drivein

5 Months post op. Thought i'd post some pics.

About 20% grew straight away, 70% fell out over the first 4 months and about 10% just stayed the same and are still there now. Seems that a few that started growing straight away are now falling out after 4-5 months.

Didn't have any shock loss in the donor area and very little in the receipient region.

Seems they are starting to grow slowly and thicken up. The Left hand side seems to be looking alot better than the right for some reason. Still early days so fingers crossed.

I always seem to have a bit of a shed around christmas time which i have bee told is a seasonal shed so with a bit of luck things will come together spring/summer next year.

YEEEEEHAAAA

I had 2000 (or so, don't know exact number yet) grafts in hairline and middle part of my head on Friday morning, so I'm 3 days post op now. The first 2 comments are probably classic examples of post op patients over analysing too much.

 

1) I got caught in a bad storm whilst out and about the day after. I had my cap on and used my bag to cover my head, I got to shelter after maybe 5 minutes but my hat was soaking and everything in my bag was wet - so it was a hell of a storm. Could any water that seeped through my hat have caused damage to the grafts?

 

2) Is it normal for there to be areas that seem redder and a little bigger? I'm just paranoid that the water and one time I accidently touched my head when I woke up could have done some damage. I'm sure I'm just being paranoid but I thought it was worth asking. There has been no bleeding so I'm positive I didn't do any damage but I just wanted to check.

 

3) How many days do I need to avoid putting a tshirt over my head?

 

4) When can I let the full impact of shower water go onto my head?

 

5) When can I enjoy an alcoholic beverage and use ibuprofen (not together, of course) etc ?

 

6) I have run out of my vicodin painkillers and am no longer in the U.S, where can I get painkillers just to ease the donor area discomfort?

 

7) Can I sleep normally now?

 

I know I should have asked my doctor all this but on the day there was too much on my mind to even think about all this stuff!

My personal opinion for my own research

1) Grafts will not be effected by getting wet(rain) the day after the op

2) Redness my vary in shade on your scalp, nothing to worry about.

3) as long as the neck is large and you are carefull 48 hours is fine

4) Personally i waited 7 days to shower normally. But twice a day from day 4-7 just being careful.

5) Its only before the op you need to stop these. Doesn't matter if you thin your blood after the op. But say 7 days to be sure. You dont want to fall over if your that drunk lol

6) Normal paracetamol should help.

7) Day 4-5 sleeping shouldn't be an issue.

This is from my own personal experience but i did only have FUE, but most of the questions relate to the both procedures.

Happened to me last week. They asked me to remove my cap in washington airport on 3 occasions. I just refused, said i couldnt beacuse i had surgery and removing it would disturb my head. I told them my doctor was going to cut off my baseball cap when i was back in the uk lol. They made me rub my hands all over my cap and then swab tested my hands. And that was it, never came off my head once.

Major difference already. you cant really tell that its a scar to start with, i thought it was just normal hairloss until i read your blog. Good luck mate!!!!

Forum By and for Hair Loss Patients - Search Forums

Looks like any other forum i've used :confused:

Thanks for everything, the hardest thing is waiting to do some fitness training, its killing me

4 days post op

2 Days post op, pretty much no pain just a little bleeding in donor which is now stopped

I've been reading threads on this site for some time now and finally decided to post.

I started losing my hair about 5 years ago, slowly at first and with no hairloss im my family i kind of ignored it for a while.

Finally used the belgravia centre 2 and a half years ago for propecia and 12.5% minoxidil, yes i know i could prob find it cheaper but already used finastride for 6 months prior which was clearly not genuine . This way i know its genuine but costs about 25% more.

I flew out to washington for a FUE transplant with Dr Lindsey. We agreed 800 grafts would be satisfactory for the results i wanted.

I had previously met with two other docs in the UK but Dr Lindsey came across much more helpful and friendly than either of the other docs.

The day of the surgery i was a little nervous but eager to start.

We started with a 0.9mm punch but after the first 150-200 holes Dr Lindsey decided to switch to 1.1mm graft as the grafts were getting damaged.

After another 150-200 holes we still had the same problem with the hairs transecting or capping i believe its called, where basically the hair breaks when being removed and leaves the root behind.

At this point We sat down and had a chat about the situation,options to take:-

we could either carry on but the original 800 grafts would be out of reach and would be lucky to get 500.

switch to a small strip to buffer the number up to 800

or stop altogether and admit defeat.(not an option after travelling 3000 miles)

In the end i decided to stick with FUE and just pray things got better.

Which thankfully they did, the right side of my donor area seemed to give much better results than my left side. In the end we actually got 628 grafts which was somewhere close to the original 800 so it worked out in the end.

Dr Lindsey was great through the whole situation, and his staff are great.

The two technicians that worked along side him on me were friendly and i felt at ease.

The next few days i spent in the hotel ordering room service and movies which left me a chunky hotel bill, but i personally felt to insecure to leave the hotel with my new patchy hair style lol

I decided to where a cap through customs and then just my hoody on the back half of my head during the flight. I was asked 3 TIMES to remove my cap in washington airport which i refused each time so they did some sort of swab test on it without removing it, i said that it could not be removed as it would disturb my surgery I even got asked to remove it heathrow as well but refused again lol. Next time i will just wrap it up with a bandage i think it will be easier.

Now the waiting game begins, still havent shed anything yet so fingers crossed im one of the 5% that doesnt, no shockloss either, very early days though so we'll see :confused:

A BIG THANKS TO DR WILLIAM LINDSEY AND HIS STAFF AND ALL THE POSTERS ON HERE THAT LEAD ME TO MAKING THE RIGHT DECISION AND NOT GETTING IT DONE IN THE UK.

AND A MASSIVE THANKS TO SPEX FOR HELP THROUGH THE ENTIRE PROCESS, FLIGHTS, HOTEL EVERYTHING. TOP MAN