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Yesterday whilst looking in the mirror, I noticed that there were little black dots in my temples where I had my HT 24 days ago. When I looked more closely I thought these looked a bit like the start of new hairs. I have attached a photo, circling some of them in red. Not all of them were protruding from the skin. Today I had a look again and can see that they have grown a bit more and some are sticking out a 1-2mm now. 1. Is this common for new hairs to grow this early (the area was completely bald pre-HT so it is not native hair). 2. Are they likely to fall out and then come back in 3-5 months or will they stay there? 3. Will all of my transplanted hairs do this, or only a few? (you can see how long the remaining transplanted hair is in the picture also)

I have found proscar to be more effective for me than when I was using propecia. I have no understanding of why this would be.

Tonycc: interestingly enough, I noticed last time I checked that it had almost disappeared. I think it must have been a reaction to the minox.

Can anyone comment on when the redness is expected to disappear and also what the 'itchy' stage is which people refer to - I haven't come across that yet.

After having my HT, one thing which really has suprised me is how each of the various stages which I had read about on this site has happened to me at just about the exact same time as other people have mentioned it happening to them. I must have read this information throughout 20-50 different threads and am not aware of anywhere that it is available in one place. This information is based off my own experience along with what I have read here on this site - if anyone would like to refine it, correct it or add more details comment below and I'll add it in. I am still only 1 month post op, so this is a work in progress. Pre-HT No vitamins (7-10 days prior) No minodoxil (7-10 days prior) Nothing that will thin your blood (7-10 days prior) HT Day Times vary a lot depending on number of grafts and technicians Final check of hair Discuss requirements (number of grafts, new hairline etc) Local anesthetic at donor (15-30min) Harvest strip and close donor site (30min) Local anesthetic at recipient (15min) Create holes for grafts (30-60min) Place grafts (120-180min) Post HT No Contact with hair (day 1) Itchy scalp (day 1-14) Gentle rinsing of hair (day 2-3) Face swells and then subsides (days 2-5) Gentle rinsing with shampoo (day 3-7) Scabs form and fall off (day 5-12) Staples/Sutures removed from donor(day 10-14) Can sleep normally once staples/sutures are removed (it is a bit uncomfortable until a couple of days after) Can take topical medication (e.g. minodoxil) once staples/sutures are removed. Possible shockloss (2-4 weeks) Transplanted hairs fall out (2-6 weeks) Redness disappears (3 weeks - 3 months) Regrowth begins (3.5months - 5 months)

I'm not getting them either (for most topics - some I do still get)

why would you need to protect yourself from the sun when you are indoors? As far as I'm aware, the goal is to avoid getting sunburn. This isn't going to happen indoors, and most of the time won't happen outdoors either.

Those things may help a little. 1mg finasteride once per day will most likely help more than all of those combined. Note that the viatamins, biotin and fish oil will not stop you from losing hair - what they will do is to help the hair which is there be healthy (before it falls out). DHT is the cause of MPB so only things which restrict this or reduce its effectiveness are going to help you stop the balding.

I would suggest visiting one of the recommended doctors on this site and asking their opinion. Once you have this information you will be in a much better position to make a decision as to whether to go back to your original doctor and whether it is appropriate to fix in the way you suggest.

I am now at the 24 day mark and most of my redness has disappeared now, however I have developed a strong red blotch about the size of my palm on the left side of my scalp. This seems to coincide with when I began putting minodoxil on my head a week ago. Has anyone else experienced this? I'm wondering if it is common or whether I have something which I need to be concerned about. It does not itch or hurt in any way.

I'd get both. I have medium brown hair and own light, medium and dark brown varieties of Toppik. Why? Because after spending nearly 14K on some new hair, I didn't see that spending an extra $40 on Toppik would be out of the question and it allowed me to experiment and see what suits me best.

I paid for mine by credit card. No problems at all. They also accepted Bank Cheque

You will need a prescription for finasteride minodoxil and biotin won't needone. not sure about the rest

you can easily see in the picture on the right that it is pulling on the manequins forehead. If you want a beanie, get one of the knitted ones and stretch it as much as possible so that it flops onto your head. You want to avoid it having any elasticity which will cause it to pull on the scalp.

No-one appears to have touched on this yet, so I'll add the extra info. newguy: For hair like yours, you probably need about 6000-7000 grafts to cover the head. This should be your long term goal. Every action you take should keep in mind where you want to be in the future, because once you've started there isn't any turning back. Getting on meds right now is the best thing you can be doing whilst you consider what to do regarding the HT. You might find that shaving your head works out to be the better option.

I think his current style is what makes this look so impressive. A haircut might spoil the magic.

Thanks all, it looks like I'm just being anxious - which isn't suprising I guess! We'll see how things are looking later in the year! I asked him this before the HT and (going by memory) he thought that I might be able to achieve the following: HT1: ~3000 HT2: ~2400 HT3: ~1000 HT4: (I completely forget) After the HT, he mentioned that my donor was better than he had thought, hence we got an extra 300 - I guess this would mean that the future numbers would be slightly higher also. As I already had hair covering all but my temples (albeit, getting thin on top), he thought the 3300 should last me quite a while. I expect that HT2 will take place once this hair has disappeared, hopefully at least 5-10 years down the track.

thanks for the response, it's good that others have also wondered about this. For me, I do not doubt the number of hairs/grafts which were put in at all. I did a lot of research prior, and the amount of area we covered was very big, and the density on top was much higher than I thought we would get (considering I have native hair still). I am just a bit worried that the density on the temples may not look very natural when compared to my strong forelock. I'm really hoping that after the shedding and regrowth, things will appear thicker and more dense on my temples than I can imagine them based on their appearance at 3 weeks.

Very, very few people take 5mg of finasteride. What is much more commonly done is to buy the 5mg pills and then cut them into 4 pieces, having one piece each day. This is much cheaper than buying the 1mg pills. As for feeling uneasy about asking for finasteride - don't. It is extremely common. One of the biggest steps you can take in overcoming hair problems is to understand that losing hair is very very common and that most of the treatments are common also. I've been to many doctors to pick up finasteride perscriptions and about half of the time the doctos have told me that they are taking it also. Losing hair is not uncommon and nothing to feel uncomfortable about.

I had my HT on the 12th Dec (3 weeks ago now) and received ~3300 grafts, some to my temples (my main priority) and the rest through the midsection and part of my crown. I had this done by Dr Feller, and from what I can tell, everything was done to a very high standard. I have healed quickly and the scar is minimal. One thing which has been on my mind however is that the hair in the temples (which had previously been completely bald) just doesn't seem very dense at all. I haven't been taking periodical pictures as I want to just 'get on with life' and now regret that a bit. At about 1 week post HT, when the scabbing had started, I had been massaging the temples with the tips of my fingers more than the rest of my scalp and I did notice the occasional hair coming out then (but not graft), however I am not sure if this was enough to account for how thin it feels now at 3 weeks. I don't think I have had much shedding yet. I've been through each of the other post HT steps, pretty much exactly on schedule with what others here have described. My question here is whether it is expected/normal to feel that things are not dense enough at 3 weeks?

What Levrais said... the surgery day is a breeze.. it all goes by very quickly. The part after seems to take an eternity though! good luck mate!

I haven't tried Nizoral, but I can say that the time I started using revita, coincided with the time when I began regrowing a lot more hair. I was also using minodoxil and finasteride at the same time, but haven't seen such a positive impact from these alone

You can use the locator tool here: http://www.hairtransplantnetwork.com/Consult-a-Physician

Albion: Please note that using finasteride less frequently has not been shown to have a positive or negative impact on hairloss when compared with taking 1mg/day. This study hasn't been performed and it is doubtful that Merck will ever pay to do it as it would only encourage people to use less of their product. Several people who are doing this have reported that it still appears to work fine for them, with less side effects - as such, this is what I am doing too. I found that my hairloss was not helped much when I was using Rogaine, however when I switched to a different brand (UHT Spectrum or something similar) and started using Revita shampoo, my hairloss decreased a lot. It could have been the shampoo, or maybe the minodoxil brand or something else entirely.

Capelli: One important distinction to make between vitamins and fin/min is that the vitamins will help existing hairs to grow more strongly (and quickly - perhaps). They will not cause new hairs to grow. Fin/Min will also help grow new hairs as they attack the actual cause of MPB. In answer to the original question - I am not 2 weeks out from my first ever HT. The top of my head was shaved completely bald, the pre-HT hair there is now about 7-8mm long, about the same as the transplanted hair.