Parasol

This is great! I know it took longer than you had hoped, but it looks like you finally got there in the end. Looking real good!!!

Absolutely awesome!

Wow you’re healing really well @Svais!!! Exciting times ahead!!!

@Aristos, I hope you’re doing well man! I think we’re coming on 6 months since your surgery. How’s it coming along?

What a transformation!!!!! Incredible.

The crown seems to be coming along, but the front center of the hairline hasn’t changed much over the last few updates. I know you have time left (especially for the crown), but since it seems you have an open line of communication with Dr. Arshad’s office - how does he feel about your progress? Are you taking finasteride or minoxidil?

You’ve had a life changing result. It looks incredible and it must feel good to be able to play around with hair styles. Congrats on the transformation!

Red bumps are normal at this stage. Pimples can coincide with growth. Though it’s possible there may be some foliculitis going on; which from my understanding ranges from just letting it pass on its own to getting prescribed oral or topical medication. Personally I think it’s critical you begin doing a much better job cleaning your scalp. It looks very dirty and damp and I’d be worried about possible infection. That said I am not a doctor so please forward your photos to your surgeon. Regarding the hair that fell out, it’s hard to say. Though I doubt you have anything to worry about. I’ve seen accounts on here of people shedding dead grafts at 2 months and beyond so it’s definitely possible that’s what happened here.

You should send this picture to your surgeon and seek some after care advise. To me it looks like your scalp is not very clean. At 2 months post op, you should be able to wash the skin with your finger tips and thoroughly clean the area. Not too hard if it’s still tender, but you’ll want a clean scalp to promote healing.

I had somehow convinced myself that most of my transplanted zone was transplanted hairs anyway, so I didn’t need to continue taking the meds. Within a couple years of surgery, I looked much much worse; to the point it was embarrassing telling people I had a transplant because it clearly looked like a failure (which it wasn’t). I will say, I do feel like I lost a lot of the transplanted hair as well (which meds could have helped me keep), but to be fair, I haven’t had that assessed by a doctor so I can’t be 100% sure on that.

I had two pretty successful transplants 10 years ago, and stopped fin and min within a year or so of the second procedure. The effect was catastrophic for me, which is why I just had my 3rd surgery. I realize not everyone can tolerate fin, but I’d highly recommend you try it and see. I tolerate it really well and had no excuse stopping it. I still consider discontinuing fin one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Unless your hairloss has somehow stabilized, if a hair transplant is in your future, I’d say at least consider getting on it and see how you respond.

@miko congratulations on your consults. You certainly met with 3 of the absolute best in the business. I think you can rest assured, regardless of who you choose, you’ll be setting yourself up for the best possible chance of success (which we all know too well, is never 100%). If I was you, personally, I’d want the doctor to do the implantations fully themselves. Due to the nature of this repair, this may be your only chance at fixing this, so considering you have two other incredible options that will do the implantations fully with their own hands, I’d rule out Lorenzo for this fact alone. Depending on your finances, it sounds like Cuoto can get you in soonest. I’d personally feel very confident with my scalp in his hands. No matter who you choose I wish you all the best. You’ve clearly been through hell and back and I hope a year or so from now you can come back and tell us all your success story.

Agreed, the last 4 weeks have been very promising! Hopefully it continues and everything evens out. Thanks for the support!

14 Week Update Here are some 14 week photos, as always, taken outside with natural light. Progress seems to be steady. Every day it looks more dense and new hairs are popping through, though I’m still very anxious about my scab area. Do you guys think hair will always be thinner there due to the trauma? My right temple and frontal hairline seem to be lagging behind too. I do hope the hairline especially gets more dense soon, then maybe I’ll mess around with some fibers. Is it normal for the hairline to start slower than other areas? Or I guess I should say, does my progress seem normal for this stage? All in all its cool to see more hair on a daily basis! If these troubled areas would begin catching up I’d say I’d feel very satisfied! But for now I have to be patient and hope for continued growth.

Stuff is happening now! Very nice. I had surgery the day after you and growth is starting for me as well. Exciting times ahead! 👍

Very nice!

@UnbaldEagle I hope everything is well, man. You should be around 7 months now, right? How are you, has the growth picked up at all?

I’m not sure if you should be wearing it at all. Your grafts are very vulnerable the first days after implantation. Not sure if they have a Whatapp or if someone at the clinic gave you their number, but you should not wait to reach out to them. Diep’s in California, right? It’s Saturday. Are you close to his office? Are they not open for you to stop down there? 8 grafts in the long scheme of things is not much. I lost some grafts post op too (well, I lost one. But bruised my head also so who knows if I lost those too). You don’t want to wonder several months from now if you did everything correctly. Trust me, don’t wait. Reach out to the clinic and get clarification on all your questions.

I’m not sure you’re going to want to sleep in your surgical cap. As you can see, the risk to your grafts when doing this is very high. I think you should reach out to Dr. Diep ASAP to get guidance on how to handle your post op care.

You chose an excellent surgeon. I have a feeling this is going to turn out incredible. Amazing photo documentation too. Can’t wait to see your next update!

Congratulations. The work looks excellent. I look forward to following your progress!

Huge improvement from a few weeks ago. Wow!

Hey buddy. Nice to hear from you! I look forward to returning the favor and reassuring you when you end up having your procedure. 😛 I think fibers are a great idea. At some point for sure! I’ve never used them but definitely plan to once I get a bit more coverage. Yeah, finger’s crossed it’s all downhill from here and that the hardest part is over! Though I do expect it to take some time for the scab area to look normal again due to the trauma. Just hoping this area comes around next like my temples and mid-scalp have started to: When I zoom in on the photo on my phone, aside from the long hairs that survived surgery, I think I can count 4 baby hairs lol. And a bunch of thin all white hairs (not sure what those are!) Hopefully a sign of good things to come! My temples and midscalp seem to be popping new hairs everyday so I think once this shows some progress I’ll definitely start to feel on track. Thanks for the encouragement!

12 week update A few days ago, I realized my hair was getting unruly and difficult to asses with all the different lengths, so I gently buzzed it down to a number 4 so I could get a better look at the progress. I’ve clearly come a long way in the last 4 weeks. Any growth at 3 months is a good thing! Though I’m finding myself worrying a lot still, especially about the front center of my hairline (not the scab, but the bald area below it), and hoping some grafts and shocked hair will start to pop there at some point. I think once they do I’ll begin to feel better. But right now I guess I’m bit uneasy. My donor area looks decent, I’d say. Aside from a bit of shockloss below my strip scar, some of the grafts must have grown because it looks better now than at the same length pre-op. My strip scar was extremely visible at anything below a 6 guard before, so I think I can at least be happy about that. All in all I’m still wearing a baseball cap everywhere I go. It bothers me but I need to be patient and hang in there. I do look forward to the day where I can take it off though, and look somewhat normal and feel like me again.

Hi dtap! I really appreciate the encouragement. Post transplant can be a very uneasy time, so it’s nice to come here to a message like this. Although I’ve now had 3 transplants, I am definitely not an expert. But having been down this road so many times, there are a few things I wish I’d done if I could go back in time. First, you’ve come to the right place. When @Melvin- Moderator calls this site the “Google of hair transplants,” he’s absolutely right. There is a wealth of information here. Patient testimonials in real time. Threads and videos on technique and best practices (check out Bisanga’s bite-sized videos, for example). After care advice. Non-surgical options (medications, smp, etc). Not to mention a list of really great ethical surgeons (some of which participate here). On the first page of this sub-forum alone, you can see examples of success stories and failures. Spend some time here. Get to know some people. Read around before you make any decisions and ask the questions that you might have. I’m a big fan of Joe Tillman. Head on over to his YouTube channel. He has a series of videos called “Hair Transplant Class” that I think is really invaluable, where he discusses the pros and cons of surgery. The Bald Truth show is excellent too. Tune in. All the content he (and Spencer Kobren) puts out is superb. @Rolandas is another. One of the best voices in the industry. He researched really really hard before he chose the surgical route, and his YouTube channel is filled to the brim with invaluable information and first hand experience. It’s really entertaining too. I also think every hairloss sufferer considering a transplant should ask themselves a few questions first. “If my hairloss stopped or slowed down today, could I live the rest of my life happy?” Finasteride (especially) and Minoxidil are key. I know the internet is a scary place with lots of people shouting “fire” and talking about side effects and whatnot, but these medications are proven to be effective and personally I haven’t had a single side effect. I don’t think anyone should consider a transplant unless they try medication for at least a year first. If you respond to and tolerate the medicines well, you might avoid a transplant all together! If you still decide to get a transplant after the fact, the medication will stabilize your loss, ensuring your donor is as strong as possible, and will help to protect your investment too. ”Would I look ok with a shaved head?” I realize this might sound ridiculous on a hair restoration forum, but seriously, try it. I never did this before my first surgery and man I wish I did. I think I would have been ok with it and been able to live my life not thinking about my hair. But now I have all these surgical scars and that’s really not an option anymore. ”Am I emotionally prepared to handle a transplant if it ends up being a failure?” Understand, that although going to a great clinic puts you in the best possible position to succeed, that even the best surgeons in the world don’t succeed 100% of the time. “Am I ok with an illusion of density?” Hair transplants, depending on your level of loss, don’t restore your head to native density. Generally it’s about half (give or take). Don’t get me wrong, a good transplant that turns out well is certainly life changing, but be aware you may need to grow your hair to a certain length, or style it a certain way, to get it to look in a way where you feel confident. Also keep in mind, it’s rare that someone only has one transplant. Whether it be hair greed, or filling in spots that didn’t grow perfectly the first time around, catching up as the loss progresses, or your loss being so great it will take a 2+ step approach to get what you’re after. Ask yourself what you want from a transplant, and consult as many surgeons as possible before making a decision to do anything, and come up with a game plan that works for you. And hell, maybe try out some concealers or fibers. I haven’t yet but plan to. If you can stabilize your loss with medication, they might give you the boost you need to put off surgery either completely or until a time when you feel ready. Sorry for the rant. Anyway, thanks for following my thread! It means a lot and I wish you all the best.