OtherSyde

Well it actually looks really nice and thick, and as far as the slightly-thin donor area, some SMP will work magic! Got it recently myself, it really improves the appearance of density and minimizes the way a pale scalp would otherwise stand out. Please post some more pics if you got your SMP!

Looks fantastic, congratulations man! In the last few pictures from the bottom of your last post, with the black hair, hair cut, and widow's peak you sort of resemble Mickey Milkovich from Shameless. I mean this in a good/charismatic way.

Why did Brendan Fraser's look so bad? Or, arguably, John Travolta's? Or so many others with so many other types of Hollywood botch-jobs like those horrible comical lip injections, bad butt implants, ridiculous unnatural boob-jobs, etc? I've thought about this for a long time, because as a cosmetic surgery vet it just pains me to see so many wealthy connected people get so bamboozled by hacks. I've honestly long-believed that it's because celebrities live in a bubble where they don't do any research themselves, they just ask the idiots around them (their assistants or agents or whatever) to do it for them, and said idiots do some basic cursory internet research (or even worse, they just ask other idiots "in the business") and end up sending them to some Hollywood hack with outdated tech who only gets to stick around because he was popular with big-name stars 20+ years ago and sort of got grandfathered in (also for being known as a sort of inner-circle surgeon who services celebs and keeps it on the down-low - i.e. away from the tabloid vultures and public), so they just accept this bad advice on trust and go to crap doctors. I can't imagine Lebron looking in the mirror after this garbage SMP procedure or whatever he got led into/pushed onto him by his assistant/agent/advisor/whatever and thinking, "Man, this looks great!" He probably knows it looks like crap and he was trying to keep it hidden until he could do damage control. It just looks like a crappy SMP tattoo to me.

Agreed on the low-taper fade; honestly it's a slight thin spot, but not in any location that anyone would look at and think "This guy is balding." It's just a random thin spot; people have these all the time. I see them frequently in the military because guys have to keep their hair short. I wouldn't sweat it, no one is going to pass negative judgment on you for something tiny like that, and most won't even notice. If worse comes to worse and it really bugs you, get some mild SMP in that area - it's getting really good these days and can very effectively camouflage even big bare pink FUT scars; it would easily hide something like that little thin spot, for a couple hundred bucks and and afternoon's worth of time.

Welp my staples are out, and things are looking good so far; scar is still a bit red and angry-looking, as to be expected ~13 days post-op, but looking at the pictures compared to the before shots, you can see that the scar itself is barely thicker than a credit card and there is hair growing throughout the region as well, right up to the edge of the scar! It's still slightly visible with a #4 Guard shave, but during staple removal and while gently washing the scabbing off in the sink/shower, I did experience a fair amount of shock-loss as well - probably 40-50 hairs at least. I think these will grow back in time as healing progresses and the follicles begin their growth cycles anew, so I'm very optimistic towards the final result which will be in a few months. I'll post an update when I get there. Cheers!

Well I got antsy this morning buzzed it down to a #4 Guard. This was after taking a shower so it was all dry and clean instead of goopy and wet (before I put more Polysporin on). Even being somewhat swollen with the staples in and only 2 days old, it's already less visible now at a #4 Guard than it was before at a #6 Guard! Loving it so far, and very little pain.

Alright! Back home in San Diego! I went in for my follow-up this morning before I flew out, here are a few more pics as promised. I grabbed a few shots of Dr. Gabel and his swanky new place (it's way bigger than the previous place, I kept getting lost among all the rooms!) - not too many pics though, as the Doc himself is putting together a new tour presentation that he plans to release soon, highlighting all their classy facilities and high-tech gadgetry Annadaya de-bandaged my noggin and gave my hair a quick washing and cleaned me all up (made sure the staples looked good, no signs of infection or inflammation, etc.), and I was on my way! Very streamlined and smooth experience overall, as usual! And now I'm back home snapping a few pics. Even with my hair covered in wet gooey Polysporin ointment it's difficult to see the scar even with all the staples, and my obscuring curtain of longer hair above the scar is clearly way longer than it needs to be at this point in order to mask the scar - no more #6 Guard buzz in the back! As you can see below, nearly all of the old scar tissue was removed. The Doc said he was aiming to reduce the total scar width by roughly ~50%, but if you look at the zoomed-in pic below you can see that the hair follicles actually go right down almost to the very edge of the new scar on both the top and bottom sides; I would wager that he ultimately managed to reduce it by closer to 70% or more, which will make it very easy to hide with much shorter hair! Compare the post-op pic above with the zoomed-in version of the pre-op pic below (from above in the first post of this thread) to see the sheer difference in coverage pattern - so much less bare skin area! Overall I'm really excited to see how this turns out, especially after I get the staples all removed in 9-12 days! Once the staples are out and I can stop gooping it up with ointment every day I bet it will be basically undetectable. In a year or two I might make another pilgrimage up to Oregon again to get some SMP into the scar if it's even needed, and also to get my crown filled in via FUE, as you can see in the pics above that I've got a little thin spot slowly developing - shouldn't take a huge procedure though. Happy for now though! I'll do at least one more update in a week or two just to show how it turned out.

Welp I'm done for now, the procedure was quick and streamlined as usual. Dr. Gabel's new office and facilities are freshly-constructed and very classy! I will get some more pictures tomorrow morning when I go back. I'm now back in my hotel room recuperating with Tylenol and Ibuprofen, vegetating on the YouTubes with my head all bandaged up :) Not much more to update on at the moment, but I'll be sure and post some nice gory pictures of my stapled-up incision site tomorrow when the bandages come off!

Haha thanks, it's good to be back! Been gone on two back-to-back deployments for almost two years now, and finally some time to get a few things done! I'll try and get some pictures of the new setup

Hello everyone, I'm back in the game for a quick procedure this time - I'll be doing a scar revision with Dr. Gabel on this Thursday (Oct 17th). All of my results have been great so far, but after three FUT procedures totaling around ~4,500 grafts, my incision scar had gradually become larger and larger, and now that I have coverage over the majority of my scalp and will just use some small-to-medium FUE procedures for any further necessary touch-ups, I just want to get my incision scar reduced down to where it was after my first HT (it was basically invisible at a #3 Guard haircut). First pic is from 2011 - about a year after my first FUT in late 2010, at about a #3 Guard buzz... Pic below is after my third HT, with roughly a #6 Guard buzz - it can be hidden, but is still quite visible under bright lights due to the very light skin color underneath and the relatively sparse "curtain" of hair covering it - and on top of that I have to cut my hair myself because no stylist seems to be able to figure out the concept of how to properly mask it with longer hair above and shorter hair below without giving me a total botch-job or exposing the scar. Also, the longer #5 or #6 Guard buzz kind of chafes against military standards - it's not technically out of regulations, but everyone constantly thinks I need a haircut And Below you can see the incision scar revealed... I want to point out that Dr. Gabel is a pro with his subtle trichophytic enclosures (as per the first pic, and the second procedure wasn't even bad at all either) and the increasing scar size was not an error, but a calculated temporary sacrifice; the size of the scar is really due to multiple incisions and a bit of stretching, and due to the fact that since I'd already done two FUT's before the third one, my scalp skin was already pulled fairly tight at that point - meaning that Dr. Gabel didn't want to cut out the entire scar while also taking another ~1,300 graft strip out simultaneously - it would have been too large of an incision at that point with my scalp laxity. So we settled on only removing about half of the scar tissue that time around - as you can see in the picture below from HT #3 in late 2016 (the blue marker line is right through the middle of the scar), compounding upon the current scar with the understanding that I would need to come back in a year or three for a scar revision. So basically we're going to do a strip-FUT procedure - but with no hair removed from the site - only the old scar tissue, and the doc says he plans to use staples this time in addition to the regular methods, in order to ensure there's no stretching so the scar heals as narrow and invisible as possible. After a year or so, I may return for some SMP or small FUE into the scar if necessary, but if it turns out like my first incision scar and I can easily hide it completely in broad daylight with a #3 Guard buzz then I think I'll be fine! I fly out to Oregon tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. It should also be noted for anyone considering Dr. Gabel that he has relocated to a township called Tigard which is only ~20 minutes from the Portland PDX airport (as opposed to being in Hillsboro nearly an hour away), so a quick Uber will get you there much faster and cheaper than before (which was a pleasant surprise). I'll keep you guys updated as progress is made!

Wow this is an awesome result, it really filled out and lowered your hairline with only 1,700 grafts! Hopefully that tree branch didn't rob you of any precious grafts; any update pics? The 6-month mark is usually really significant!

I will, I'm back in the game for a scar revision and a tiny bit of touch-up soon

Wow, looking great! Your hairline's shape came out looking a lot like mine with the widow's peak, except with the major difference that it looks low enough that once your density grows in, you're only a quick late-90's Backstreet-Boys highlighted-tips dye-job away from having hair just like Chris Hemsworth (pictured below in Star Trek), and that sounds like a home run to me any day! Dr. Diep's done a fantastic job, please keep us posted!

Looking outstanding, the detail in the graft placement is second to none as always! Congrats Skeet!

Looking very good! Thanks for the updates, and happy growing :)

Looking very good for Month 4! Month 5 and 6 will really blow your mind :) Keep us updated on your success story!

Man, this looks amazing! Excellent density and hairline. You must be over the moon... Congrats!

If you're on the West Coast (in Cali like me I take it, looking at your name), and you don't mind a ~1-hour flight up to Oregon, Dr. Gabel does do FUE, and I don't see why he would be opposed to a small scar fill-in session, unless he has some kind of policy I'm not aware of. His work is quite good and clean, as you can see from my own blog and posts, as well as many others on these forums (look in the Results Posted by Patients, and Surgeon Experiences sub-forums). For what it's worth he certainly has my recommendation and I doubt you'll find any naysayers. Best of luck!

This is largely the impression I get, and honestly an ounce of common sense brings one to the same conclusion; a machine might be very precise and efficient, but will never have a trained surgeon's artistic eye for how to approach each individual case. The tech is wonderful, but it has a ways to go before it can really hope to rival a real live experienced surgeon.

Thanks! Almost forgot I posted about this here lol. Anyway, here's a 5-Month update. I actually went back to the same tanning bed where I took the Before pics back in January (I rarely tan, I was just about to go on vacation and didn't want to be too pasty), and snapped a few similar pics - same crappy lighting and all - for some side-by-side comparisons! I think the biggest difference is when I'm relaxed; in the "Relaxed - After" pic I'm actually kind of pushing my belly out a little for emphasis, and there's still definition. FYI I don't walk around like this with my belly deliberately distended like that in normal life - it's usually a sort of moderate position somewhere between the "flexed" and "relaxed" poses to be honest. In any case I'm quite happy with it! Next up: Finally filling in my crown and rear mid-scalp once and for all so I can cut my hair down shorter without it being transparent in the middle!

I didn't catch where you're located, but I feel I should suggest Dr. Gabel out of personal experience, as I think anyone will agree he is highly respected on these boards and is quite skilled at detailed hairline creation and natural-looking density. He is located in Oregon outside of Portland. To be fair there is generally a very good selection of excellent surgeons on the board though, so I don't want to solely plug one. If I remember right, Dr. Gabel charges about $5 per FUT graft and $7 per FUE graft up to 2,000 and then $6/graft after that. Don't completely quote me there though, you'd have to call them for their most updated pricing info!. Best of luck!

Hey good on you for keeping positive and picking a killer doc for a repair! From everything I've read and seen about Doc C's work you'll be very happy in a few months! Congrats on turning a crappy situation around, and keep us updated!

Wow and only 5 months in! This is gonna be a beast of an HT! Congrats, and keep us posted with results!

Your hair looks like Josh Brolin's hair (in basically any role he's played except Thanos, anyway)! Outstanding result for sure!

Hang in there, this is when the fun part starts! You'll get a lot of growth in the next 1-3 months! Keep us updated and congrats!