beaverbuzz

Just wanted to update this thread. The grafts are starting to come through, and the hair is looking much better over the past few weeks. Dr. Shapiro did a great job on the hairline design, and I am predicting an awesome result. Thanks everyone for your concern and comments. Best wishes beaverbuzz

Just wanted to update this thread. The grafts are starting to come through, and the hair is looking much better over the past few weeks. Dr. Shapiro did a great job on the hairline design, and I am predicting an awesome result. Thanks everyone for your concern and comments. Best wishes beaverbuzz

Magnum - not sure what went wrong. I followed the instructions fully. I started shedding grafts very early and this was the first warning sign to me that something was wrong. I emailed the clinic and they said I shouldn't be concerned. Since that happened, none of them have grown back. As I have said all along, the grafts that have survived were the ones that didn't fall out. I think if I were to do it all over again, I wouldn't have used rogaine/minoxidil post surgery and avoided washing my hair for longer as per the instructions. Cowl - No worries. There are some people that are deadset against having their natural density or close to it. I just want to be able to look in the mirror and not see scalp where the grafts were implanted. At the moment thats what I see. I am not sure what I am going to do now. I emailed Dr. Shapiro but haven't heard back from him yet. I know he wanted to wait a little longer due to my rogaine shed, but to be honest I don't think it has anything to do with my poor yield. I am willing to wait till 18 months though. Before this surgery I NEVER would have considered strip, but now I am considering it. Its a pretty sad reflection of how things have changed in a span of a year. I have read of one story ( I searched throughout every hair loss forum) of a guy that started getting growth at month 13, so I am trying to hold on to that shred of hope.

Cowl, I respectfully disagree. I spent a lot of time looking at hair transplants online as well as saw my own brothers hair transplant. With my hair caliber I believe the density should have been fine. Like I said from my first post, my expectations were realistic. If they were not, I am sure I would have been told so and turned away. There is another story on this forum, coincidentally another person that had poor growth, however, the reason why I want to show it is to draw attention to his temple points, which came out well. I actually would have preferred to have it a little less dense, but I believe that is why Dr. Shapiro suggested the day after my surgery that I may want to laser some of them so it doesn't look so dense. This user had a little bit larger of a procedure in terms of grafts (1300), but he also had a larger area covered from what I can see. http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/165098-doctor-damkerng-pathomvanich-transplanted-scalp-area-growing-slower-than-temples-5.html Now if you look at my temple points (I actually have very similar hair to the guy in the thread), the spacing between each graft is quite large, especially the grafts farthest out. Is the guy above's a spectacular result? No. From what I researched that was a pretty normal for temple points. I didn't get this result. That's why I came on here, and that's why I am disappointed. Of course, my temple and hairline growth has not been great either, but the temple points are the most obvious to me. I took off my photos for privacy concerns; however, I will leave this up as it doesn't show my face.

I had intense shedding all over my scalp and body 3 months ago from rogaine, however, I have had negligible regrowth. Wonder if anyone has gone through it before and how long until they noticed some growth ? Thanks

I should mention that I am a a little over 10 months now.

Hi James, Unfortunately its long now and it still doesn't look good (see the pic I posted on page 5 with hair pulled back). But you are correct about the temple points looking better when the hair is longer as the grafts lie flat against the head, and so can cover more scalp when they are longer. I wish I could just shave my head but unfortunately its not a good look for me as I can't grow facial hair and I am fair skin. The shape of the hairline and the temple points are all messed up due to the yield. I still believe I have not grown any hair since the shed at 1 week post surgery, so basically you got a bunch of random grafts everywhere in the recipient area. For instance, I think it looks like my recession is very bad because the outer most grafts along the temple points did not survive. So the pointy-ness looks very bad because there is no smooth transition up to the hairline, it just jumps out out of nowhere when looking at the front view, if that makes any sense.

Don't worry about it. No offence taken. I would take a comment like that anyday, especially over the you need counselling comment I had earlier on in the the thread. Or the perfectionist comment, etc..... Good luck with your hairloss treatment MagnumPI. Thank you for the well wishes Zenmunk

MAGNUMpi: Its safe to say hair loss affects us all differently. One only needs to look at hairloss forums to see people taking extreme measures to go from a NW1.5 to a NW1. Like I said in an earlier post, I actually prefer recession in my hairline; however, I wanted to tweak it a bit. The thing that bothered me the most was the asymmetric hairline. I don't think this was irresponsible given the stability of my hair and the number of grafts I needed. Davis91: Thanks for the insight. You have made a similar comment that my brother made to me when the lack of growth became apparent. The donor area is definitely a concern of mine now as I am going to need a repair now. I was never told what my donor is like so I am not sure how much is there either. I have stayed at a NW2ish since I was 18. I am not sure how much farther I will go; however, I do know I cant live with the way my hair is now, I am going to need to get it repaired. On the right corner it is see through. I can't even put toppik there because you end up seeing the fibers on my scalp.

Thats an incredible transformation. Congrats. Throw in some toppik and some good styling wax and your are set.

This was my hair grown out before surgery. The pre-op pics is a buzz cut so a little harder to see how my hair fits my face.

Yes, the right corner is especially bad.

Here is a better hairline shot, with my hair pulled back.

Thanks for the comment Janna. Just to clarify though, I did say 30-40 hairs in the temple peaks (the triangle part), not the corners. Its impossible for me to guess with the hairline and the corners because there is native hair there. Dr. Shapiro has been great; I still trust his skill and vision. Nothing has changed there. I guess I have confirmed who did the surgery now

Update. 9 months. No noticeable growth. Still looks unnatural due to the poor yield. Still have to wear a hat to social outings. I never wore a hat pre-surgery, so you can imagine how my self confidence is these days. I started using rogaine foam to try and speed things up, but did not react well to it. Have since recovered though... There is nothing wrong with the hairline design. Even with the poor yield, I can see if the density were to increase, it would look fantastic. I would take a nicely designed NW2 over a NW1 any day of the week. I attached some pictures. These are without a flash.

I don't want to sound like a dick, but if it is sparse, then it doesn't look natural. The whole point of a transplant is to mimic nature, by creating an illusion of density. There is no illusion of density right now. Trust me, I had very realistic expectations for this procedure, that is why I have been so disappointed with my results. However, I know that getting upset is not going to help the matter, so I am remaining as cool as a cucumber until 12 months

So I am here to update. Now on month 8. Still no growth. I cut my hair shorter, and took some pictures. Attached are the temple points. The hairline doesn't look any better; the only reason it is not bad is because I had native hair there. I reckon that about 30-40 hairs have grown on either temple point, and the same success/failure in the hairline. I cut my hair short to see if I could see new hairs sprouting up and there isn't. As you can see from the pictures, it doesn't look natural. I will continue to wait till the 12 month mark, but I don't see this improving at all. The hairs that have grown have been the same color and thickness for the past 3 or so months. The growth that I have had have been the same grafts that didn't shed in the beginning.

Hi Janna, As you suspected, I took a pair of tweezers and about 20 of the hairs came out pretty easily. They were all wiry and had kinks in them. The temple points are looking so much better now. They look receded as opposed to looking unnatural. Thank you very much!

Thanks for the comments guys. Just got off the phone with a patient coordinator and pretty much what rev3 said, that because there was no hair at those temple points, it would take some time for it to blend. He suggested I use dermmatch in the mean time, which I will be doing. Thanks again for taking the time to comment. I appreciate the support.

Thank you for the comment Spanker. The temple points just don't look natural to me. Perhaps I need to take different pictures in a similar lighting. I know that my surgeon said that he might have to hit some of the hairs with a laser to soften them up, perhaps that is what I am seeing. The hairs just don't blend in well. If I am being too critical at 6 months, then I apologize. I guess that is what the forum is here for. I guess I expected to actually see hair coming to the surface and feeling stubble. Neither of which I have. Maybe because some of the hairs are embedded in native hairs.

Thanks for the reply. The current pictures were taken in natural lighting, not black and white. You can see by the spacing in the hair how sparse the temple points are. This is where a majority of the nape hair was put, but they have not grown back.

Sorry I had problems posting. You should read the second post as it mentions my healing.

Hi, Sorry I took so long to post these. I needed to take a break from looking at these forums. I am already depressed enough from knowing that this is probably going to turn out horrible. Pretty much in the mindset that I am expecting the worst and hoping for the best. I uploaded pictures of the temple points. This is the part that looks the worst. My temples don't look as bad because the recipient hair already had hair there so it just looks thinning whereas the temple points looks completely unnatural. However in both areas there has been zero growth. After 10 days the grafts started to fall out, without blood, and I asked the patient coordinator as well as the forum if this was normal and everyone said not to worry about it. It is my opinion that this was a bad sign. The ones that did not fall out are the ones you see in the pictures. I am 27. Been NW2 since starting propecia 5 years ago. Slight thinning on top but overall nice hair. All I was looking for was a better framing of the face as I had asymmetrical loss in the temples. Graft breakdown was: 536 1's, 433 2's. I had grafts taken from the nape as well. In terms of healing: The donor healed very quickly. The techs were surprised at how little blood there was when I came in for a rinse the next day. The redness in the recipient area was gone after about 1.5 - 2 months. Thank you for your comments.

Hello everyone I had a transplant with one of the most resepected surgeons in the world 6 months ago (as indicated on this website and many others). I had just under 1000 FUE to thicken up my temple and temple points. Before that I was a norwood 2 with a bit of thinning. I have been extremely patient. I have not had one single hair grow in. There is no stubble. The only grafts that are there are the ones that did not fall out. This is the worst part as they are on the temple points and they are sparse and they are not laying flat. This is so hard for me because I feel like I have jeopardized my appearance. It would be ok to wait till 12 months if those grafts would just flatten out but they wont. They look terrible. Some even have a corkscrew shape. I would really like to have some input here. I am trying to remain positive but it is so hard when it looks like absolute shit. I honestly would love if all of them would fall out and I could go back to my presurgery look. I will try to upload some decent photos. Thanks P.S. yes I have discussed this with my doctor/patient coordinator. They will help me out if at 12 months things are not good, but if such a small surgery on a virgin scalp did not go well I am not going to try again. I appreciate their support but unfortunately I need some from this forum