3,000 graft strip, dense pack, lateral slit, Before, During, and After 10 Months.
Patient took the after photos at home himself and emailed to us.

NOTE: THE HAIR IS WET DOWN IN THE FIRST BEFORE/AFTER PHOTO AS WELL AS A FEW OTHERS. DO NOT CONFUSE THAT FOR THINNING.

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Feller Medical, PC
Great Neck, NY

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

Providing Hair Transplants and Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Treatments

3,000 graft strip, dense pack, lateral slit, Before, During, and After 10 Months.
Patient took the after photos at home himself and emailed to us.

NOTE: THE HAIR IS WET DOWN IN THE FIRST BEFORE/AFTER PHOTO AS WELL AS A FEW OTHERS. DO NOT CONFUSE THAT FOR THINNING.

__________________
Feller Medical, PC
Great Neck, NY

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

Providing Hair Transplants and Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Treatments

Well I have to say for that amount of gfafts in that small of an area, I would have liked to have seen a better hairline. It doesn't seem to nearly dense enough. Unfortunately it looks like he is suffering from thinning in the hairline even after the procedure. It does look much better with the bangs combed forward though. I may be a little picky here, but the hairline is of the greatest importance to me. It is also hard to make a direct comparison as the before shot shows very short hair. I'm on thr fence with this one.

I appreciate the feedback. But I think you will find that most educated hair transplant patients and viewers of this site will not agree with you. Certainly not the patient himself whose opinion is the most paramount.

I want to make one clarification for you. His hair is not "cut short" in the before photo. It is non-existent. He cuts what's left of his native hair in the rear 60% of his scalp to match the bald 40% in the front. It was only in this bald 40% region that I operated on.

In fact, these results are exemplery of proper and consistent hair transplantation and the casual observer would never know he had an HT either ten months after his procedure or 10 years. He has a natural and undetectable hairline even when the hair is wet and combed back. He also enjoys a dense coverage. All this in an area of scalp equal to 40% of his entire top recipient area (not a small area) that was already virtually devoid of any cosmetically significant hair growth.

While we would all like to have hairlines as dense as we did in our teens and twenties, the price to be paid for such an attempt is usally way too high. The preferences you describe in your post is a forumla for disaster and I will expound on this in a moment.

My primary reason for posting these results is to educate the newer members of this community as to the realistic and consistent results patients can expect from properly perfromed hair transplantation. Stratman, what you are referring to in terms of a denser hairline is something quite different and exists on the fringes of the HT industry, not in the mainstream.

Sure, I could have made his hairline even thicker in just the one procedure. I've certainly done that many times and presented the results right on this site like this patient: http://www.fellermedical.com/photoga...ient4_main.htm
But would it have been wise? Absolutely NOT.

There are two schools of thought in Hair Transplantation. The first and most popular is the "BALANCED" method, whereby the HT doctor plans to cover as much of the front half of the scalp as possible while including the potential for future hairloss in the plan. In my mind this is the most responsible method of hair transplantation and appeals to most patients and doctors.

What you are referring to is "FRONT-LOADING", which is defined as weighting the maximum amount of density into the hairline and (area immediately behind) without regard to either present or future hairloss in other areas of the scalp.

Front loading is preferred by some patients, usually young men, but should really only be utilized on those in their forties or beyond whose hairloss has been stable for many years and whose future hairloss would not result in an unbalanced result years after transplant.

Front loading would not work for this patient because he is young and his future hairloss is unpredicatble. Had I front loaded him and he lost more of his hair on top (which he probably will) then there might not be enough to cover the other areas of his scalp. Even if there were some donor area left in the future, it may not be enough to balance out against the thick front line.

I've seen many patients who've come to the office who've been front loaded. Usually they had the surgery done in the their early to mid twenties and then lost the rest of their native hair.

The result is a "band" of hair that looks dislocated across the front of the head. While it looks good in and of itself, the almost complete loss of hair behind it made the "band" look bizzare, and these patients are despereate to fill it.

The problem, however, is that very often there is just not enough donor area left to get the job done and they have to resort to partial hair-pieces to balance everything out, or they have to shave the top of the head.

This is not to say that dense hairlines can't be achieved. Sure they can. But the battle between "density" and "area covered" will rage on. The best way that I have found to address these issues is to use the balanced approach. Then, if the patient desires an even denser hairline, then go back for a second round of hair transplants.

Just look for the TOP-DOWN photos when evaluating frontloaded patients. If you don't see them, as you won't in the majority of such cases, you will know why.

Bill himself constantly asks for this view from doctors and patients because he knows it's the most honest and telling. How often does he get it? Not very.

Again, now you know why.

Remember, it's your head, do what's right and logical.

Dr. Feller

__________________
Feller Medical, PC
Great Neck, NY

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

Providing Hair Transplants and Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Treatments

I think if we saw this patient pre-op hair grown out and not buzzed stratman would feel differently with the final result. I thought at first too that the spaces in the very front of the hairline looked kind of wide, but when you consider the big picture the results make sense. And obviously if the patient is happy, that's all that matters.

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HT #1: Karamikian Unknown # of grafts Sept.2006

HT#2 Nov.23rd, 2007
Dr.Feller
Almost 3200 grafts via strip

HT#3 April 2010
Fue 200/side into temple points

HT#4 February 2011

My Hair Loss Website - Hair Transplant with Dr. Feller

I honestly don't see what either of you are talking about. His hairline doesn't contain any spaces in it all.

Maybe you're not aware that in the first before/after picture his hair has been WET down? Go through the rest of the photos in the slide show and look closer.

In photo 12 you will see a larger after photo with the hair wet down, that may better demonstrate that there are no gaps. He had to wet the hair to control it, which is impressive considering he didn't have anything there before. There are certainly no gaps.

In photo 13 his hair is dry. It is not styled forward or banged down. That's how is hair naturally sits. With the hair dry the casual eye simply can't see through the hair mass. Again, there are no gaps.

If you weren't confusing a wet hair photo for a dry one, I'm really goint to need some help here, because all I see is an excellent result.

Of course I'm biased since I did the work, but I am usually my own harshest critic and have prided myself on putting up all levels of my own results, not just the best ones. I just don't see what the problem with these results are. Especially considering it's ten months and only one surgery.

Oh well, I guess if we all saw things from the same exact perspective life would be pretty dull.

I look forward to other comments from other posters. I also invite other HT doctors to comment as well.

__________________
Feller Medical, PC
Great Neck, NY

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

Providing Hair Transplants and Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Treatments

Dr. Feller,

I can see how in one particular photo the hairline appears as if there is "space" in between, but the other photos don't show this.

Do you have any hair line closeup pictures with the hair styled back? That might help dispell what appears in one particular picture.

That being said, the result looks terrific in my opinion. Remember that the majority of patients who receive 3000 grafts, usually over a larger area can only achieve an "illusion of hair density". Given the dense packing in a smaller area, this patient has much closer to the real thing.

I do not know the patient's age, but he looks young. The nice thing is, the frontal third+ is already complete. In the event he loses more hair, he should have plenty of available donor hair to target the forelock and crown. If he doesn't lose more hair, Dr. Feller can always front load the hairline and add density if the patient wants it. But I don't think he needs it unless he suffers from hair greed

Bill

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To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

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

He now has hair that he can grow out and style and it looks very natural as opposed to having a buzz cut the rest of his life. That rocks in my opinion.

I agree with hairthere that had he had been wearing his hair a couple inches in length on top in the before pic, the transformation would be even more impressive. Sometimes with buzz cuts it's hard to tell just how much and how thick the remaining hair is.

He went from not having a hairline to having a good, solid (some would say mature) hairline. As the years go by, as they do for all of us, would you rather have a transplanted hairline that with each passing year your more and more comfortable with or have a killer frontloaded hairline and as each year goes by worry more and more about the hair behind it falling out and whether or not you have enough donor to continue to look natual? Short-term thinking is probably the biggest enemy of HT patients in my opinion.

I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread or not but don't the pics represent the 10 month mark? I've seen many on here talking about how the hair usually continues to thicken up to 14 or even 18 months.

Dr Feller,

I am sure your patient is ecstatic with his results, after all any improvement is welcomed. However, I did not see any mention of "wet down" hair in the pictures, so obviously that makes a difference when forming an opinion. I am not an expert as some other members on this forum appear to be , but I am also not "new" and have obtained considerable knowledge over the last several years regarding HT's. I still stand by my opinion that the hairline is not as defined as I would like keeping in mind that I am not a young man(40) and can appreciate the importance of how are limited amount of grafts are used. It is still 3000 grafts over a relatively small area and I just expected more in the hairline..Again that is MY opinion and that is what keeps this forum going I would think..peoples opinions .The work itself I am sure is first rate as your reputation most definitely precedes you.

I don't see how anyone has a problem with this result, it looks very good.