Hi hair2stay,

I hear your frustration only too well being a repair guy myself - i know that the clock seems to tick very slowly but remember a watched kettle never boils ;-)

7 months is literally half way there mate especially for a repair patient as growth tends to be a little slower when planting into an area already shattered with scar tissue from previous surgery. 7 months is far to soon to assess the success of your HT even if you were a virgin scalp.

Here is a post I made about month 8-16 being vital months in the progression of your HT.

8-16 months - important time

Also here is one i made on growth times:

Growth times

This one was made which many can relate to who have been there playing that notorious waiting game!

Patience

Hopefully these posts will help you feel better in terms of where you are at now and where you will be in several more months mate.

I know its tough, very tough! Been there myself - but rest assured in 6-8 more months time when this recent HT has actually had chance to do its job you will be in a completely different place my man!

All the best and continue to grow well!!!
Spex

__________________
Best
SPEX

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

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"

My Hair Loss Blog with Pictures

Hair2stay,

I don't want to put you down, but damn dude! If you didn't tell me it was pluggy I probably wouldn't have noticed. I think your hair probably looks a lot better to other people than it does to you because you are looking at it trying to find every little detail that might be wrong with it.

Maybe it looks a bit worse in reality than it does in pictures, because I know that's sometimes the case with mine. If I hold my head up from 5 feet away my hairline looks pretty good in pictures, but still I think you might be trying to compare other hair transplants to your own and are being too critical.

I think you need a dose of reality. You need to look at some pictures of some truly bad HTs. I would LOVE to have the hair you have. Yes it's horrible that you had to have repair surgery for a not so great HT, but it looks like it's turning out better than it was and at least you had enough donor hair to actually have a repair! Some of us aren't so lucky.

You have to realize that it will never fall or comb exactly the way it once did when you had your natural hair there.

I hear you all, and I do not argue the fact that I have a good head of hair. However this case is unique, like all others. Whether I have a full head of hair or not is besides the point, and applying logic like "you should be happy, you have a lot of hair" is pointless and off topic.

What we are looking at here specifically is hairline repair, not how much hair I have on my head. Look closely at the photos of the hairline on the left side of my head (see first two photos in gallery). This is the area where the old plugs are most noticeable. Yes I can cover them and style my hair in ways to conceal it, and look great. However that again is not the point.

What I am trying to accomplish is a natural appearing hairline, and the left side is still not there. If anyone denies that, I beg to differ. We can all dance around it, but the reality is plugs are in the frontal hairline and noticeable. Either they need to be adequately camoflagued or removed. There is a world of opinions on what is best, and I put my money on camoflague with dense packing. Whether or not that plan will be succesful, it has yet to be seen.

At this juncture, I will continue to wait for improved results. Dr Feller has adequately explained his reasoning in perfoming the surgery the way he did, directly to me, and I accept his explanation. I understand his approach at this time, though it was not entirely clear to me prior to and during the surgery. My goals were clear and simple from the beginning, make the plugs in the hairline disappear, particularly on the left side, and the Dr assured me our goals were the same. If reaching this goal were to involve some removal of old grafts, I was open to that as an option and suggested it to Dr Feller. Dr Feller has been firm in his position to not remove any plugs, from the beginning and through today. Whether or not we can "make the plugs disappear" without extraction is still yet to be seen. At 7 months post surgery, they are visible, particlualry on the left side. Where we go from here we shall see.

Thanks again for everyone's contribution(s) to this thread, it has been very productive.

H2

hair2stay,

I did not have a chance to read all of this thread yet, but I wanted to jump in with a question. You began losing your hair in '93 and have been able to maintain ALL OF THAT for the past 15 years with propecia? Is this correct? if so, then that is nothing short of outstanding. How progressive was your hair loss prior to propecia? I guess I better get on that, pronto.

NG2GB,

My friend, my hairloss was never really excessive. From the beginning it was hairline work and up to today it still is. The first doctor should have laughed at me and sent me home at the ripe age of 24! Instead he sold me a bill of goods all in the name of "staying one step ahead of my hairloss" What happened over time was all of the native hair in my frontal area continued to fall out and I was left with some funky ass transplants waving in the wind.

I have been using minoxidil since inception (that's like almost 20yrs now!) and propecia since the beginning as well. To date, I have had over aprox 3,000 grafts in the frontal first inch of my forehead.

Hair loss in my family history is a long sloooowwww process, whether the drugs have been working or I have hell to pay in the coming years I can not answer for sure. What I can say based on my humble observations, is that the drugs have slowed the hairloss and have done well to help me maintain what I have.

Pills, plugs and potions... Yeeehaw!

H2

hair2stay,

thanks. Well, I can certainly sympathize with you to the extent that you are not happy with your situation, BUT it could be a lot worse. Im sure your well aware of this fact but MANY, MANY guys on this forum would kill to have the amount of hair you have. Im surprised you have had so many grafts put all in the front. I also find it hard to believe (I do believe you its just spectacular) that your hair loss began in your early twenties and now, fifteen years later you still have so much hair. I also found your case interesting, because if memory serves correctly I believe the doc and others commented that part of your problem was with the scar tissue in the recipient area might yield slow or poor growth. I was not fully aware of this phenomena with respect to the recipient area. I wonder if an argument can be made that it is better to put the desired amount of grafts in each area of the head in a single surgery as opposed to spreading them all out over the entire head over each successive surgery. Or does excessive trauma to one section play against this?

Regarding your family hair loss history, could you give me an example of what you mean by.."a long slooowwww process..." i.e. how slow did others in your family bald without drugs? Im just curious because Im thinking I should get on propecia pronto if it could possibly have such a material effect.

Considering that THIS is a REPAIR, it's pretty good to begin with. I look like a freak with my current situation. It's absolutely crushing me inside and I don't have the money to go and fix the situation right now. It feels just plain awful and is so frustrating that I can't even begin to put it into words.

I'm envious of this guy's hair and it is apparently a repair situation. Amazing.

I just wish I knew that I needed about 3x the size of a procedure that I originally got. It's been almost 2 years for me now, though, and I can get something done as soon as I have the funds. I just don't see that happening for a long while. I've still got a semester of school left and then will be job hunting or going back to OCS.

I'm not asking for sympathy here, I guess, I'm just spouting frustrations. The fact that this guy's situation is repairable just irks me because mine is so much worse.

It sucks to be 22 and hating it, even when I'm in the best shape of my life. I recently hit 190 lbs at 5'8 at 8% body fat and pulled a 550 lb deadlift at a recent meet. Of course, with a hat on.

This place is the bald man's guardian angel. I wish I had realized that before the trigger was pulled on the procedure. I think there's hope for me, I THINK.

It's sad that sometimes I actually dream about being a candidate on extreme makeover.

__________________
1,614 with Dr. Pistone on 2/3/06 in Marlton, NJ.

As long as the moon shall rise
As long as the rivers flow
As long as the sun shall shine
And the grass will grow
Let me listen, I will learn to speak
The old language
Yes, I yearn to bathe in blue skies
And fall apart from the world of machines
Regain my feet and my pounding heart

My Hair Loss Weblog

Dhugh,

It's been a while since I've seen you on here. I remember your case. It is an excellent example that demonstrates how all HT doctors and clnics are NOT alike.

I posted a side by side comparison of what was done on you by another HT doctor and a similar patient I did at the same time. This is the difference between old style mini/micro graft work and dense pack TRUE follicular unit transplantation:

http://www.fellermedicaldata.com/images/dhugh/1.jpg

Best of luck Dhugh.

__________________
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 appreciate the post. You are one of the few surgeons I would trust to operate on me a second time. Your work is almost always head-turning (or not head-turning - depending on how you look at it).

I hope to sit down with you sometime in the near future for an assessment.

Thanks,

Chris

PS - One question, Dr. Feller, do you recommend that a patient come in with a certain length of growth? Mine is not shaved, but pretty darn close to it and looks sort of like the guy's hair on the right, in the picture you posted.

__________________
1,614 with Dr. Pistone on 2/3/06 in Marlton, NJ.

As long as the moon shall rise
As long as the rivers flow
As long as the sun shall shine
And the grass will grow
Let me listen, I will learn to speak
The old language
Yes, I yearn to bathe in blue skies
And fall apart from the world of machines
Regain my feet and my pounding heart

My Hair Loss Weblog