know what great hopes there are in gettign a transplant and then after having lost the money and the emotional crush of a faliure is quite hard....

I had 2800 grafts put in on my first transplant , of which 80% never grew.

I decided to go to a different dr and chose Dr. hasson for my second one.

After he took the strip out, he and his technicians told me that I had extra long shafts, that they rarely ever had seen before and they were extremely fragile and they had to be far more gentle and careful with them otherwise I would have had much transection. He also said he had to do very deep lateral slits or the grafts would be squeezed in and die.

I was never told about this unusual characteristic of my hair during my first transplant and I suspect this had something to do with the poor growth rate because I think I have had at least 95% growth with Dr. Hasson's procedure.