AB2000

At this point of the recovery no scabbing is present.  Compared to earlier hair transplants with same clinic all of a sudden there was minimal crust after the surgery days, just dot sized pieces.  Not sure if it's my body responding differently to the same procedure or if there were new surgical tools and techniques.  Compared to the last large HT I had, over a couple of years ago, a new FUE punch came out, which may be why.  I'm not advertising a product, but I read about the Dr.UGraft device in a press release and it looks like it's made available to sale to other hair transplant surgeons as well.  It was a custom designed punch.

You can see below the amount of beard donor left over.

9 Days Post Op 5th HT:

I missed the original post as it has been edited out, but once things have settled down and your HT results become clear, and you start a new thread at that time to clarify how things turned out?

I returned to the Dermhair Clinic for a fifth procedure this summer.  So far I have had two larger sessions and two smaller ones, for a total of approximately 10,000 grafts.  This new one was 3,000 taking place over three days.  Donor was derived from multiple sources - beard, some scalp, and body hair from chest, arms and some from the back.  I expect the latter to take time to see the results as BHT take longer to return from the dormant phase after surgery, plus any going into the crown take longer as well.  Full results will probably take longer than 12 months.

The grafts were placed from the front of the hairline back to the crown, rather than dumping all into the crown area.  I had been growing my hair long, and some extra hairs up front will contribute to covering when combing it back.

From the followup photos sent to the clinic I have about 3,000 more beard donors, plus about the same amount from the back.  Ample on arms as well.  The chest and scalp have been used as much as we are going to go.

5th HT, Day 1:

5th HT, Day 3:

Joe's one advantage is having a no-maintenance HT.

2 minutes ago, Gatsby said:

Where is the science to back up this claim that Covid 19 results in a direct correlation to hair loss in women?

 

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/can-covid-19-cause-hair-loss-heres-what-you-need-to-know-175158421.html

First I've heard of COVID related hair loss:

On 8/1/2020 at 4:03 PM, Baboon said:

@AB2000 Thanks for sharing your results! Looks like you have covered really good on your head. Now obviously trying to increase the density further. 
 

From what l see from the pictures the BHT looks  really natural. They are a bit more curly compared to head hair, which at least to seems as your natural head hair also is curly? 
Seeing in real person, how natural do rate the BHT hairs, do you feel there is no or minor difference? Would be great to get your own assessment so far. 
 

thanks a lot! 

I don't notice a difference in native and BHT hairs in the nape, these feel the same.  When I grow out my hair I can feel the difference between beard and scalp hairs in the regular recipient areas, with beard being more coarse.  Visually I don't think there is much of a difference as my hair is somewhat frizzy anyway.  Chest hairs on the head look similar to when they grow out on the chest, so these are useful when mixing them into regular grafts.

On 7/23/2020 at 12:22 AM, mustang said:

For those who are wondering, here is my hair after 13 surgeries.

 

 

 

What did the hair look like before any surgery?

19 hours ago, BeHappy said:

So far I've had a little over 4600 body hair grafts total splitting it almost even between chest and beard. 

 

Have you posted your results in a thread?

19 hours ago, BeHappy said:

How did the back graft extraction go? True and Dorin tried a test on my back, but it didn't go well. I think he did about 20 attempts and only got 4 or 5 good grafts. Plus he said it was really tearing the flesh apart and he was afraid to try more for such a low yield if it was going to leave bad scars there. I may eventually have them try again with a different punch tip. I think he used a straight tip rather than a flared one, but I'm not positive. So far I've had a little over 4600 body hair grafts total splitting it almost even between chest and beard. I'd love to be able to get near 10,000 if I can. We discussed the possibility of using arm hair if we get to the point of not being able to get any more chest or beard hair.

 

From what I can tell the grafts from the back went well, at least for the extraction process.  Down the line I will need to find out if these were placed somewhere specific in the recipient area to see how well they grow out, relative to other sources.  The appearance of the excision points appear larger than normal, but similar to those on my arm, from my last HT.  I expect these to heal similarly, in that that they take longer than those derived from the beard or head.  Even with past chest hair FUEs the scarring takes longer to heal up, weeks as I recall, for the red dots to disappear.

I don't know the reason why, but this past surgery was the one with the least amount of scabbing and crust.  The beard bounced back very fast and the scalp source and recipient areas only had small points of scabbing, barely any at all.  In previous HT's it took a number of days before all of it would heal enough and come off.  I wonder if it's the body becoming familiar with the "trauma" of this type procedure and not overreacting anymore.  I was beat up pretty good after the first HT.

The doctor says my back will yield 3,000 donor grafts in the future, so I take that to mean on his end of things he was able to get the grafts out safely.  The fact that the transplanted arm hair grew out was probably another good indicator that BHT will continue to work for me.

20 hours ago, BeHappy said:

It looks good. I'm in a similar situation and wondering what I can do with the nape area and the area just above my ears where there is hardly any hair anymore. I will certainly think about truing some arm hair at some point. You say you just had another 3000 grafts. Where were they taken from? I know you already had a lot of beard grafts and maybe chest grafts. How many body hair grafts are you up to now?

 

 

The last surgery consisted of donors from a variety of areas - beard, scalp, arm, chest and back.  If I go again then I have at least 2,500 more from the beard that I can use, as well as more body hair.  The useful donors from my chest are mostly used up, so if I go with more body hair then it will be from the arms and back.  At some point I need to find out the exact break out of graft sources for my different hair transplants, but in aggregate is approximately 13k right now.

Not all sources are equal, or course.  FUE grafts from the scalp cancontain multiple hairs, whereas something from my arm will only be a single.  Also, body hair behaves different in that it will grow for a shorter period and go dormant more often, so it's not going to have the same impact. My recommendation for those who want BHT is to find a surgeon who has a good tool for extracting them and a track record with patient photos.  Body hairs grow out more angled than ones from the head an transection is a real problem, so it's best to go with someone who has expertise.  There appear to be a handful of clinics who fit that bill.

1 Year, 7 Months Post Op 4th HT:

Late in 2018 I went for a small procedure to see if adding arm hair could improve the density in the nape.  Scalp donor is very limited.  The clinic wasn't promising me results or driving this surgery, it was something I opted into and to take my chances.  It was 500 grafts, so if it didn't pan out the cost wouldn't be as huge.

With my hairloss pattern the receding hairline occurs in the nape as well, thinning out and balding upwards to the safe zone of a NW 6.  The hair is also losing colour, making it appear more depleted.  I use ControlGX from Just for Men to help with this issue, but as you will see further below, my current photos where I haven't been using it, the native nape is is grey and the transplanted arm hairs are dark brown, so you can see how the transplant went.

From the day of surgery and two months post op, here's a repost from earlier in the tread:

Over a year and a half later, the slow growing body hair transplants have manifested:

So in the end, I would say the procedure was a success.  I am unsure of the percentage of hairs made it and regrown, but they have had an impact on correcting my hairloss pattern and gives me the option to returning to this area for further work if needed.

These new photos were taken soon after my fifth HT when I went in for 3,000 grafts, and had my hair shaved down for the surgery.  Down the line I will make a post on that.

On 7/21/2020 at 12:51 PM, fabofly said:

Hi Melvin that is a shockingly dismissive opinion. These are regularly black dudes from the states/UK you have gone to turkey, they dont even have referral codes or discounts. They have documented their journey from Day 0 to 18 months in some cases. The amount of black men sharing their journey exploded early 2019 prior to that you could find maybe two videos on youtube of black men who got transplants. Some of these guys I remain in contact with and chat here and there on best practices pre and post surgery. 

I am not going to talk about transplants for non black hair as I didnt research that but I have a strong feeling you are very ignorant when it comes to black hair.

Making sure that you are looking at current results is the right thing to do.  Things at a given clinic might have changed from 5-10 years ago and you can't necessarily trust what happened earlier because of the increase of patient count and more reliance on techs than the doctor.  At least that's what I've read happening out of some places in Turkey.  If you are in contact with people with hair like yourself who got their good results in the past year or two you've done what you can to mitigate the risk.

The only thing I'll add is to ask the surgeon on the type of tool he uses.  As someone suggested to you in your thread, find out if they use the "trumpet" style extractor that is more effective on extracting curly/AA style hair.  Though I'm not of the same background as you my hair grows out the same way, and that's why I'm glad the clinic I went to has this tool.  It saved grafts from being transected.  And BTW the surgeon I saw was African and cost more then what you are planning.  I have no regrets about the extra cost because of the results.

On 7/19/2020 at 1:32 PM, fabofly said:

Melvin, I am a big fan but you are being hard headed and arrogant if you think paying 2k USD for 3,000 grafts vs 20k USD for 3,000 graft is not extremely attractive to many and justifiably so.

I read into this that you think both options will yield 3k graft results.  If that were true, then obviously paying less if the better option for you.

What if the cheaper place only resulted in you obtaining 1,500 grafts that survive the transplantation process?  You still paid less, but you've now wasted 1,500 other grafts from your donor area that are never coming back.  And if you are balding and want credible coverage in the long term there is nothing more valuable, even money, than donor grafts.

Hope you don't wind up going to a hair mill that wastes your resource.

I didn't know that people would even consider brushing their hair after applying the hair fibers.  To my understanding you don't touch it after applying the holding spray.

OP, have you shared your long term objectives with your surgeon?  If so he probably has a game plan to achieve it.  If I were in your shoes I'd defer to his idea, or at least question why the clinic's version differs from yours.

What any good doc will do is have you leave your first HT such that you could live with the result if the unexpected happens and you never return for further surgeries.  ie. you don't want a result that looks like a work in progress.  This necessity will in part dictate how he lays out the grafts.

On 6/16/2020 at 3:49 AM, Gatsby said:

solidsn2004 you are very welcome. Joe Tillman has been in the industry for 30 years and his experience, knowledge and advise is fiercely independent of any kick backs and he will call out everything that is wrong in this industry. Furthermore he is very picky on which surgeons he will recommend according to his very high standards. If you hold these high standards for your own hair transplant surgeon that you may choose, you are doing the most to protect yourself from a bad result, etc. Also this forum is just a plethora of knowledge from equally knowledgeable people who can give you first hand advice on helping you on your journey. Remember there is no such thing as asking too many questions! I wish you all the best.

I thought his name was banned from this forum, when anyone tried to post it in a message.  My recollection was him being argumentative for it's own sake and not advancing anything, creating turmoil.  I am glad he is long gone.

I don't blame you for protecting your site, Melvin.  If after all these years of online interactions some people don't understand how to be mannered when they have objections to conversation going on at a site, then they will never learn.  They need to go.  Constant disruption is not healthy to a site that is promoting learning.

On 5/14/2020 at 2:08 AM, Gatsby said:

Hi Jayant. Firstly would you consider shaving your head? It's not something that everyone thinks about or wants to do which I understand. You might be surprised by your look and could be able to really rock it! 

I don't know the particulars with the OP, but for Indians like him it doesn't appear that buzzing/shaving the head is a common cultural practice in that country.  It would stand out, which is what people with hair loss want to avoid.

On 2/2/2020 at 4:53 PM, dobler said:

<<In the last 6 months I started seeing transplanted hair falling from my frontal 3rd area.. It's much much less dense than 1 year ago.>>

 

2 from December 2016 (prior to 1st ht) - just so you can see how it looked before:

How do you know that it's the transplanted hair that is falling out and not the native hair?  Your hairline from pre-op looks like a NW6.  Meaning you were set up to lose the rest of your hair up front.  Between your first surgery and now those would have fallen out since you are not using meds.  It's normal.

Let's be honest, 5,800 grafts is not going to make up for that amount of balding.  As it is you look decent and better than from before you started, the crown included.

On 12/27/2019 at 4:07 PM, Ikemen724 said:

 

On 7/17/2019 at 3:09 PM, iamtheone654 said:

but guys, if you are shaving it...it'll just be a hair follicle no?  i would have 0 intention of growing this out

I understand what you are asking.  Just so you know, the regulars here will not listen to you as they are set in their outlooks.

2 hours ago, 7Shel said:

I’ve not been a huge fan of hair fibers. Used them from time to time, but I always found the application to be messy. 

In your case it looks like you would not need to apply much fiber to cover the crown area.

Caught this online interview from about 5 years back.  Back in the day when he had more gigs it was evident that Michael Keaton was starting to lose his hair.  More recently he's been getting  mainstream roles again and his hairline is different.  Looking at the vid I think he might have had a modest HT.  The giveaway is the lack of recipient hair in the area between the transplanted hair up top and the existing receding hairline.

I found that Dermatch stays on better than hair fibers overnight.  But with either there is residue that winds up on the pillowcase, so choosing the right color helps.