AB2000

What I didn't realize about baldness before I understood it was happening to me was the extent of thinning that will occur even before a bald spot will open up.  Back then I figured hair loss was local to that area and the surrounding hair was strong and dense.  I can see it much more readily now when someone younger has coverage but is starting to lose their hair.

2 hours ago, NorwoodsUniteUs said:

Wow time flies, and I didn't keep my word about the updates - my bad boys.

Will be updating this soon with pictures.

Hopefully

If you haven't touched your beard donor and have the money think about doing some FUE there to up your graft count to the crown.  For the most part your frontal hair appears natural and only those of us in the HT world would notice it right away.

Melvin - I edited my typo.  This was just Toppik fibers, not Dermatch.

Here are a few pictures I took after adding Toppik to my thin areas on the crown and temples.  I wanted to see what I could achieve by only spending a couple of minutes, instead of laboring for a long time to get it just right.  If I had the Toppik bottle attachment with me that sprays the power I think it would have been easier to hit the temple area and front of the hairline better.  As it was I did what I saw on a youtube video once: turned the bottle upside down, pressed it against my head and rubbed it around over the hair, instead of sprinkling.  This actually works well.  For the recent results without the concealer, I posted them on the previous page, towards the bottom of the posts on that tab.

Shock loss?

3 hours ago, jj51702 said:

Looks like you’ve come a long way bro. What does umar charge for bht?

I suggest you get a price through a consultation.  While I imagine the price is the same for everyone I don't know for sure, which is why I recommend this.  What I will say is that in the four years of visits the price per graft that I paid went up a dollar, both head and body, so the price today might not what someone reading this some years down the line would pay.  What I like is that the rate for scalp and beard grafts are the same, though the body ones cost more, since those take more time and care to extract, from what I saw.  I think in some other clinics the beard donors cost more relative to head.  What I pay for by going to a place with experience and tools for BHT is a better survival rate.  Umar takes on patients with botched HT's which need body hair to salvage, and through his work over the years came up with a tool to specifically extract body hairs better.

Going into this back in 2014 I looked around and inquired with hair doctors in Turkey and India, which would have cost less.  I was flat out denied with a clinic in Turkey as I was not "a good candidate."  Bhatti in India has posted great results but wanted to go small on beard FUE to start out with and I didn't want to make multiple trips that far.  All in all I am happy with the results for what I paid for as hair loss was bothering me, and I wanted to get this hairstyle back after 15 years.

1Year, 9 Months Post Op 3rd HT:

At this point in my recovery from the last main HT, the results are complete.  I actually felt some hairs still coming out through pimples in my crown area two months ago in December; I am told by the clinic that grafts can take longer when placed there.  Going on one year and two months now, I have not cut my hair and have been growing it; I wanted to see how it would turn out.  All in all I'd say it has gone well, considering how far I've had to come along.

While I will not sport a head of dense hair, the FUE option, while thinning out the scalp and beard donor, allowed for coverage.  Between my beard (4,000) and chest (2,000) I would like to have another 6,000 grafts added to the crown and mid-scalp for more coverage and thickness, covering the obvious low density gaps.  You can also check my previous post on my 4th HT where I had arm hair put into my nape area for lower hairline coverage.

At this point, I could stop and just start adding Toppik or Dermatch to create the more full hair illusion.  I spent a couple of years in that trap, though, and would prefer not to return; completing this process with a last HT and doing away with concealers and Rogaine is my goal.  It might take me a couple of years to save up before I can do the next big surgery, so I might try using these concealer products once in awhile for fun, and sharing those results.  After my transplantations are done I would like to try temporary SMP to shade my scalp and add a further illusion of density.

The hair was mostly dry in these, but still a little damp:

4nd HT:

Time for a couple of updates.  Just over two months ago I returned for another hair transplant, this time a small one.  Though I still hope to address density issues in the recipient areas up top, this one was a 500 graft procedure to move body hairs in my nape area.  Since I am a higher Norwood I have thinning and balding going on from the bottom up, as well.  The consequence is that even if I can get realistic coverage in the crown and frontal areas there is the oddness of the hairline on the back of my head not extending down.  I'd rather have it look like hair can grow out the the lower part of the back of my head.

Going into this surgery I had some sparse coverage between the neck and the hairline, but not a lot.  Also I couldn't afford to use scalp or beard donor for this lower priority area, so I thought I'd ask if the clinic would give this a shot.  If the yield of body hairs is not too great then I am not put out a lot with only 500 grafts from my arms.  And if it does work out good, then I can return to have more BHT done in this area down the line.  Also, I am not concerned with the appearance of the arm hairs in this area as I plan to keep this part trimmed low.  The purpose is to create the appearance of coverage.

Donor hair from my legs were not deemed adequate, but I had a strong supply on my arms.  about 1/3 of the grafts were taken from a lower arm,  rest from up top near the shoulders.

This is from the same day of the surgery.  The shape of the recipient area is somewhat rectangular:

Two weeks later, healing up:

Lastly, one month later:

On 10/14/2018 at 10:16 PM, Sean said:

Ab, 

have you tried any other hairstyles or haircuts?  Example- fades and hair slicked up from front?

how do you feel about the result thus far overall?  What was the intended goal?

The hairline area/temporal area looks quite familiar. Were you asked to apply anything in the areas of lower density?  

Wishing you good growth.  

Please refrain from posting in my topics. I do not wish to communicate with you, Sean.

Below the Norwood line is looking sparse.

Update of my progress.

1 Year, 5 Month Post Op 3rd HT - Dry Hair:

Update of my progress.

1 Year, 5 Month Post Op 3rd HT - Wet Hair:

Someone correct me if I am wrong but using Finasteride causes body hair to diffuse?  In other words if you were to have chest hairs transplanted into your receding hairline and you also started to use Fin, you'd cause your grafts to vanish.

The question finally answered, at 9:20 of this clip:

Wired Interview

"So I hadn’t my surgery on the 26th (asmed 3000 grafts) and since I’m super prone to swelling, I had/have a head like a balloon. It’s gone down a lot but now I have really purple and black eyes. "

I had the same thing happen my first hair transplant.  It stretched from three to four days and by the end of it my head was so full of injections that my face began to resemble the shape of a football.  After the last day of surgery, when I had to check into a new hotel since my original reservation was for only the three days someone at the new place asked me if I was alright and if I needed help.  I guess I looked pretty beat up at the time.  I am sure it varies by person, but I was told to expect the swelling to take up to a week to subside completely, as the injections could take that long to break down.

13 hours ago, BeHappy said:

I have some questions for you. I don't know if you answered these because there are a lot of posts on this thread. You still have some very thin hair throughout your entire head. Are you still able to get more grafts done? If so, do you plan on doing more? Are you happy with the results so far?

After the last HT I asked what sort of pool of grafts I had remaining.  The scalp hair is tapped out, and is about as thinned out as I want to go.  If I have a third of my remaining beard used for transplanting, that would get me about 3,000.  My chest could get up to 2,000 more.  I would imagine that would mostly go to filling in my crown to create more even coverage and to lessen the contrast between the more dense donor and the thinner crown.

The overall goal was to get achievable coverage while wearing short hair.  The fact that I am growing it out now to see what it looks like most likely doesn't reflect how I will style it long term.  I wanted to grow this out for a year and a half and do another consultation to find out if those 5,000 additional grafts would make a difference or not.  Even as it is right now, the results with Toppik are encouraging.  If I use that, and have SMP done down the line that would camouflage the lack of density throughout.  Buzzing it down right now or using a short guard will also give me a result that I'm happy with.

For me, much preferable to the alternative of being bald.

This is my current beard growth.  Unfortunately there are white hairs, more along the sideburn areas, so it looks a little less dense than it actually is:

On 7/10/2018 at 2:59 PM, mosd said:

try dermamatch i like way more than fibers

Before undergoing any surgeries I used Dermatch and hair fibers together for about two years.  The bulk of the results was from the applicator, with the fiber as an added enhancement.

However, in my case at least, using Dermatch was extremely time consuming.  Since my hair was very short, I'd have to apply it all over.  I think if someone is thinning in just one area it's easier to use this product in a targeted way.  But for me, it was about 20 min, with the hair fibers and cleanup taking another 10.

If I was to keep my hair very short on the sides and back, and have moderate amount of hair length on top, it might work, but I think Toppik would work pretty close in that case, and take a lot less time.

I've read about one case like there, where the surgeon transplanted hair specifically to work with a hair system:

https://www.dermhairclinic.com/dr-umar-repairs-hair-transplant-once-considered-hopeless-to-fix/

On 7/10/2018 at 10:30 AM, jimbrann said:

This is fascinating. The beard extraction looks painful! But I guess it wasn't?

For using beard as the donor, can't the surgeon extract literally every hair (leaving with you no beard after). If the patient wanted it, could it be done?

The most painful part of the hair transplants have been when I received injections in the face to numb the skin prior to harvesting grafts.  Having them removed from the back of the head or chest didn't hurt as much.

Other than Umar I don't know of other surgeons who will take a lot of donors from the beard, to the extent that most are removed.  Perhaps others know?  There are some Youtube videos of cases where the patient has a high number of overall grafts and the beard donor supply is used to a great extent:

https://youtu.be/T0jSVB1ihAo?t=3m27s

https://youtu.be/Ln50zoddl3U?t=25s

These other ones are from a month later when I wanted to try Toppik on longer hair, just limiting myself to five minutes of application with their power spray applicator.  Not a bad result for the time it took.

Wanted to drop a quick update.  These are a few pictures I took at about the 12 and a half months post op.  Some hairs growing out that I can notice, as there's the occasional pimple/ingrown hair trying to get out in the transplanted areas.  In this photo I would have been growing my hair for about half a year since buzzing it down.

Looking forward to a more clean interface.

If you do go the HT route it's best to do a couple of things:

1. Get a real assessment of how much hair loss you have. ie. you have coverage but you might be undergoing miniaturization of hairs that will be gone sooner than later. Buzz it down and have a hairloss surgeon find out where you are at.

2. Project which NW you will end up at.

3. After the first two, understand how much donor hair you have for any and all future HT's. There's no use overdoing a receding hairline and then not having much else left over to fill what will go bald in the future.

It seems like a lot of patients are using up too much donor to fix a problem that will only get worse over time. That's why all the recommendations for younger people to try and stabilize the loss and to see where they are going to be down the line, then act more conservatively which the resources at hand.

In my case since my NW is higher I have had to tap into my beard for more grafts. But if you're going for the drop then there is only so much you can do.

In my case I was told to stop using minoxidil for two weeks prior to the surgery and the use it for a year afterwards, to achieve the best yield. Not sure if there is something you can take to ameliorate the dryness, but I'd look into it.