greatjob

the scar isnt gonna get any better lookn. only worse over time. I would look into FUE to fill it in. I really do wonder what percentage of FUT patients experience poor stretched scaring. ill bet its close to 20% if not more.

 

the money saved in FUT is only wasted paying for FUE to repair it.

Pretty much everything you said here is false. Aside from a particular window in time (0-3 months or 0-6 months based on doc opinion) where scars are prone to stretching scars get better with time. You statement insinuates that scars heal backwards or something. This case is a prime example of how wrong your statement is the scar has improved vastly in the last couple weeks.

Careful GNX1, sometime might attack you saying every thread you post in you try turn into a fue versus fue debate, even though you arr just stating an opinion. This actually happebed to me yesterday.

 

To the OP shaved down to a clipper 5 it doesnt look bad at all in your photos. Hopefully it will improve within the next few months.

hahaha the truth is the truth

I understand you buddy, I started losing my hair when I was in junior high school (pretty much as soon as puberty hit) hair loss blows. However I don't think your hair loss has progressed to a point where a HT would be a wise move for you. And i definitely don't think you are a candidate if you are not 100% committed to staying on finasteride long term, since you have a lot of native hair you will just end up chasing your loss and having procedure after procedure. If I was you I would cancel the consults you have, all the doctors/clinics you have listed are either unethical or unknown and I'm worried they will blow smoke up your ass and you will end up making a huge mistake. There are doctors not recommended on here who are good, but this site is the best compilation of top notch HT surgeons in the world and if I was you I would not consider most docs not recommended here. The HT industry is full of hacks that will take your money and ruin your life, so proceed with caution. All of the docs here do online consults, I would suggest consulting with a number of them. You have already gotten the opinion from a very well respected clinic (Thehairupthere from True & Dorin) I would suggest you get more. My advise would be to get on fin for at least a year and see how things progress.

I also don't believe you are a candidate for a HT currently, and considering the amount of hair you have left you are definitely not a candidate with out being on finasteride. The good news is with your amount of loss and the location of your loss there is a chance you could be one of the lucky ones who see regrowth with finasteride, as it generally works better in the crown/ mid scalp and on people with minimal loss and only miniaturized hairs.

I feel for you man, I started loosing my hair at about the same age. Not fun going bald while your in high school.

you can get generic foam now. I use the Kirkland brand from costco and if I remember right it's like $60 or so for a 6 month supply. I will never use the liquid again, there is no comparison.

are you talking about 1 procedure or overall?

I live in south florida. Ricardo Mejia or Glenn Charles are not far from my place. But I do not think I am comfortable getting a HT from either of them. I am very cautious now and may prefer only well proven doctors like Dr. Rahal or Dr. Hasson. I did online consultation with Dr. Rahal and I was told they could do 4000 FUs. But I doubt that assessment without seeing me in person. Above all, I am not convinced of getting any further FUTs. I am more inclined to doing something for my scar and shaving my head. I am highly doubtful of usefulness of further HTs.

Dr. Charles is a stand up guy. I would suggest going to see him even if you don't plan on having surgery with him. From what I have ascertained about him on this forum he is not pushy and routinely suggests patients seek 2nd or 3rd opinions from other doctors. Also if you're looking simply for scar repair I would contact Dr. Lindsey, he is not far from you and IMO is one of the most well rounded surgeons in the field, especially concerning scar repair.

The graft count is unknown. But I guess it would be probably in the range 2500-3000. The grafts were placed all over my scalp and hence less density. I do not think my HT was a complete failure. But not sure about what percentage have grown back. Unfortunately I did not care enough to document my HT properly. I live in the US and I had my HT done India when I was there briefly.

I tried different combinations of low doses of Fin. I get sides even with 0.5mg twice a week.

I would suggest then that you find a doc on this site in your area and go see them to see what options you have going forward. Where are you located?

what happens if you hate fin and your hair is still falling out, its happening to me

I personally would be very cautious about proceeding with a HT without taking meds to stop further loss. There are tons of people who've had transplants and ended up right where they started because they lost more native hair. You could end up just chasing future loss. If you're adding hair while simultaneously losing hair you can end up with a zero net gain.

reading through your blog it appears you didn't go to a very good surgeon and I think you may have lost some additional native hair. The reason I don't think anyone should have a HT without finasteride if there is significant native hair is that there is a very good chance that you will spend a lot of money and time just to end up in the exact same place after the procedure. Also without a graft count of immediate post-op photos it is hard to tell if your procedure was a failure or not. Have you thought about going to some more reputable surgeons in India like Dr. Radha or Dr. Madhu to get their assessment of your situation? Unfortunately once you have a transplant you are kind of locked in and have very little choice but to go forward with more surgery or do something to remedy your scar so you can shave down to a 1 or 2 guard.

Also here is a thread by Spex about gradually transitioning into finasteride that has worked for some to reduce side effects.:

http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/160300-propecia-finasteride-transition-theory.html

Also I know some people have had success taking it only 3 times a week

Are you now or have you ever been on finasteride?

x2

I know there are a lot of cases of people undergoing a HT without being on finasteride, but my personal opinion is if you won't or are not able to commit to fin long term then you should not get a transplant

With all those 2's and 3's you are gonna have one sweet head of hair!! Good luck brotha!!

Good luck to you man!! Sounds like you deserve it!! Its complete horseshit what's is being done to our teachers so I'm glad you are able to make this work!!

Damn lucky man right there!!

What are the black dots below the hairline? Are those hairs from the second procedure beginning to grow or are those hairs from the first that you shave down? Also it would be helpful to see some pre-op photos.

Please forgive me but I have to call major BS on this!

 

For years we have been told and I have mindlessly repeated to patients. That the NeoGraft was bad for hair transplants.

 

For years we have been told that the NeoGrafts Traction, Torrision, Desiccation, strong vaccum damage and heat build up from the drill boring in the scalp caused friction and tissue damage. This has been repeated by you, your staff, doctors and minions.

 

Now this doctor it seems only uses the NeoGraft, he pays his money and now he is a member? What gives?

 

Is the NeoGraft Safe or Not?

 

By the way, how many more members use the NeoGraft?

 

I for one would love to see a lot less NeoGraft systems out there, they seem to be poping up all over the place.

 

Also if it was not for Techs there would be no Hair Transplant doctors. Let's stop fooling ourselves and the public. We are right there doing the bulk of the work in the majority of the cases.

 

FYI and please dont get me started on the Artas. If dr. Jim Harris was such an expert with his tool and it harvested 1000 grafts per hour with very low transection. why would he go out and spend $200k on a machine which was slower and could not do dark skinned people and needed to use a larger punch diameter? Never saw anyone call him out on this.

 

Manual punches will never be replaced and neither will techs.

I completely disagree with any blanket statement bashing a particular tool like neograft, atas, chio or what ever it is. Bottom line is a tool is a tool just like any other tool. If one carpenter does terrible work using a particular tool does that mean the tool is bad? No it means the carpenter is bad. Same logic applies to hair transplants just because one doctor does a terrible job using a particular tool doesn't mean the tool is bad just the operator.

I think a lot of the new technologies get a bad name because many unskilled doctors purchase them thinking they will do all the work for them, and then they produce crap results. The argument against the neograft in the case of Dr. Vories is completely irrelevant because as the evidence shows Dr. Vories is able to achieve excellent results using it.

Also you seem to know a lot about this forum for only your first post, just a hunch but did you create a new account so you could voice disapproval anonymously as I think that happens pretty frequently?

Holy crap man!! Where did your scar go!! looks good!

What is weird for me is with my first FUT procedure, which was very small, the pain was almost unbearable. I blew through all of the pain meds really quickly and even had to get the doctor to prescribe me more, stronger pain meds. I was on them for almost two weeks. However with my latest procedure with Dr. Rahal I felt almost zero pain after the first day. I took the pain meds for the first couple days as a precaution but after about day three I was only taking Tylenol #1 or #3 for the soreness. My theory is that it has to do with the doctors donor closing technique, as with my first procedure the donor area was under a lot of tension but with Dr. Rahal my donor area was very loose with almost no tension.

Yeah you hair is fine. I would cation you about braiding your hair too frequentley however, it can cause traction alopecia. On of my good friends used to braid his hair all the time and I used to tell him to stop, he didn't listen and is now pretty much bald and he has zero baldness in his family on either parents' side.

I'm curious what clinic told you this. There are a few doctors, like Dr. Gho, that are claiming donor regeneration, but the jury is still out on whether or not those claims are true. If however this is a standard FUE procedure and the clinic is telling you that 50% of your donor will regenerate I would run like hell as far away from this clinic as possible.

Even with the factors against the patient, the yield was and is below average, and I'm trying to be polite here. Even with the large area to cover, the abundance of 1 and 2 hair grafts etc, it is clear that the yield was quite low. This is not an attack on Dr Gabel as I know he will do his best to remedy the situation but after 3,700 grafts, will there be many left to give a cosmetically acceptable appearance.. I am truly sorry Sikh, I too had a failed result from a renowned surgeon.. We go to these surgeons to elevate our self esteem and presentation and when we don't receive that it hurts alot...

I'll be honest I completely agreed with you before Dr. Gabel chimed in, when I clicked through the first pictures posted I thought they were all pre-op. The second pictures look better with the dry hair however, but I still personally think it is not good for the amount of grafts transplanted and maybe this patient should not have undergone a transplant, but like a lot of us whats done is done. However look at this case presented by Dr. Beehner:

http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/170156-5229-grafts-2-sessions%3B-dr-beehner.html

I would not consider this a great result either, but this patient also has an unusually low number of 3 hair FU's. Like a lot of issues with hair transplantation there is a lot of factors that contribute to a result that many people don't understand, me included. I like to think of myself as reasonably informed about HT's but I honestly didn't realize how much of an impact the lack of multiple hair FU's could have on a result until I viewed both of these results. Maybe this variable should be brought more to the forefront and investigated pre-op so patients aren't disappointed if the lack of multi-hair FU's yield disappointing results. My two cents..

Is this thread not about countering a FUT scar with FUE grafts? I take it you do not know or cannot understand tacolinowest's concern with an FUT scar? You consider it off topic to state that I have seen more patients complain about FUT scars then FUE scars? Either it is on topic or off topic. Which is it? He has not yet had any surgery and is concerned with the FUT scar being visible through his donor hair.

It doesn't matter what thread it is every single post from you is an attempt to spark a FUT vs FUE debate

I really wish I could tell you... It is the main reason I'm holding off my procedure... As I do not know what to do about mine. I do not recommend FUT if the scar stretching is a concern for you or anyone. No surgeon can guarantee that a FUT scar won't stretch and no surgeon can guarantee FUE grafts into the scar will grow so you have two factors to contend with.

 

I have seen a handful of cases where patients of FUE have complained about what it did to their donor but they are a drop in the bucket compared to the myriad of upset FUT patients who did not receive anything resembling the thin scar they scar on the surgeon's website, brochure, presentation etc. Just my opinion.

Man somehow you manage to turn every thread into a debate over FUT vs FUE

I wouldn't consider any doctor I couldn't find extensive information on. Why not look into some of the more well known doctors in Turkey like Dr. Hakan Doganay, Dr Keser,or Dr. Koray Erdogan.