GreaseDJ

Aaaaaand.... the joke has officially went too far.

I think between 10 and 14 days after he is admitted to the hospital it is ok. Of course that depends if he has a Coalition Oncologist.

Two weeks today! I had the stitches taken out yesterday at my general practitioner's office. The nurse said that was the most stitches she had ever taken out in one person- said she stopped counting at 137 :-) Looks like it is pretty red now- probably just irritated from having so many sutures taken out. As for recipient, I miss all those hairs, but they aren't gone forever. They are just on vacation and will be back soon enough :-)

I had ~2000 grafts to the frontal third 13 days ago and have shed about 75% of the hairs already. They held on and looked like they were growing until about day 10 then slowly but surely started falling out. Totally natural and happens to nearly everyone almost without exception. If someone ever came up with a way to make transplanted hairs not shed and the grafts not go into "resting" state, that would be a major breakthrough. Unfortunately no one has figured that out yet :-(

Thank you RCWest! I needed that boost today. Even though the rational part of me knew those hairs were only temporary and would shed before the "real" crop comes in, it is still sad seeing them start to leave. I would say over half have fallen out. As for healing- I don't think it is super powers but the Acell. I know the jury is out on all the hair cloning/multiplication studies etc, but as a wound healing agent, it seems from all the reading I did coupled with my own experience, it DOES turn healing into a lightning quick process. (I am not usually a quick healer) I guess the Acell, plus a clean procedure, plus a little luck.... now for the growing.... I was not born with patience :-)

After having been through the process with Dr. Cooley, I would have to disagree that he is VERY conservative. I would consider him more realistic and having the patient's best interest in mind. I think these are some great examples of age appropriate hairlines from this site that Cooley did: One of my favorite hairlines on this site: Hair Restoration Journal -12 MONTHS Temple work: Hair Restoration Journal -Day of procedure Hair Restoration Site for latinlotus We talked quite a bit about placement of hairline and he was pretty flexible but was very willing to share his professional recommendation and that was the simple fact that no one can predict the future and he wants his results to look good for the long run. As he said to me "I don't want to make someone look great for the next five years and then look absolutely silly the rest of their lives- hair loss is progressive and even though we stack the deck with medication and evaluating family history, no one can predict the future 100%" As for my hairline, my temples are actually more 'filled' then they were when I was 14. I have always had a rounded shaped hairline and I personally love it. I guess I would compare it to a plastic surgeon who does breast augmentation (go with me here - it is the best way I can describe how I feel about it) Any plastic surgeon CAN do crazy unnatural sized breasts that just look audacious, yet many women want, but many of those considered the best would only feel comfortable performing augmentations that are in proportion and natural looking. I think that is the kind of artist Cooley is. He wants his work to look natural and not like a transplant. There are a few Dr.'s that will give a 25 yr old NW2 guy a juvenile hairline halfway down his forehead and deplete his donor supply, but I believe that is unethical as those guys run a big risk of looking ridiculous 10 yrs down the road. That is a tough question- I personally wanted to be very conservative there because filling in temples can be a dangerous proposition. What happens when/if the hairline progresses further? Having a strange island of juvenile temples with thinning or even worse- balding- behind would be a nightmare. I am on fin and minox, but still that is something to think about. I would rather stay on the safe side with a great looking, age appropriate hairline just because I have already receded so I KNOW I am genetically predisposed. That being said, if I were comfortable doing temple work, yes, Cooley has done it, in my opinion, quite well- I think this is a great example of temporal work from his website: Before & After Hair Transplant Photos | HairCenter.com | Ultra Refined Hair Transplant Surgery | Dr. Jerry Cooley You would have to ask him directly, but I believe he is FUT because it is the most reliable result possible today. For all of it's drawbacks, strip consistently, at least at this point, produces better yield and it is possible to do many more grafts in a session. With the healing I am experiencing on the strip scar so far, I can't even imagine going through 4 FUE sessions to get the same amount of grafts I got in one session of strip. Not to mention I can't bear to think of making a choice that would risk my limited donor supply (the less yield of FUE to me is just wasting grafts.) That is just my personal opinion. I do believe Dr. Cooley has done FUE in certain cases or repair or other instances, but it is not his standard method. There is actually quite a lot of documentation - check out his 4 part presentation at the IAHRS Conference last year. The audience for this presentation is definitely for other surgeons but if you would like to see the control vs. test, it is all there. I believe part 2 has most of the slides that you are looking for. I hope that helps. I think when it comes down to it, picking a surgeon is a very personal choice. For me, Dr. Cooley's philosophy matched mine. Would I have loved to have an Armani hairline 100 grafts per sq cm halfway down my forehead like a GQ model? Of course, but in my case that wouldn't have been a smart thing to do in the long run, so I appreciate that I wasn't led in that direction.

Thanks, Blake!

Frustrating, eh! So far I haven't lost a single hair, but it is only day 8... Anyone know a good psychic that could advise on the future shedding?

Wow. It has been a week and finally got to massage the grafts with my fingertips. I don't think anything has ever felt so good. I didnt have any scabbing at all which was nice, but it still was good to finally gently touch those grafts. I took this week off work and go back on Monday. Now my dilemma- I haven't shed any hairs so it looks kinda silly to have the fuzzy first few inches of hairline.... do I buzz the rest of my head to match? or do I just try to cover with existing hair the best I can? When do the hairs usually shed? I would hate to buzz down the rest of my hair and then shed the grafted area a week later :-)

Just to add to the list: Generic Fin 5mg is 9 bucks at Target pharmacy too.

Let's just hope that the injections in the recipient area as well as each FU being bathed in Acell will have the same positive effect.

It has been like that since the day after the procedure. I am sure it has nothing to do with the Acell. I think it is just that I am a genetically superior human being with amazing self regeneration ability. Ok, ok... it is the Acell

No offense taken! I guess you were looking at the before pic. :-) I was hoping we were fixing the receded look, not creating one :-) No worries, friend.

Not absorbable. Regular ones. I appreciate that since the regular ones seem to do a better job of keeping everything tight (just my uneducated opinion.) I could go back to have them removed, but I don't want to make a 5.5 hour round trip from Raleigh to Charlotte and back for something so simple. I have a friend whose husband is a nurse and he is going to take them out. He should have fun too- my partner tried counting and stopped when he got to 100. I am stitched up good!

Ok - ask and ye shall receive. Here you go. Anything in particular that you would like to see? Scar at 96 hours post up:

To be honest I am not sure how he applied in the donor. I know for sure the grafts were bathed in it and he also injected it all over the recipient area as he worked. I will try to get more pictures of the scar tonight in addition to the ones in the blog, but I am finding it difficult since it is really hard to find. (Partly because it is so clean and healing so well, partly because the hair around it is so thick and partly because the tricho closure was done so well.)

Thank you, Ahairdown!

Thanks all! I plan to keep documenting and updating as much as I can. This forum has been a wonderful source of education and inspiration for me and I hope my experience can help others.

Dr. Cooley designed and I fully approved. I think the post op photos show a nice rounded frontal hairline and don't really see it as temple recession. To be honest that hairline is the same rounded shape I had when I was 14 yrs old, just in a mature position. You don't like it?

Hello everyone! Dr. Cooley completed my 1st HT 3 days ago, and I have finally gotten around to updating my site and uploading pictures. Check out my Hair Transplant Website for lots more photos and info. I traveled to Charlotte July, 26th to meet with Dr. Cooley and discuss final plans and make sure my expectations were in line with reality. Dr. Cooley is a great guy and very easy to talk to. This man is the real deal. He stood by the recommendation that 2000 grafts would look great. I had budgeted to go as high as 3000 grafts and he agreed to be flexible and take out more than 2000 if possible and work a little farther back into my existing hair. After the final consultation, I headed over to the hotel. The hotel that Dr. Cooley's office uses for out of town patients is stellar. The patient consultant, Lollie, told me that they always have about 2 patients staying there on most days and that they always treat his patients well. Totally true. When checking in, the staff noted that everything was paid in advance and very warmly set up the early morning shuttle for the next day. They said if I needed anything, let them know- Dr. Cooley's patients are their VIPs. That felt great. It was still the afternoon so I took a quick trip to the mall to grab a button up shirt for procedure day and then took in a movie to kill time. About 9:00 went to sleep with the alarm set for 5:30 to get up and get ready for procedure. I woke up early and scrubbed down in the shower with Hibiclens and got into my stylish sweatpants and headed down for a big breakfast. The hotel picked me up at 6:45 sharp and we made the long 3 minute trek to Dr. Cooley's office. One of the techs, Stephanie, greeted me at the door and double checked the consent forms and, most importantly, helped me make out my movie list and lunch order. Dr. Cooley then came in and went over our plan one more time, gave me some valium, demerol and other fun stuff and then took the "before" photos. We got into the surgery room and gave me the Versed intravenously and prepped for excision. Dr. Cooley uses a very cool vibrating/massaging thing that distracts you from the needle that gives the local anesthetic. I have heard plenty of people talk here about that being the worst part and I can honestly say, I hardly felt any of the injections all day. I was conscious through the excision but very relaxed and wasn't bothered at all. It went by very quickly and the next thing I knew, Dr. Cooley was making the recipient incisions. Next he and the lead tech, Brandi, were placing grafts while 8 other techs prepared the FUs. Dr. Cooley was in the room placing with Brandi nearly the whole day. When he had to step out for a while, another experienced tech, Amy pitched in. From start to finish, I was there 11.5 hours. It seemed to fly by and everyone was so great I actually enjoyed my time there. Dr. Cooley ended up extracting 2508 FUs and covered an are of approximately 50 cm2 for a density averaging 50fu/cm2. I think I had slightly higher than average hairs per FU. The breakdown is: 1s - 413 2s - 1030 3s - 837 4/5s - 228 for a total of 2508 grafts and 5896 hairs. Dr. Cooley said the donor was closed with "no tension at all" which made me very happy. He used Acell in the wound. The next day a friend in the medical profession looked at it and said "That looks like a wound that has been healing for 2 weeks not 24 hours" so needless to say, I am thrilled and hope it continues to heal well. As it is now, I have a hard time finding it just to put the antibiotic on. I couldn't believe how clean everything looked when he was finished. No bleeding, everything just looked neat and tidy. I couldn't have been happier. After being so worried in the weeks building up to this day, I couldn't have wished for a smoother procedure.

No worries. I took a lot of time and care choosing my doc. I have no doubts about Dr. Cooley. He is a class act. He called me after seeing this thread and we talked about all of your concerns. I think the pictures that I posted here are pretty bad. I am going to have another in person consult with Cooley before the procedure and am prepared to do more grafts if we need to. I will let ya all know how it turns out.

Cool. I believe during my consultation they said they were planning on "placing a sheet of acell" in the wound for me. I guess they are still working out the exact method of placement, but either way, I am looking forward to seeing how that scar heals!

Hi Boston- Thank you for sharing your experience! Looks great. I am excited for my 1st HT with Dr. Cooley (a month from yesterday...) You are having concerns about your scar- just curious, did Dr. Cooley use the Acell sheet in the donor?

Thanks guys. I have to admit all the comments really have been freaking me out. I appreciate the honesty though. I have an email in to my dr and have included a link to this thread. I will let ya all know what they say.

It is 50sq cm. I have measured myself