Gandolf

 

Congrats Gandolf! Would love to hear about your progress when you get it done. What areas are you focusing on?

I'm focusing on the hairline, specifically the corners of the hairline as that's the main area of my hairloss. I have another thread somewhere on here where I posted my pictures.

 

Very nice! Quite natural, and impressive density with only 1281 grafts.

My thoughts exactly.

Great choice Gandolf and keep us posted with your progress.

 

What procedure are you having and how many grafts?

I'm doing a strip procedure into the hairline and have been quoted 2400 grafts, although I'm open to the idea of doing more than that if Dr. Rahal recommends it after seeing me in person.

I'll be flying to Canada on Jan 2nd and having my procedure on Jan 3rd of 2013. I wish I didn't have to put it so far out in the future, as I want it NOW but I won't have enough time off work until then. I'm completely stoked, it was a tough decision on who to go to but some of the Rahal results we've been seeing here lately are simply mind blowing.

 

And of course I will be documenting my whole experience here on the forum as I feel obligated to give back after getting so much valuable information here from everyone. I feel lucky to have found this place when you see just how big the disparity is between the few truly great HT doctors out there versus all of the others.

 

I think someone said your transplant has knocked 10 years off you. I have to disagree. I'm gonna say more like 20 years.

He doesn't just look younger, he looks 10x more attractive too.

Lots of people who are interested in Dr Rahal's work point to this result and say "I want that!"

How would you describe this patient's hair attributes? Fine, average, coarse, etc. I can't really tell from the pics, except that it's densely packed and a work of art aesthetically.

The look on this guy's face says it all. In the before pictures, he looks kind of sad and depressed, and he's looking down like he's unable to make eye contact...In the after pictures he's looking straight ahead, he looks confident, and he's got a cocky little grin on his face, as he should. This is truly a Hall-Of-Fame type of result.

That's an incredible result for 2500 grafts. If I were in my late 40s and got this kind of result from an HT I'd probably buy a red sports car and have an affair with a girl half my age. Simply amazing, this guy should have a new lease on life.

chrisdav,

 

I'm 26 as well:) All I'm saying is with that no of grafts I'm sure a lower hairline can be build. I don't want to be comparative but check out Dr. Rahal's hairlines. They are relatively lower than h&w's.

Going any lower in the hairline for this guy would have been a mistake. He was able to go from having practically nothing on top to having good coverage all over. This wouldn't have been possible with a lower hairline.

 

On an unrelated note, in the before pictures he looks like my calculus teacher from HS. He looks 100x better in the after pics!

What exactly is a double follicular unit? Is it a unit with 2 hairs, or the conbination of 2 seperate units into 1 slit?

I can't tell any difference between the before and after pics.

 

 

 

 

 

Just kidding. That is a ridiculously good result, Congrats!

Yikes! I would rather get a HT done by Gallager the watermelon-smashing comedian than by this Gallager after seeing your shoddy work. Your only option is to go to one of the top doctors to fix this. Go to someone like Dr. Feller, H&W, Dr. Rahal, or Feriduni and see what they recommend.

Well, the email consultation results are flowing in and I'm honestly amazed at just how much the opinions vary from doctor to doctor. I should note that I only solicited opinions from the very top echelon of clinics in the world.

 

I'm on board with these thoughts.....

At this point I'm about 99% sure I'm going to do it. I appreciate the concern and I know it's genuine, but I'm just not happy being a 28 year old with a receding hairline. My facial features and hair characteristics don't lend well to a bald or receding look, so I figure if I'm going to get it done at some point, why not now and I can enjoy my 30s and look good

Damn, that is a pretty aggressive amount of grafts to use in the hairline but Dr. Rahal does great work and you are already looking great and still have a lot of time to keep improving as your hair comes in. Do you know how many grafts per cm2 he used in the very front there?

Any of those 8-10 in the UK?

Coalition Members

 

Take a look here at the list. Looks like there are 2 of them in the UK. I'd start with those 2. It's possible there are other doctors not on this list who are doing good work, but I don't recommend leaving that to chance. I would look at their before and after pictures on their websites but ALSO look for everything you can find (good and bad) here as they will only show the best results on their page. Also look at the doctors from outside of the UK and their results and only go to the doctors who you feel have the most aesthetically pleasing results. I don't hear as much positive stuff about these 2 UK doctors as I do about some of the other ones such as Dr. Feller, Hasson & Wong, Dr. Rahal, Dr. Feriduni, and a few others, but many of those clinics have representatives on these forums too so that plays a role.

- True true! I have a brochure coming from a clinic in London soon, I'll look through that and book a free consultation, I hardly have the money right now, but if he says "1000-1500 should suffice" then I will find a way to get the money.

OK I missed this comment before my last post and have to say 1 more thing. Do NOT even think about compromising on your choice of doctor due to lack of funds or proximity to doctors. There is a HUGE disparity in the quality of work done by the different doctors as transplants are as much as art as a science. Additionally, very few of the good ones are located in the UK so please consider traveling abroad to get this procedure done. If you can't afford to go to the best, you must wait and save up until you can, even if it means waiting longer than you want. Please be careful, I've read a lot of stuff about the UK doctors being far behind the US and Canada doctors and even here in the US there are only a select few that are truly great. Good luck to you.

I use drugs for my anxiety and depression which is a must

I agree you should keep taking them as your doctor prescribed them for a reason but these are just as likely as Propecia to cause sexual side effects. Everybody responds differently but I can tell you from my experience that I had no noticable decrease in sexual abilities from Propecia but when I was on anxiety medicine it completely killed my erections.

 

I agree with you not taking Propecia if you believe the risks outweigh the benefits. You should stick to that regardless of what anyone, myself included, tells you. I just don't understand how you don't have the same caution with surgery. Anyhow, I will leave it at that. You are definitely in the right spot to find good information about all of your options, just make sure you go to one of the top surgeons recommended here. There's only about 8-10 I'd consider.

 

Shocked hairs will most likely come back if they were healthy, terminal hairs in the first place. However, there are most certainly some miniaturized hairs in your frontal third and you could very well lose them for good. Some say one shouldn't undergo surgery unless they are a NW3 or worse. If you get surgery with a lot of remaining native hair there is a possibility of a net zero trade off. Again, just a scenario to consider before taking the plunge. With propecia you may be less of a risk for this outcome.

Do we have any pictures here on the forum of patients who went to coalition doctors and had this type of permanent shock loss you describe to their native hairs?

 

Quite right. I saw an interview with one doc (can't remember who) who said that not everyone retains donor, but for the vast majority (high 90 percents) it is there for life.

I'm hoping I have my dad's genetics. I look just like him and have nearly identical hair characteristics and thinning patterns. He had recession like mine and some light thinning on top in his late 20's and early 30's that barely progressed much at all from that time until now in his early 60's. And he has all of his donor hair as thick as it's ever been. In fact, his hair actually got thicker and coarser with age once it turned grey. And it's not just my dad, no one in my family has anything even close to a horse shoe pattern on top so while anything is possible I don't think I'm likely at all to lose my crown, especially since I'm also committed to taking Propecia for the rest of my life. I'm willing to take a small but calculated risk and be a little aggressive now just given these circumstances but yes I agree and understand that anything can happen with my hair as I age.

Yes, and to me even 0.1% chance is too high, I mean come on, hair is VERY important but it is never ever worth that risk

OK, but are you aware that there are a ton of regular, everyday things that people do that give than way more than a 1/1000 chance of erection problems?

 

If you drink alcohol, drink caffeine, eat fast food, eat processed foods, smoke cigarettes, use drugs, fail to get 8 hours of sleep each night, fail to do regular cardiovascular exercise, etc. then you are taking an exponentially higher risk of having impotence than the .1% figure which you claim is unacceptible.

 

There is nothing wrong with being cautious of a drug, but I think you need to be as cautious or probably even more so about having a surgical procedure as the potential risks and long term consequences are clearly stronger than temporary Proecia use. Does this not make sense?

Gandolf,

 

I think you have a decent head of hair right now. I would be very careful with a HT at this point simply because you have a lot of native hair to lose with shock loss. I see that you are on finasteride - good! You seem to be holding onto your crown fairly well, but you never can know for sure if you will keep it forever. I'm not saying you shouldn't get a HT, it's just not urgent right now. Just do your research for awhile and take your time. You've come to the right place.

Doesn't shock loss of the native hair almost always grow back? It doesn't bother me much to have the hair fall out and look bad for 6-12 months while I wait on the final results because I'll be doing that anyway with the transplanted part in the front.

Oh and since when is Propecia temporary? Stopping use results in the loss of hair doesn't it?

Yes, if you use it and then stop you will eventually lose the benefits AND the side effects from it. There are only a very tiny amount of anecdotal examples like the ones you've found on Youtube where people claim the side effects persist after stopping the drug.

I have seen people on YouTube videos and interviews with people regarding perminant impotence from it.

 

Ok so, what risks are there with FUE? I watched a few videos on it, read a few articles, seemed rather risk free.

Well for someone young with minor hairloss, there is the possibility with any HT that you lose more hair later in life and don't have enough donor hair to properly fill in the bald/thin spots. There are cases where people got poor yields and the transplanted areas weren't thick enough for a good cosmetic result. These would be your most likely risks and are exponentially more likely than any permanent inpotence from temporary use of Propecia.

 

This is rare, especially in caucasians, but there are a few people who keloid scar and had horrible looking scar tissue form all over their heads.

 

There's no way to really know how many available grafts you have because what you have now may not be the same as what you have in 15 or 20 years. Let's say you have 9000 grafts available today and you have a session of 2500 to strengthen your front a bit. Maybe 5 or 10 years later you need another 3000 to fill in additional loss behind the hairline and a bit in the crown. You're thinking you have 3500 grafts left, but in another 5 or 10 years when you need more work, the donor may be starting to thin a little and you may only have another 2500 grafts instead of 3500 like you thought. Right now your donor may look great, but that can change over time, so anyone who gives you a number of how many grafts is just taking a guess. Don't rely too much on it.

Does hair in the donor area thin? Isn't all that hair DHT resistant?