OtherSyde

Someone should pester him with an email... It's been almost 5 months! I bet he's looking great!

Oy... 4 months?? Hmm... Yeah, you might have cause for concern... But I, and the rest of the forum members and experts, don't have enough information to really help you diagnose (or at least guess at a diagnosis). If we could know the angles he inserted the hairs at (if they're inserted at crazy random angles they can sever a lot of follicles under the surface and have bad growth, and also grow in weird random directions - what Dr. Gabel described to me as the "Salad Effect"), the number of grafts you got transplanted, the density-packing level, the width of the blades he used for poking your holes for your grafts, etc. Then maybe we could make a better and more informed answer. Do you have a decent camera you could snap a couple close-up, well-lit, well-focused shots of the recipient area? Obviously you don't have to show your face or anything, but some pics and some more info would really help us here. Also, some of the other, more savvy technical guys, like SPEX, Jotronic, Bill, etc. might be able to answer better than me, so hopefully they chime in here, too.

Jeez you are really freaking out about this. 1. My shock-loss tapered off after 1.5 to 2 months, in that range. 2. I could tell it wasn't the new hairs growing, because grafts take 3-4 months to even really start to grow after the newly-planted follicle units finally get all situated in their new homes and linked up to the local micro-blood-vessels and nervous system. I'm sure some of my shock-loss didn't grow back. But I mean, it was seriously worth it, and as you can see from my blog I'm happy now. Just chill man! A watched pot never boils and you'll drive yourself nuts nit-picking it every day. Remember, stress can lead to hair-loss! Take up something interesting and fun like painting, or pottery, or trolling people online in Call of Duty or something. Just stop thinking about your hair. It will all happen in a few months.

Yeah, I would say almost all of it grew back, barring the already-weakened and dying follicles that soon would have permanently telophased themselves out anyway. Assuming your doc was smart enough to poke holes and insert grafts mostly between your existing hairs (and almost every decent doc is), and not accidentally stab any existing follicles during the process, almost all of it will likely grow back. I wouldn't worry.

Well in 10 or 15 years, you might end up chasing a hairline that is receding behind your transplanted one, but at least you've got lots of donor supply, and you're already basically guaranteed an awesome hairline for a long time to come. Enjoy it

It's true, this fellow certainly does seem to have a lot of the odds stacked against him, but as long as he's mainly looking to cover the frontal third acceptably and leave the back somewhat thin, and maybe use some Topik for special occasions (or daily if he has the time and energy), I think another one or two large procedures would be able to pull that off; maybe one to beef up the frontal third as much as is reasonably possible, and one more (if he wants) to fill in some of the back/crown area? I certainly agree though, there is definitely a very noticeably positive change between the Before and the (dry/fluffy) After pics. Progress in this case appears to be moving along slowly, but surely.

By my 5 or 6 month mark, as can be seen in my blog linked below, all of my grafts and shock-lossed hairs had begun to grow back in force. I would say at least almost all of yours will grow back as well; have patience. You'll look awesome in a couple months. I just got my second HT 7 days ago; we'll both be in the ugly-duckling/waiting phase for a couple months. Everything will be fine, even if you had a little more shock-loss than average. Just forget about for 3 or 4 months, as it's waaay too early to make any kind of judgment so far.

I agree with Bill and TakingThePlunge; Dr. Gabel's a standup doc and not shady - At my first consult in Seattle over two years ago, he warned me straight up that some people just aren't great genetic candidates and my mileage may vary, and even mentioned that he'd once had a unique patient whose grafts simply "would not take." At least the fellow in question here got a moderate yield, and I'm sure Dr. G will straighten it all out. All cosmetic surgery, or any organic surgery for that matter, is sometimes iffy, even when well-developed and technologically and artistically refined. I sincerely hope this works out in the end for the original poster though; I'm sure we can all empathize with his feelings of worry and frustration. I'm optimistic though.

Looking amazing! But as far as a second procedure..? I don't know what exactly you want to accomplish with a second procedure when your hair is basically identical to that of the most prominent source of female sexual fantasy in recent memory... In case you're confused about the reference, let me illustrate: Is basically: I think you're good, dude. Go buy a sports car

Alrighty... As of this posting it's now four days later, with a few positive developments, so I'm continuing it in THIS THREAD.

[Continued from THIS THREAD] Four days post-op as of this posting, and I'm done with all my antibiotics, most pain meds, etc. Only taking Ibuprofen now. Encouragingly, I seem to be ahead of the healing curve by 2 or 3 days right now, as essentially all of my scabbing and crusting has come away with little effort after getting out of the shower (usually doesn't happen until day 7 to 10); I carefully examined each little scab and bit of skin that came off as I delicately rubbed in gentle circles with my fingertips, and made sure I wasn't dislodging any grafts. No grafts - or even newly-released shock-loss hairs - came off with the skin. Really awesome. Now I'm just dabbing mineral oil on the recipient area. Also applying Polysporin on the incision, which I imagine will continue to look about the same until the sutures come out in 4 or 5 more days, and take awhile to heal - which is just dandy since it's really easy to conceal this time around, due to longer hair in the back. Here are my day 4 shots; no too much redness, and nearly no scabbing left, as well as all transplanted hairs still holding firm in their new homes - no shock loss - at least not yet... Well, that's it for now. Everything seems awesome to the four-day mark. If anything changes I'll keep the thread updated for anyone who's curious.

What?? How many Shapiro's are there?? Thanks for pointing that out, I had no idea he wasn't part of SMG!

[EDIT] - Deleted double-post

Hmmm... Your scars don't look too bad at all! And your thinning pattern looks almost just like mine in the hairline and frontal third of your scalp; look through my blog (linked in my sig below); with a good, solid HT of about 1,600 to 2,000 grafts by a skilled doctor, you'll be set! And as a plus, you already have your hairline beefed up; I just went through my second procedure for exactly that reason only a week or so ago as of this writing, but you've already got that area nailed down. My advice to you? Pick one of the top docs on these forums and basically replicate my first HT. Dr. Gabel did mine, although you may pick a different doc based on your location, but heed this advice - It is SO worth the cost of a plane ticket and three nights in a hotel to go to one of the truly great Coalition docs. When it comes to your body/face/hair, you of all people know that you don't want to end up re-doing procedures. If you have to travel a bit, then for the love of God, DO IT. It will be worth it and you will be happy.

Well thanks for the props - and no, the scar isn't a big deal at all; I'm in the military and keep the hair at the back of my head at roughly a #3 guard length, and no one has ever once noticed the scar. If you opt for FUE (usually quite do-able when dealing with less than 2,000 grafts from what I hear), scarring will be essentially zero problem for you.

Just re-read this post and understood the question more directly. Of course they can do this... Why wouldn't they be able to? Most guys simply want to attack the hairline first, since it frames their face and has a more dramatic initial impact, but there's no reason not to do it in reverse and work your way forward from the rear, either.

The above post is from 2007... Is this still going on..? Did we move the chat room somewhere else..?

OK I also posted this in the thread by HairLongGone's (the 23-year-old girl) thread, but just to reiterate: Look at Dr. Aronovitz's page here; in the Before/After results animation on the right side of the page, it looks like he does African American hair, and it looks like he does it pretty well. I have no personal experience with him, but he's Coalition-approved. He's based in Southfield, Michigan, so it would be a flight for you, but might really be worth it. Anyone else want to chime in here in regards to Dr. Aronovitz?

Yeah; this is a weird case - you said you've had two HT's before, both of which I'm assuming were at least mostly successful (or else you probably wouldn't have gone for a third one)... So why on earth would the follicles fail to take this time? Or simply take so long to sprout? Could it be an environmental factor? Dietary? Stress? Very weird, but don't give up hope just yet. Can you post some pics? Maybe with a few arrows/notes on them to show where the new hairs are supposed to be? And yes, definitely go and consult with your surgeon; if he is reputable like you say he is, he will certainly take concern and help you figure this out!

Being a female, I seriously doubt she is going to suffer a whole lot of Male Pattern Baldness on the top of her scalp; I mean sure, it's possible, but it's very very rare in women, and the way she talks it sounds like she has super-thick hair all over her top regions, perfect for some FUE. If I were in her shoes, I would absolutely take the risk; the worst that could happen is that some of the hairs could fall out over the next 20 years; I'd take that risk if it were me. I think the only major issue here for her, as well as for lagrandeur, is to find a doc who is: 1. Reputable and skilled 2. Does FUE, and does it well 3. Maybe the trickiest one - locating a doc who is familiar with the nuances of African American hair transplantation - What exactly are those nuances, anyway, out of curiosity? Are they significant? I really feel for her, as I imagine we all do on some level, and her situation is a unique one - partially due to the pattern of the baldness, and also because baldness really is more accepted among men, whereas women are generally held to a higher standard of beauty and vanity in society (a double-standard, I know, which probably doesn't make anyone feel any better about the situation). There has got to be someone on these forums who is familiar with the 3 things I listed above. Does anyone know something useful to contribute here? Some of the long-timers maybe, like FutureHTdoc, SPEX, Bill-Managing Publisher, TakingThePlunge, etc.? [EDIT] - Dr. True and Dr. Dorin, as well as Dr. Feller, are some of the most highly-recommended Coalition-approved docs on the east-coast, operating out of New York and Boston; Not a long or expensive flight from Detroit, considering I just flew all the way from Hawaii to Oregon to get my latest procedure three days ago. Definitely contact those guys and see what they have to say; they're highly ethical, and won't feed you lies about what they can or can't do for you. [Another EDIT] - Look at Dr. Aronovitz's page here; in the Before/After results animation on the right side of the page, it looks like he does African American hair, and it looks like he does it pretty well. I have no personal experience with him, but he's Coalition-approved and based right in Southfield, Michigan, which is literally only 20 minutes outside of Detroit. Worth a look, for sure! Anyone else?

My vote for your doc, if possible, would be the Legendary Dr. Feller, but Dorin and True are high-caliber choices as well; I don't think you'll go wrong with any of them from what I've read and seen on these forums. As far as what you need - Well, your forelock is still thick and pretty strong; If you want to fill in a little of the side/temple areas, I'd just go for a modest FUE approach of 800 to 1,200 grafts, although I'm no doctor. I say this in light of the fact that you would need enough grafts to make a medium-density fill-in around that area, but as the other guys before me have stated, you don't want to waste too many donor grafts yet - you really do have a limited amount and you really don't want to end up running out of grafts and getting stuck with some weird hairline in your mid-late 30's. Stay on the finasteride as well. I do think anything over 1,500 grafts would be highly excessive to achieve your goals; I'm not going to link a bunch more pics here, but look in my hair loss blog linked below to see what 1,775 grafts can do, and what 1,554 can do; I really do not think you need that many! I got my first HT at 27 (the 1,775-graft one), like you, but you have a butt-load more hair than I did. I know you wanna go nuts and make a super Adam Lambert-esque hairline, but you're pushing 30 now and have a great hairline for a 30-year-old; lower than mine even after 2 HT's. Just maybe fill in those temples with a little FUE, stay on the fin to maintain what you have (which is better than a lot of guys your age), and go enjoy life. Then take the money you saved by not getting a hugely expensive procedure and smack down a down-payment on a nice car, and go pick up girls with your sweet car and nice hair.

Out of all the people on this forum, most using some form of finasteride (Propecia), there are only one or two guys in my recent memory that have complained of the whole impotence thing from Propecia; the short version is: 1. It's extremely rare 2. The effects only last as long as you keep taking the drug; if you notice that you're never horny anymore, or your wiener stops responding to pictures of naked women or fast cars or Draco Malfoy in leather pants (if that's your thing - hey, I don't judge) with its previous vigor, just stop taking the Propecia and you'll be right back to normal. Basically, there's no way to know without trying it; if it causes side-effects then simply stop taking it, and since you're thinning on top a lot, I personally think you need to get on it ASAP. Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor - I work on computers. But Propecia works great for me. Anyone else?

Bump... This is a good post. And yeah, that definitely does not look like 3900+ grafts... No way. I know most HT docs tend to specialize in Caucasian hair transplantation, and I've heard that Indian and Asian hair is often thicker but still somewhat similar, but I'm not very familiar with any docs that specifically address the unique physiology and challenges posed by African American hair transplantation. Anyone got an answer here?

You've provided a bit of info, but we definitely need some good photos to make any kind of assessment at all. Are you a Norwood 2 now? Or a 3 or a 4? Where are these "bald spots,", and where is the scar located at on your scalp? Can you snap a couple of photos with decent detail and lighting (you can blur out or crop out your face if you want, of course) and post them here? I tend to upload mine to Photobucket and then link them, because that way I can show much larger, more detailed pics (uploading them to these forums as attachments shrinks and blurs the pictures). Give us some more technical and visual information to work with, and we'll definitely strive to give you the best advice possible! There are a LOT of top docs here, like the one that posted just above me.

I can vouch 110% for Dr. Gabel's work; I've had two procedures done that were both FUT so I can't necessarily give a yay or a nay on his FUE abilities (although I'm very strongly leaning towards an enthusiastic "yay"), bot of my results came out stellar - and therefore I can, at a minimum, vouch for his excellent artistry in terms of graft placement for making a very natural look, as well as his ethics, and also he and his team's professionalism and patient care. I would very highly recommend Dr. Gabel. You won't find a negative word spoken about him or his practice on these forums, and I doubt anywhere else either.