AB2000

Spex used to be a poster here but he fell out.

The board has it's own list of recommended surgeons:

https://hairtransplantnetwork.com/best-hair-transplant-surgeons

A reputable hair transplant clinic will have a longer waiting list than an opening in October.  What you are heading for is a "Hair Mill."  Look up "Hair Mill" in google, or even this forum, to see what can very well go wrong.  It's a crap shoot going to them in Turkey and you have a big probability of coming out worse than going in.  Take your money and run.

3 hours ago, Grouse said:

I'd also suggest you consult with Dr. Sethi at Eugenix and Dr. Pittella. @Gatsby's case may be worth looking at - recall he used a lot of body hair and had former surgeries too. 

Pittella does body (non-beard) hair, Eugenix does not.  Search the forums for his work.  This is an example of a NW7 patient.  The problem you seem to have is your beard is already depleted.

5 hours ago, Recession1 said:

I’m going to quit wearing you out here but how about transplanting all the grafts you have available to give the illusion of hair and then getting smp done in the crown around your existing transplanted hairs to give the illusion of a buzzed head density? I think smp has its place but I think getting a transplant to the frontal third looks way more natural buzzed than smp alone at the hairline. 

Here's an example of the problem - this fellow's crown has very visible SMP dots.  I think this inking option is ideal when you use it for density, and not for filling in a bald area:

6 hours ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

The horseshoe shadow kills this look. Even if you look okay in the front, once you’re turn around it looks horrible.

My objective when restoring from a high norwood was to have a fallback position if I had to buzz down.  Melvin might be more unique in how much frontal packing he had done.  It works great when you grow out your hair, with the framing at the front view of the face showing strong density, but it's limiting in the case where you get rid of it for whatever reason.

The way out of showing a horseshoe - where the donor band is noticeably more dense than where the hairs got moved to is either overharvest your donor with the FUE method so that the two zones look closely equal in density; or buzz down with no trim guard and keep it short every few days and don't let it grow out much longer than stubble.  Letting it go out for a week will reveal the MPB.  Something which might help is SMP into the crown, but even then, someone would need to keep on top of the buzzing regimen.

It appears there are a number of good options abroad that are more affordable, with good results, than who you went with before.  When I began my research over ten years ago one of the places I wanted to consult with was H&W, but they had a certain rep who was then working for them which turned me off.  In my case I knew I would need to include beard hair, which was newer, but got a stiff blow off.

Check out the "Gatsby Unplugged" thread for a thorough documentation of a forum dweller's journey from high norwood and scarring to looking like he has minimal hair loss. 

Run while you can.

Have you experimented with hair concealers such as Toppik or Dermmatch?  You appear to be at a a stage of hairloss where it would be useful.  Excessive balding doesn't allow concealers to work - and you still have coverage.

7 hours ago, Kimi said:

Guys, I am now looking at their YouTube channel. They for sure invest a plot in marketing. 

https://www.youtube.com/@bluemagicgroup-hairtranspl4446/videos

Do you think they would pay or somehow hire all those people to talk about their experiences this way?!

Btw, I found few people in the videos on social media and some seem to look fine IMO when it comes to the results they have now 4 or 2 years after. 

What are your thoughts?!

The Turkish hair mills get advertising money from their government.  We've seen obvious fake reviews going on.  If you are looking for affordable FUE now's a good time compared to 15 years ago when you joined the forum.

On 8/1/2023 at 2:19 AM, Gatsby said:

SIX MONTH UPDATE

 

 

You have great scalp coverage.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5447335/

This a reference to an Indian dematology journal:

1 hour ago, Patrick_Joyce said:

Oh ok, because Dr. Umar said with appropriate extraction techniques, there's no reason for the survival and yield to be lower.

But all of yours did survive?

In Dr. Umar's case he's had custom designs made for his FUE tools to accommodate his patients who have been coming in for HT repairs and have run out of normal donor.  In more recent years he has also advertised for patients with afro hair, meaning that like chest hairs, they grow out from the skin at sharper angles and are time consuming and hard to remove safely.  I haven't had surgery there with the newest FUE tool but it is supposed to be relatively fast and effective at extracting a wide variety of graft types.

When using hair from the chest, the problem is that it is harder to extract safely and avoid transection.  From what I understand these have a sharp angle when growing out from the surface of the skin.  Normal tools might damage them without taking ample time and care.  At that point is it worth it to the surgeon to go for these?  If they need to perform at a certain rate to obtain a good return on their services, then you can see why many won't bother.  Another reason why it's hard to find places that will do these BHT's it that the result might not look good.  Even if it's possible, will the patient's air grow out like a Brillo Pad?  Why have your work put there the like that?  It's a fine balance mixing in body hairs.

Moral of the story - don't push for it if they are not comfortable, and shop elsewhere.

On 7/16/2023 at 11:39 PM, bbow said:

Long story short I'm a victim of fraud in the worst way possible. I had a beard and hair transplant that guaranteed it wouldn't leave mark. I bought it all up, fell for the Google reviews, and other hair transplant websites claims. Everything out there seemed so positive without knowing the keywords to look for. The amount of deception is despicable. I can't say much at the current time about who and where it took place but it was in the United States. A family of evil individuals with no moral compass. I vividly remember them telling me what a good man I was while they butchered me for the rest of my life. 

Hi BBOW,

I don't think you will find people here wanting to beat you up with words on the outcome of a surgery.  Getting your appearance botched is worse than having zero results, but I think that as you get feedback and do research on these forums which go back over 20 years you should find information that will eventually help you turn things around.  At this point you might not want to consider further surgery, but there are some specialists who work with patients specifically for repair jobs.  Also, with the skill set of some clinics like Men's Ink SMP in Milan, there are options for places that can help hide scarring.  If ever there was a time bounce back from what you describe, we are in the era where it is possible.  The same cannot be said over 15 years ago.

It's bizarre how basically the same question is asked every day on the forum.  None of the people coming in will do any searching to quickly find the answer.

4 minutes ago, Recession1 said:

Both look good. I agree shorter on sides looks thicker on top. AB 2000 do you have any before pictures. Looks like you got good coverage for NW 6 

I would consider the last three as the Before, but if you mean what I looked like before any surgery, I had a couple on my progress thread, plus how it changed through the years -

7 hours ago, Recession1 said:

I was thinking about this today… why don’t NW 6 guys get 3,000 grafts dense packed to the frontal third and then scatter another 3,000 grafts around the crown and midscalp and then buzz it down to 1 or 2 guard. Wouldnt this create a nice buzzed look that frames their face and gives an illusion of a full head of hair as opposed to them growing it out and having it look thin since you can’t get the full coverage. I know smp is an option but that doesn’t look as good at the hairline in my opinion than actual buzzed hair. Thoughts? 

The advice I received when undergoing my restoration from NW6 was to shave the back and sides and let the top grow out, the area with the transplanted hair.  These are from about 10m out from my last surgery.

As you can see, this style looks better than from the same time period, but without a haircut, where the longer hair revealed the lack of density:

See what they have to say during the consultation.  Either having SMP before they do their work will not negatively affect it, or it will.  Best to find out their thoughts.

47 minutes ago, formesenlair said:

I'm curious to see anyone who grew their hair out fairly long with a hair transplant

Some of my photos at the link below.  For each surgery I'd have the hair shaved down, and after two of them grew the hair out long.

16 hours ago, mr_peanutbutter said:

pittella is the man in brazil

Even if he wanted to go see Pittella the wait list is several months long.

On 6/23/2023 at 11:40 AM, miked316 said:

It may help a bit but if you read these forums you’ll see people who freak out about small imperfections, etc. Those people are never going to be satisfied.

How true 🙂 

41 minutes ago, duckling said:

love the side fade and the conservative hairline 😄 result looks very natural

SMP would improve it further.

When do you plan to start going bald?

57 minutes ago, Turkhair said:

Also stop playing with your heart. If you can’t tolerate minoxidil, stop using it. It’s not the end of the world. 

What affect does it have on heart health?

4 hours ago, Prof101 said:

OK I did not know it is that bad. 

I was going to meet a woman in a few weeks for a trip. If it is that obvious what should I do? You think a hair cut will make it less obvious? 

 

Have you used Toppik before?