OtherSyde

OMG I want your Wolverine-like healing abilities! Your scar is going to be basically invisible! And I'm a fan of Doctor K's work, as he trained and worked with Doctor Gabel a lot who does my procedures. Two peas in a pod, and two of the top surgeons in the US for sure! Keep us updated with progress pics, and congrats!

Nice result! As Dangle said above, the hairline is a bit sparse - but in your doc's defense and to ease any concerns, very rarely is a thick, full frontal hairline ever achieved with one single pass - especially when the area was basically completely bald beforehand. It's just extremely difficult to pack that many fresh new grafts into such a dense formation, and I've been told that such practice risks losing a higher percentage of grafts due to nutrient starvation among the newly-healing and nutrient-hungry fledgling grafts. So going back for a second (but much smaller) session to fill in the frontal hairline isn't a bad or abnormal thing at all. I did it, as have many others. Beyond that though, it's looking great overall! Leagues above where you started for sure - congrats!

Wow, you are really in for a big change! Congrats, and don't worry about the scar - it will fade and much of the hair around it that fell out because of shock-loss will grow back as well, further hiding it. And now there are several ways of camouflaging it too, mainly Scalp Micropigmentation (SMP) - it's a small price to pay for a full head of hair, and you're going to look great for sure. Keep us posted with updates!

Wow, looks like you're in for a real transformation very soon! I remember those days, very good times - especially looking in the mirror week after week and watching my hair gradually sprout and flourish like a Chia Pet lol. You picked an excellent doc as well, not that I need to tell you that at this point. Happy growing, and keep us updated for sure!

Always great to see another Dr. Gabel veteran I won't spend time further expounding on the excellence of his work and crew since you've largely already covered that area (and his results and track record speaks volumes for itself to anyone who has eyeballs), but suffice it to say you're in for some awesome times ahead! Congrats on what looks to be a real home run, and keep us updated since we all love hair porn!

4.5 Months! The residual swelling is almost completely gone, and as my skin reattaches and bonds itself more comprehensively to the underlying musculature I am slowly gaining more definition. I really like the way my pecs are now more defined, and how they sort of stand out from my torso (instead of just blending in like formless lumps) even though they haven't gotten significantly bigger (just maintaining via chest press, flies, pushups, etc.). I also like that the definition isn't too high - it doesn't look over-the-top, my individual abs are visible but not sticking out in freakish bold relief or anything; they're sort of downplayed and streamlined. They look about on par with my arms, back, etc. - i.e. - more or less natural. Overall, very happy I did this. I know it won't make me look as shredded as a pro bodybuilder or anything, and I never expected or wanted that - really I just wanted a good, solid physique that I could maintain by steadily working out and doing cardio (which had, as outline above, gradually worked less and less as I got further and further past 30). Definitely worth the investment, in my book. Anyway here are a couple pics from of 4.5 months post-op!

I did a long few months of research before choosing a doc, and like essentially all of Dr. Gabel's patients, I'm very glad I went with him! I don't want to sound like a shill, but results are results, and they speak for themselves. He and his team are especially good at very detailed, dense, natural-looking work and generally a joy to be around as people as well. I, too, was in the Pacific Northwest area when I did a consultation with him at his Seattle office after months of research, and was quite impressed - and this was almost ten years ago! I do plan to go back a fourth time if that tells you anything, and you'll scarcely find a negative word said about Dr. G, his team, or his outstanding work on these forums or elsewhere. Again, I don't want to sound like a mindless fanboy shill because lord knows we don't need any more of those in this industry - so absolutely do your own due diligence and research since there are quite a few great doctors on this side of the US map - but needless to say he has my avid recommendation, especially since he's within your immediate geographic region! Feel free to PM me if you have questions as well, and check out my blog on these forums and my threads (the threads have bigger, more detailed pics)! Hope this helps, and best of luck!

Yeah, the next 6-8 weeks are going to blow your mind man! Just hang in there, and don't freak. Mark our collective words: The 6-Month mark is where it's at.

You really look years younger. Definitely looks natural, even when wet! Congrats, man!

Oh you're in Cali too? I'm in SoCal! For now, anyway.

Lot of area covered! I'm curious as well - any updates?

Looking good, congrats! I've seen a lot of great results from Dr. Diep!

Gotta say this was hilarious, and yet induced a sense of eye-twitching rage in its accuracy of aping the scammy sh!ts that weasel their way in here and try to prey on people's hopes to steal their money and leave them scarred for life. Ugh.. They make me so irritated! It could have been any one of our naive, younger selves getting suckered by these sociopathic criminals and posting horror stories right here later on. Still, definitely a great and perceptive write-up Vox!

Yeah, going with FUT was down to two factors for me - need for fairly large amounts of grafts, and finance. I did plan on filling it in once all the major work had been completed though, using a sequence of scar revision (making it slimmer), followed by filling in with some FUE as a primary means of camouflage, and finally, possibly some high-end SMP if all of that wasn't enough.

Well thanks for the tentative optimism and vote of confidence; I've seen some crappy-looking ab-etching jobs that didn't fit on the saggy, chubby recipient bodies as well. Fortunately in my case, besides being genetically pretty slim anyway (aside from the belly/side-flanks region), I'm pretty avid about working out; in the last week as I've healed to a functional level I've reassembled my own gym and hit it pretty hard trying to gain the weight back that I lost in the 3 weeks while I was down. Since the week before surgery to about 3 weeks afterwards, I went from 164lbs to 147lbs, losing 17lbs despite the relatively small 5-6lbs of total fat they removed. Here are a couple of Week 4 crappy cell pics I got my cousin to snap and text me, just so you don't think I'm a lazy slacker who's full of shit about working out or wants to look good without putting in any real work, although I will freely admit that my arms and pecs look a bit too scrawny for my taste - and also that I definitely had some trouble pushing up those 70lb dumb bells after 4 weeks of post-surgery convalescent slacking Gotta get back on the horse, and better sooner than later.

Looking very slick! As previously stated, 7,500 grafts seems like an awful lot, but as long as you don't need more than one more small to medium sized touch-up procedure in the future you'll probably be fine. Congrats!

Yeah lol, I can't let my hair get too long or it starts to get on my nerves. It's a large part of the reason I want to get my FUT scar revised/filled in so I can comfortably cut it short.

Ooohh, just found this thread. Any updates at the 3ish-month mark?

Looking good! At almost 2 years post-op you must have a bushy mop by now! Are you having thoughts of going back for more since this one was so successful? Or did you successfully evade the hair-greed bug that bit me several more times?

Glad to see a happy ending, enjoy your great hair!

Wow, I am seriously jealous! Having two of the best HT surgeons working on your dome at once must have been pretty exciting! You know you're getting some amazing results! Keep us updated, will you? This is going to be awesome

Yeah don't fret until at least the 4.5-month mark, or maybe even the 5-month mark; as you can see in the pics above and my own albums below, my results were very slow to come and looked like total ass even at 3 months, but really started picking up at the 5-month mark. So don't worry and stay optimistic!

This is a common question, and one I get just as often as "What happens when all your nice transplanted hair just falls out again in a few years?" It's also one I researched well before dropping thousands on such an investment. The answer is that fat isn't just some free-floating substance in your body - it's contained within fat cells, and if you suck out all the fat cells then your body simply can't store fat in that area anymore. Some new fat cells can be created in your body during adulthood, but mostly only up until late adolescence or early adulthood and mostly only in quantities and in body areas specified by your genetics. Once you're past that stage and into adulthood, new fat cells are generally only created during extended periods of extreme hunger or extreme binge-eating. Otherwise your body will simply redirect new stored fat to other fat cells in other areas of your body. I'll look up some references for this later when I'm not on my phone, but that's the jist/layman's version of it. _____________________________________________________________ [EDIT] - One FAQ here explains it pretty clearly. Another FAQ here, states that some of the fat may come back if you gain about 10% of your body weight (which would be about 15-16lbs for me - nigh-impossible with my skinny ectomorph genetics and metabolism). If my body did produce some more fat, it would do it uniformly all over and not just produce a new big fat gut and leave everything else slim/cut like I was before; I'd just be a somewhat beefier version of the same body shape I now have post-op. Although, to be clear, I have no intention to cease working out; half of my two-car garage is a gym with free weights (dumb bells, barbell, etc.), body weight machines (pull-up bars, a situp bench, a Roman chair, etc.), and cardio machines (an elliptical and a treadmill), which I use several times a week. Finally this seemingly damning article titled Study: Fat May Return After Liposuction, actually goes on to state that: "...the fat removed returns in a relatively short time, according to a new study. ''All the fat is back by one year," says researcher Robert H. Eckel, MD, professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. However, it does not return to the spot that has been operated on... The areas that had liposuction did not regain fat, he says." So yeah, worst case scenario, my ass or thighs or something put on a little fat, which honestly would be fine since I am utterly unable to build muscle/size on my legs anyway, no matter how many squats and calf-raises I do - making them look scrawny despite my relatively muscled (for my frame) arms. Having my legs gain a little size and look a little more proportional would not be the worst thing in the world by any stretch

And now for the fun part: Developments! Pics 1 and 2 are Day 7, the morning after I got my drains taken out and got to remove my foam and compression garment for washing and my first full shower in 8 days! Pics 3, 4, and 5 are around Week 3, just a couple of days ago - quite a development, and I've got a lot more change coming in the next 2 months! [EDIT] - It's worth noting that I'm not flexing in any of these shots - I just look like this now, which blows my mind.

Oh and just for a quick comparison, here is the previous screen-grab of me unconscious on the operating table directly pre-op, and the second pic is also me on the operating table but directly post-op, before they wrapped me in foam or any swelling had even started to set in (I was still out like a light). Even with all the marking, wetness, over-bright lighting, residual surgical saline under my skin, etc. you can see the detail added here that generally separates VASER from the other forms of lipo.