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Wait is all about you can do. I had a poor result with dr Feriduni. I'm 12 months out but truthfully all you can do is wait. A better pre and post opp pic would be helpful to let us better see where you were at and where you are at now. Email the doc. Send good quality pics. Not camera phone pics under poor lighting. Document you progress and go from there.

Receding tide-not sure but in the end I won't go forward with strip. My sides legit can't hide that scar and honestly after 1 poor result I don't have the desire to do another procedure that may turn out poor as well and leave a scar. In my email to the doc about my donor area his response was just illustrating what he does to minimize depleting an area. Would anyone be opposed to me just posting my emails with the doc? Not sure if that's a no no but you can better understand his responses. I'll let senior members weigh in on if that's a good idea or not.

magnumpi- I have been in contact with the doc and voicing my questions. My sides are pretty depleted in my opinion as well as my wife's and a few of my friends. I have had a few people who I work with joke and ask if I received a bad haircut on my sides only. I asked the doc about this and he responded with all the measures he takes to prevent it. I asked the question again and am waiting for his response. He had two of his veteran tecs doing the extractions he said as well. My worry is truthfully I can't see how I can have many more donor grafts on my sides. What's the point of making one area bald only to cover another?!? Again he has offered to perform the entire surgery himself which I am considering but I have many questions that need to be answered before I move forward. With the result that I achieved and the moth eaten appearance on the sides a part of me thinks maybe my body just wasn't a good candidate. He believes that I had about 50-60 percent growth. Seems kind of high as people have said in this thread that they can't really tell much difference at all between the before and after. Lots of questions and lots of uncertainty remain. Fun fun!!!

I posted an update and there is a long thread. Just look for year update. Long story short though it wasn't a success...

fue2014-surgery started at 930 and i was done at 410. Doc says 1500 more grafts and if he feels there is a need for mor then he would do that. He would perform the entire surgery from A to Z(extractions/incisions/implantations) Saturday surgery to allow all his attention. He stated that my HGi(hair graft index) was 1.92 and with the next surgery he would try for 2.5-2.9. Cherry picking the grafts as he put it to get this higher index. My only worry is it really leaves a moth eaten appearance. All in all i'm behind his offer and again I have no hard feelings towards him bc in life sometimes "shit happens" and we have to roll with it. I will write an email to him in the next few days to try and put my thoughts together and go from there. HE also said we would try an minimize the amount of time the grafts are out of the body to no more then an hour. Intermittent FU he calls it. Pretty cool strategy.

voxxman-thats for the kind words. I think my attitude stems from being in the medical profession as well and understanding that things for some odd reason can fail. Ive geared my practice as of late to embracing the placement of dental implants and I have my failures here and there. One positive thing is usually you know if the body rejects its within a few weeks thus the ability to correct it is usually much faster... Any i'd love to have you as a patient!!! We are always accepting new patients!!! So here are the pics of my donor area as of today. Now that I look at it my sides really did take a hit. I can see my scalp. The back looks pretty solid(at least to me) but I cant see how taking to many more grafts from the sides would be a good thing.I'm three days now from my initial email with Dr.Feriduni and still waiting for a response from all of my questions. A large chunk of my decision will be based on his responses. If you guys need pics of the donor area at any time during the 11 plus months i have those as well but i think this will probably be enough. To put it bluntly my staff has joked with me that I get bad haircuts all the time bc it always looks like someone did a bad job cutting the sides. They havent said it in a few months but id say the last time was around the 7-8 months mark. So with that said I guess you can deduce that there is a visible depletion of my donor area on the sides.

FUE2014-I havent heard back from the doc as I only emailed his yesterday with a long lists of questions and im sure he is busy at work also. I would assume if only about 25 percent of the 2200 grew that were placed then 1600-1700 would be what i need in that area. No clue on what I have remaining. Agreed on the hit that a practice takes. Legit zero really. Yes I have to pay my staff and its time but really its all built into running a practice anyway and a the end of a day a happy patient is priceless.... An unhappy patient is very costly. I will send pics to him as im sure he will need to see whats going on and ill also post them on here later today of what my donor area looks like. Thanks again for all the replies and keep the info coming for those involved. This forum has been a great place of knowledge and info and at the end of the day it will be a part of what helps me make my decision to either move on and forget another surgery or "take the plunge" again.

Magnumpi-Ill post pics later today as Im at work and dont have access. Yeah there was two tecs. One for each side. Id say obviously transection and graft time out of the body had to play some factor. Im not down/depressed at all. I knew it was a possibility but really did feel I was eliminating it by traveling from the states to one of the best docs. I'm 100 percent disappointed though. Cant deny that. My issue as ive said earlier was that it was basically planned or mentally accepted that i'd more then likely need an additional procedure in the future. Now that this failed and ill need to remove more of my donor grafts to hopefully fill the area again what does that do to my future situation. My wife has pointed out that my left side really does look pretty thin when compared to my right side. Obviously that has to be taken into consideration. Walking away is a thought but your right. I spent a good deal of money. Flight for myself and wife, hotel, food, travel while there and the procedure. Probably close to 15-17k when all is said and done. And the amount of time I closed my dental practice for the healing period was quite a bit of money lost as well.. I understood the risks so I'm not complaining i'm just pointing out the facts..I can think of a whole lot of other things to do with that money!!!! To correlate it to my profession(im a dentist). I have had my failures as its medicine. Although few and far in between my usual was of handling things is i'll redo the procedure at no cost or ill give the patient their money back. The truth is if I redo the procedure its just my time. Any good doc that has faith in his or her work should redo the work. I get consults all the time from patients that had a procedure and the outcome wasn't what they expected and their doc wont redo it. It amazes me bc truthfully it really doesn't cost us much more then time and a little loss of sleep. I'd say in the few times a year this happens its 20:80 with those that want their money back and those that want the procedure done again. Obviously teeth and hair are on different ends of the spectrum but im just using what I experience in my life. As i said earlier Im very appreciative of the docs offer to redo the work. He is for sure a stand up doc and very ethical in my book.

FUE2014 Long story short-I have zero idea. I spent about 3 days in belgium after the procedure. Saw the doc the following day for my post opp and things looked good. I healed great and followed post opp instructions to the dot. Took almost 3 weeks off from work in which I stayed out of the sun and basically just chilled out. My grafts didnt really fall out until almost 2 weeks plus. Followed the clinics directions on applying lotion to the area and letting it soften the scabs up and then gentle massaging to get them off. Again all looked good. But like I said in past thread-I really never felt I saw any growth. I documented my case myself very well. Tons of pics initially at 1/2 week increments. I didnt post much bc it was pointless due to the limited growth but if you guys want I can post literally from day 2 up to now. Like I said before also-i'm super healthy so I dont think that played a factor. All I can think/remember is that the procedure was long. I believe longer then planned thus maybe the grafts sat out to long? Something about the extractions being more difficult then planned. My biggest thing was that I felt the tecs did much of the labor. The doc did get me numb and did make the incisions but other then that I didnt really see him. I know he implanted the last few grafts as well. I know this has been discussed at length as well about tecs doing the extractions VS the doc. I'd side with the fact his staff is extremely trained and on average he gets much better results then what I achieved. I did voice this to the doc among other questions and am waiting for a reply. Maybe in my case if I choose to have the additional procedure he would perform the procedure himself thus if it didnt work out again we would know its not from his or his teams error but more maybe im not someone that can have a good result. My wifes biggest concern is obviously the time and the depletion of the donor area. She has looked at my sides all the time and always feels my left side took a huge hit on its donor side. Very sparse looking compared to the right thus she thinks that side cant really give up much more grafts without looking pretty bad later on....

The doctor has responded and has offered a free surgery as well as travel costs. It's a lot to swallow now as my life is pretty full. Wife is 5.5 months pregnant. Would need to take off another few weeks off from work which means closing my Dental practice again and losing income. I've been training for my second itonman which is in October thus if I did the surgery before I'd probably not race and my wife has been so kind to inform me that my days of training 12-16 hours a week will soon be gone once our first child is born......bummer on that note. My biggest concern though is another failed procedure as well as depletion of the donor area. It was assumed that I'd need an additional surgery way down the road to off set any further loss that may occur. Would this potential procedure then but me behind the cure on having enough grafts let to acomodate for this? like I said its a tough pill to swallow as its another year of the waiting game and I'm not sure I can handle that again. Life is gonna be new and probably hectic with a new born thus that plays into my decision. Also what percentage of the grafts do you guys feel actually took hold?

I'm get healthy-I do ironman triathlons. Been on meds for years. Use rogaine. Don't smoke. Drink maybe 1-2 drinks a month if that. Followed all post opp instruction. Had PRP as well after procedure. Not really sure what else I could have done. I took almost 3 weeks off from work. Stayed out of the sun. I dunno...

Xkos48-what do you think the difference was between the two surgeries. First being unsuccessful and second working out? KO I agree on the 18 month mark. I'll send an email to the doc today. I just don't want to be told to wait another 6-7 months to be told what I already know now-this was not a successful surgery..

Xkos48-I did set what I thought was realistic expectation. Much of them were based off my consult with dr Feriduni and the multiple cases he showed me that displayed similar pre opp conditions. The results he shared with me were significantly better. The coverage I've achieved is poor. That can't be discounted. For the time/effort and money I put in I was expecting better. Travelled from the states to see him. Stayed true to not letting distance be a barrier to seeing the right doc. He told me to touch base at the 12 month mark. I can't see myself going through with another surgery at this time as to much is going on in my life and I just don't have the time now. Would you consider this result a success in terms of realistic expectations?

I'm a few days over the 11 months. Still pretty disappointing results. Has there been growth...Yes I guess. But not by any means anyone would consider a success. At what point do we call a failure a failure? Again, I understand one has to be patient. But I cant say i've really seen any progress that I could say is even remotely in the good category. I will wait till the year mark which is only about 3.5 weeks away but truthfully I cant see how I make much progress in 3.5 weeks. And to say lets wait for the 18 month mark seems kind of silly. Cant say I've seen any posts where a person has very sub par results at the year mark and at the 18th month mark its a totally different story. So I ask the forum what would your next steps be?

Thanks SPEX. Appreciate your concern. Most likely I will communicate directly with the doc when I get to the 12 month mark if the results are the same or similar. I myself am a doctor and feel it's easier for my patients to communicate directly with me compared to trying to communicate through a third party. From what the doc said he sees a significant improvement in the hairline design compared to my previous pic. Thus far most of the forum members that have commented can't seem to agree. Time will tell!! I'll keep the positive energy as that all one can do. On the bright side when you apply toppick it doesn't look to bad but the whole point of this procedure was to get away from things like that...

Thanks for the replies. Obviously all I can do is wait. Johnny2000-life is bigger then hair so this isn't something that depresses me. It concerns me but most definitely doesn't depress me. I felt I didn't see a huge difference either between pre and post but the doc assures me there is a hairline in there...somewhere...hiding.. Anyway I posted about 6 months back and general consensus was to post at 9 months so that's what I did. It's not often we see bad results posted and often the good ones never touch base thus I'll keep the thread updated if I see progress or at the 11/12 month mark.

Im only a few days out from the 9 month mark. Posted a thread a few months back and the consensus was that my growth was rather slow for 6 months. Still not overwhelmed with the progress but figured i'd get the forums take. There is obviously some growth but for 9 months it seems rather sparse. Hairline has developed to a certain extent but behind that it seems to be lagging. Been in touch with the doc and he advised to wait till 12 month and 14 month mark and overall didnt seem to concerned with the progress. Doc actually didn't respond personally. It was a message relayed by his staff. Anyway-all input is welcome and appreciated.

Haha. Sounds good graved11gger. I'll post back in a few months. If things do pick up I'm the next 1-2 months I'll let you know. I'm heading to South Africa for the month of March on holiday so that will be a good time to forget and just live life.

You arent wrong.-----The pics do show very little growth. I contacted the doc and he said that everything is looking normal for the current time postop. I felt I'd see a little more. I did take pics at month intervals and there is some improvement month to month but not enough to write home about. Guess waiting it all I can do!! Who knows-maybe I'll be the docs first bad outcome. ...Or maybe not. Keeping positive thought about the whole thing. I am in the medical profession myself and occasionally things don't go as wel plan. We do remedy them when it happens though but I'm not sure I wanna go through the whole process again.

Thanks for the message Sean. I did email the doc and received a message from a staff member that he said things look fine and to check back in with them around month 8. I'll update the thread at 1 month intervals from here on out as well. Hope for the best from here.

I'm 2 days away from my 6 month mark. I'm 35 and have been on propecia and rogaine for 8-9 years prior to procedure. For about 6-7 of those years things were very stable but over the past few years genetics took over and things progressed. Did about 2-3 years of lurking/research and finally narrowed it down to Dr Feriduni. Big thanks to SPEX for helping me out in that regards. Travelled from the states to Belgium which was a fun experience in itself. Not sure how to gauge the results. From the start I do believe my expectations were very realistic. Wanted to get everyones take on how things are going. I did think things would be a little better by now but I guess it is what it is. I'll post the pre opp taken at clinic, 2day, 5day and todays pic. I have taken pics along the way thus if people feel those are needed i'd be more then happy to post more.

2 days out from 6 month mark. Never posted berfore. Had surgery in August. Wanted to get a feel for what you guys think. Overall I dont see a huge improvement and i realize i'm only 6 months in. Ill post pre opp, 2 day, 5 day and today which is 2 days shy of 6 months.

So im about 2 days out from my 6 month mark. No sure how to quantify the results thus far. I know 6 months is still early. I see some pics at 6 months and they have the wow factor but I feel mine are somewhat sublime. Still happy I went through with it but I wanted to hear what you guys think. Ill post pre opp and day of surgery pics and a few days after as well as my 6 month pics today. Forgive me if the pics arent as they should be as this is my first post.

Yes hats have to be removed.

Bismark, Your research seems to parallel mine. I was between Dr Lindsay, Dr feller and dr feriduni. I live in the states as well. I've haven't documented my case yet but I do plan on it. I had 2200 fue with dr feriduni 3 weeks ago. I was on the fence for a few years. In the end I choose feriduni based on results seen online, great communication prior to the procedure between SPEX and the doctor and for me I really wanted fue as I just didn't want to risk the scar. It was a personal choice. In regards to the tecs. The extracted I'd say 80-90 percent of the follicles. Doc does the incisions and he placed the last few hairs. The concerned me initially but after speaking with SPEX and the docs staff my nerves we're calmed. His staff has been with him for I believe 8-17 years. His results are so consistent and his tecs are involved in all those results. Send me a private message if you want and I can email you the pics I have thus far. I was gonna wait another month or so anyway prior to creating a thread as I'm just trying to lay low and get through the 2 month ugly duckling period . Although maybe I should just do it ASAP as I know it's about the most useful and comforting thing to find on this network prior to a surgery.