teethrus

Thanks for all your answers guys...helps to put my mind at ease! Stamos, in answer to your question about why I had 1000 & then 900 grafts done rather than just a bigger procedure. When I had my 1st procedure done (at 30 y/o) I still had a relatively thick head of hair but my typical U shaped thinning pattern was becoming evident. The goal was to begin reinforcing my hairline and filling in the whole mid-scalp area before I got REALLY thin. I went back for the additional 900 about a year later to tweek the shape of my hairline after I could see the result of the 1st surgery. My most recent procedure of 2000 grafts (at 35 y/o) was to get an overall "fill in" from my mid-scalp forward to increase my thickness in areas where I had additional thinning. I suppose I could have waited and just gotten 4000 grafts done all at once but I guess I'm just too vain to let my hair get that thin!

I have a question on how procedure time can affect transplant success. I had a transplant done about 3 months ago (my 3rd procedure) and it went a bit differently than what I experienced before. The last procedure was done in Colorado at an office that only used 1 technician. I had 2000 grafts done and it took the tech about 4 - 5 hours to disect all the follicles with the entire procedure, start to finish, taking about 9 hours. My previous procedures were 1000 and 900 grafts and only took about 4 hours total for each so I am wondering what the effect of the prolonged disection time will be on my success. How long can follicles remain alive after they have been removed? Has anyone else had similar durations for a procedure of that size? I'm only 3 months post-op so too early for me to report on success but based on my previous experiences, I am expecting growth to start in about a month and continue to increase until about 11 months. Hoping my follicles are strong enough to withstand 6 hours out of my scalp!!!