AB2000

8 hours ago, Richie888 said:

+1

From all the time I have been on this forum I dont think I've witnessed him post a positive comment. When people have been through years of self consciousness and then decide to get a HT which appears to fail, the don't need mr 'I told you so' to pop up and reinforce any negativity. 

7 hours ago, jolly said:

exactly that i keep telling guys to stay away from finasteride .... but it seems hair is more important than body and some are willing to take the risk ..... not wise in my opinion and also i do not believe that hair transplants survive more than 5 years , you surely lost frontal density over 3 years as the pic is obvious , your hair was pretty thick after the results cam in ... now its lost quiet a bit of density in my honest opinion .

My transplanted hairs from five years ago are still in place.

On 12/1/2020 at 10:45 AM, TommyLucchese said:

Brilliant thread......I really hope this can be it for you brother. Your hair with fibres is amazing, and in all of your post ops I just feel for you going through all this so many times.

You've come a long way and you will definitely be a reference for many people in the future about BHT.

Hopefully you'll be able to move on in 6 months and go enjoy life with a good head of hair again.

 

The purpose of this thread and the updates through the years is to provide information to someone like myself when I began this process.  Like you say, the photos are for reference.

Two things stand out.  There was very little in the way of people online giving much credibility to a hair transplantation process to use a fair percentage of body hairs for the overall result.  I think I began reading here over ten years ago.  This is probably for good reason in that even still there is not a lot of information on what this type of HT looks like or how effective it is.  I've seen many people err on the side of caution.  But that caution would have resulted in me going with an aweful shaved head look for the rest of my life.  The hair loss was advancing towards it's end point.

The other thing has been a lack of results from clinics demonstrating BHT.  Where to go, if this is what you are looking for?  Back when Turkey was a thing I could not find anyone who would take me on.  I didn't get anywhere with some of the clinics in India the proport to do this type of surgery as well.  The one consistent thing has been the Derm Hair clinic in the US that has experience and the custom tool to successfully extract these harder to transplant grafts and have them survive.  What is the point of rolling the dice on other places that will give it a shot but have most of the body hairs not grow out on the scalp?  I'm hoping other people who have this work done on them at other clinics share their results as well.

Umar has done a lot of work on HT repair cases necessitating non-scalp grafts, and this has driven the design process on a type of punch that can get hairs that are angled in tight and preserves the root of the graft.  Hopefully other places will pick this up as well, as the UGraft Zeus system is now being marketed for other surgeons.

I feel fortunate that I will achieve a result I am happy with but I know that someone like myself will have little in the way of information to point them in similar directions if they are starting out.

5 Months Post Op 5th HT:

Quick update.  Been growing the hair out a bit longer.  Not expecting the grafts from the back or arms to really start growing until about the 12 month mark.

On 11/30/2020 at 10:12 PM, lovinitl9 said:

looking like you are progressing well! when you use body hair (beard and chest), you mentioned that the hairs go into a resting phase more often, but do they come back and how long does it take for each to come back? thanks so much

Given how these are mixed in it is hard to say.  If all body hair were in a specific area I could gauge that better, but as it is I will have to pay more attention this time around when I grow my hair back out.  What I recall before the last surgery was that the shorter body hairs were more noticeable at the front of my hairline as they only grew out so long, whereas scalp and beard hairs grew out long.  But since the pattern of hair going into rest phase is common it didn't stand out as particularly noticeable.

Until we learn otherwise I think we have to assume the transplanted hairs retain most of the characteristics of where they came from.  So if a type of body hair grows for six months of the year and goes into resting for the other six then something close to that will happen when it's moved to the scalp.  From what I've seen of some results in the past, for chest hair at least, they seem to grow longer on the head than they did on the body, but not to the same extent as regular head hair.  Perhaps over time they more closely match the resting/growing phase of native scalp hair.

2 hours ago, Richie888 said:

Sorry am I misreading this, does that mean if you have a BHT then the Fin has a reverse effect and causes it to be rejected?

My understanding is that fin causes body hair (eg. chest, arm) loss.

1 hour ago, Ronnieman said:

 

Come on man, look at the myriad of complaints men have had on fin when it comes to libido and sexual dysfunction.

 

I just read a thread on this forum, where almost every guy commenting had some sexual/libido disfunction. 

I respect people's decision to do what's best for them, however.

You are weighing risks and benefits.  In my case it was easy.  Since I used body hairs as part of my strategy I cannot use fin because it would cause them to fall out of the recipient area along with the areas of the body they came from.  In the long run you'll reach your natural end point of hair loss plus whatever you've managed to transplant in the meantime.  The important part for you is to figure out where exactly you are going to land and to govern your surgery choices appropriately.  Don't put all the hair up front to keep it the way it is right now because that's probably not going to be realistic.

On 11/16/2020 at 4:36 PM, Westview said:

Were the injections into the throat area painful?? I heard they are considerably more painful than the scalp

That was my experience.  The pain cut through the sedatives.

4 Months Post Op 5th HT:

Now four months down the line from the surgery.  Some irritation due to me picking at the scalp, there are some hairs that are getting stuck under the surface trying to grow out.  The photos can be a bit glary at times due to the lighting but I don't have a better area for doing the progress photos.  At this point I am following the post op instructions and not using hair dye, so some of the grey hairs, whether native or transplanted, don't show up as well.

2 hours ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Jean,

I understood when you first started posting why you were so abrasive, angry, and overall toxic. You were young and balding with a chip on your shoulder. I get it, I let it slide for a LONG time, even after multiple users asking me to ban you. You are now almost 27, so there really isn't any excuse for your behavior. Time to grow up, leave the childish insults behind you. Insulting someone or throwing in jibes doesn't make your message anymore articulate, in fact, it weakens the message. There is a way to behave and be civil, whether you agree or disagree with someone else's point of view. If you want to continue to participate in the forum, you have to behave civil. I expect this out of every user. Now, you don't have to censor what you want to say, if you think something is bad, call it out. 

But there is a difference between saying "OP did not receive 5,000 grafts" to "you're a moron if you think he got 5,000 grafts." The ladder is disrespectful, and will not be tolerated. Perhaps I've been too lenient because I truly do value healthy debates and discussions, there is a danger to having echo-chambers. But disagreeing with someone doesn't have to include insults. Shape up. 
 

When I first got online in the mid 1990's I saw how online discourse could veer off in bad directions pretty easily.  I assumed that as we saw ourselves do this that over time people would learn what was happening and self correct.  It's only gotten worse at the years went by.

I'm in the camp of how you are conducting moderation.  If after giving people a chance to see the harm they are doing to the tone of conversation and they don't change, they need to go, regardless of their knowledge.  Some people are simply immutable and can't help themselves.  They will hijack your forum if you let them.

This may be a hard question to answer since there may not be much information about how the two might correlate, but for the medical professionals out there reading, can a long term fast negatively effect the outcome of a hair transplant?

I am three months out since my last surgery.  At this point my grafts are anchored and are in the process of growing out.  Since I had body hairs at part of the transplant I can expect regrowth to occur past the 12 month point.

From what I have read about fasting and it's impact on hair growth is that shedding can occur, but the hair does regrow, it just goes dormant.  This is for native hair however.  Is there any knowledge on if this can permanently stop transplanted telogen grafts from growing?  Or once they are anchored they will behave like any other hairs when the body is faced with prolonged lack of nutrients and just be delayed?

My two fasts have been 20 days in 2018 and 30 days earlier this year.  It consists of water and electrolytes.  For health reasons I plan to do this periodically and was hoping to do so again in 2020.

I'm not soliciting advice from those who have never heard of extended water fasting and want to chip in with their speculation.  I don't find that useful.

15 hours ago, jimcraig152 said:

Well, I think I have a pretty baseline understanding of Dr. Diep's MO. He spends an hour per 1000 FUE grafts session with the patient. That is administering the anesthesia, performing extractions, and performing the graft incisions. The rest is left to the techs. He also spends 15 minutes going over the paperwork before you are given the pill cocktail. My FUE procedure was 2337 grafts. I was the second patient that day in for a 7:30am call time. After waiting a good 15-20 minutes in the lobby, I walked into Dr. Diep's office at about 8:00am. I was given the pill cocktail, signed away my patient rights by agreeing to arbitration, and lead into the procedure room sometime ~8:30am. As I was lead to the procedure room, the door for the first patient was open and I got a glimpse of the first patient. I saw no blood. Then the door was closed as I walked by. I didn't see Dr. Diep again for another hour as we didn't get started until between 9:30am-10:00am. During that time, he undoubtedly was performing surgery in the other procedure room with the first patient for that hour. I can remember one of his techs walking into my room to grab a microscope. We didn't get going until after 9:30am. I was there until 10pm, knocked out 90% of the time. 14 total hours, give or take. The only time I was awake during the procedure after the administration of the anesthesia was:

1. When I was woke

 

 

I'm getting the impression that you are not a candidate for a hair transplant.

On 9/23/2020 at 2:12 PM, Umaan said:

I'm 21 years old and have really thin hair on the top and front hairline. 

I'm looking for a hair transplant clinic and came across hair growrh centre (HGS) in Birmingham. 

They are quiet cheap. 

 

Two things that can go wrong at your age:

1. The donor you use turns out to be susceptible to balding, meaning it won't last and will fall out at some point.

2. The donor stays, but you have an aggressive hair loss, leaving this strange looking patch of transplanted hair with a bunch of bald area behind it.

The reason to wait is to find out what your long term end point is in terms of hair loss, then plan transplantation around that scenario.

18 hours ago, mrkneed said:

Appreciate any help you can provide!

thank you

I used to be on hair fibers.  The routine was applying minoxidil foam in the morning before applying concealer, then again at night after washing it out.

6 hours ago, jolly said:

coz as we know now even donor hair are susceptible  to the effects of dht . and topical finasteride is known to work poorly . share your thoughts .

Is this at all true?

36 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

I haven’t seen one negative review about H&W FUE. You have very different doctors there, bernstein is a pioneer in strip, Baubac is part of a clinic that sued us years back for not removing negative reviews. I would use this forum for a research tool and look at actual patient reviews.

I can't imagine being successful in suing an online review board.  In cases like these do they wind up repaying the legal defense costs when they lose?

13 hours ago, JohnAC71 said:

Wow what a amazing case yours is. Shows there is hope for people who have exhausted there usual scalp donor area.

I am going to look to my beard for my next Ht when I’m able to travel again.

Looking at your results give me great hope ! After approx 9000 grafts already i needed another reliable source. BHT is the way forward.

cant wait for further updates on your unique case. 

The beard are the second best.  Hopefully these can be mixed in with your existing scalp grafts so that they don't stand out as much.

20 hours ago, Pangloss said:

Interesting as I specifically recall reading, in one of Dr. Umar's papers, that he had a low survival rate with back hairs and said that they should not be used.

Another doctor in India told me that the back is not preferred because it scars badly.

I think it goes back to how well the grafting from the arms went.  It's another non-optimal hair donor supply, similar to the back.  Going into the 500 graft session I wasn't promised that it would be a good yield, but from the follow up prior to starting the next surgery I was told the results went well.  That may have given an indication that future BHT's would similarly be successful.

The other thing to consider is that the newer punch tool came out more recently than Umar's earlier papers.  Part of the design intent was extract body hair grafts with less transection and to get those grafts that grow out at sharp angles.

On 8/3/2020 at 1:52 AM, LonelyGraft said:

Thanks for keeping us in the loop through all these years. How many grafts total have you had and how much has the journey roughly costed?

This has been 13k grafts.  Contact the clinic for a consultation to obtain their pricing.

32 minutes ago, a said:

Hi Everyone, 

While I know FUEs offer better long term results in terms of reduced scarring, a major concern of mine is the fact that donor area has to be shaved pretty tight during surgery, so it’s tougher to conceal in the days/weeks after surgery. Does anyone have any experience with positive attempts at concealing these scars (Dermatch, cosmetics, etc.). How long will it be until the donor  area is not noticeable?

In my experience with FUE, and perhaps it varies based on how different clinics do things their own way, I found that donor heals up much faster than recipient.  I'm two months out from my surgery and the recipents areas are still red, which was the same thing in my earlier HT's.  As far as scabbing, instructions on this seems to vary a bit as well, but if you have any left after two weeks it's probably too long and could negatively impact your final result.  Some days after the transplant, gentle showing is allowed, and scabs are teased off with small pressure.

If it's the scabs you're worried about I don't think it's a question of weeks, just days.

It's been over ten years since I used this product.  Very surprised to see that it's $47 both on Amazon and through the company's website.  I can't remember how much I used to pay for it, but nothing like that.  Very expensive now.

4 hours ago, LonelyGraft said:

Is that Vaseline they applied all over the donor and recipient immediately post op?

Biafine/avo cream.  After surgery it was applied to donor and recipient areas.  The post op care was to apply it just to the recipient for a week and to use Aquaphor to the donor.

The redness has gone down enough to do shaving with an electric buzzer without a guard.  The results of this last HT will take time to come, but even at this very early stage the appearance of a more full head of hair is there, low Norwood.  I don't prefer this hairstyle but the option is always there.  Once I start growing this out then the lack of density is evident.  The trick of transplantation is to use hair styling to make up for the amount of missing hairs that we can't possibly replace, even with surgery.  So there would be an ugly duckling phase from this point until it grows long enough to comb around a bit and cover the skin better.

7 Weeks Post Op 5th HT:

One issue I have when the hair is this short is that the grey hair becomes a factor, as it's not as easy to conceal.  Normally I'd use Control GX from Just For Men, showering with it each day and the hair gradually regaining colour, but when the hair is buzzed it won't have the chance to take effect.  The greying pattern begins at the natural end of the temple area, goes above around the ears, and down under the safe area in the back of the head.  When viewed from a distance the grey hair might look more like a bald area.  With these transplants I am getting dark hair put ahead of the recessed temples to extend them, so that is noticeable too.  So if I go with short hair I need a way to colour the grey out than what I've been using so far.

My followup care requires that I don't use hair colour with dye in the recipient areas, so if I do use it around, in the donor parts, I have to be careful with the application. 

12 Days Post Op 5th HT:

Arm donor area: