MM1

On 8/9/2017 at 1:05 PM, Windjammer said:

Would you mind also posting some pre-op photos before surgery so we can get an idea of where you came from and how your initial procedure turned out? Good luck and looking forward to the 6 month photos in October.

I had a HT with Dr Konior in April of 2017. I highly recommend him. Feel free to send me a private message if you have more questions about the procedure. He performed my second HT so I can tell you first hand not all HT docs are the same.

No regrets at all. I am looking forward to what the next 7 months has to offer regarding new growth.

I waited close to a year for my procedure.

I am not shedding that I can tell. I look in the mirror and it looks to me like I have some more hair so I am pleased at this point. I am 5 months post op.

Any update? Would love to see how you're coming along.

I am doing well and plan on posting a 6 month update with photos in October.

Just had a FUT procedure in April with Dr K. Great experience. I'd recommend him.

Glad I found this thread, I can't wait to see my final result from my HT with Dr K. If it's as good as yours I think I'll be pretty satisfied.

It's just you:D

I almost started a new thread asking this same question, but since this one already exists, please let me now how things are going for you after taking this drug for several months. I was also offered oral minox, but I decided to wait until my 2nd HT hit the 12 month mark to see if it would be necessary or not.

Wow, looks much better. The repair job looks great.

Still looks really good and natural 10 years later, congratulations.

Thanks for the feedback. It's really been a great experience so far. I now know why so many people have positive things to say about him on this forum. If it wasn't for this forum I may have made the mistake of going to a hack so thanks for the information and your support.

Hi everyone,

Had my second procedure this time with Dr. Konior. I can see why many of you here like him so much. He's certainly a perfectionist. Just had the surgery on 04/19 so the last couple of nights have been a little rough, but I think the outcome will be well worth it. This is my second go round, my first was only 1849 grafts so I am hoping I'll see much more growth this time.

You just made me even happier that I chose Dr K for my second procedure. I just had 3000 grafts done yesterday, In fact I am writing this from the hotel as I am staying for a while longer to make sure everything looks good.

I can't believe he made 1700 grafts look that good. Congratulations!

Don't be afraid of FUT. If you go to a reputable doctor like I did you chances of a large scar are extremely unlikely. I routinely shave my hair down to a 3 and no can see my scar.

I know there has been great advancement with FUE, but I would say it depends on the amount of lose you have as well. If you are very thin on top FUT may yield better results. Talk to a few of the recommended docs and then decide.

I don't want to blame Dr. Charles, my hair loss is substantial enough that 1849 grafts just was not going to cover enough of my scalp. I would have liked 2500 grafts my first transplant but I went by his recommendation. I am hoping the second procedure covers much more of my scalp. Below are a couple of recent pics of the back of my head, which is where I have the greatest loss. I do wear a hat most of the time when not at work. Not much change from my 7 month post op pics in my opinion.

Not bad, not bad at all. You're on Finasteride, right?

 

Also, is MM1 your rate?

I know it's been a while since I have been back on this site, but to answer your question, yes, I have been taking Fin for at least 16 years and continue to do so. I don't know what you mean by my rate.

I came back to post that I have an appointment to meet with someone from Dr. Hasson's office soon and I am excited about it. I don't really look forward to another surgery or spending more money, but the thought of getting to where I'd like to be in a year or so really makes me happy. I am getting tired of living with a hat on my head most of the time:(

I promised an update so here I am about 7 months after my procedure. I wish I could say I have a complete full head of hair, but I can't. I am not sure if I will have much more growth or not, but without using Toppix it's still pretty obvious that I have hair loss. I know technically I have 5 more months of possible growth so maybe I will get a sudden growth spurt and my scalp won't show as much:)

Don't feel so bad I bumped my head on the car door a few hours after surgery. The doctor explained that even if a few grafts were gone for good it won't make a huge difference if you have had 1,800 grafts placed like I did. It does suck though because who wants to lose ANY grafts after having to go through all of that.

I think your idea is good. I was also worried about having to put my head on the pillow and possibly rubbing the grafts lose for the first few days, so I followed someone suggestion on here and bought a neck pillow.

I thought this post explains the pros and cons pretty well:

FUE vs. FUT Pros and Cons of FUE Hair Transplant vs Strip Harvesting | Bernstein Medical - Center for Hair Restoration

I will say you picked a good surgeon (he did my FUT) and I see the robot was used to place the grafts so I am confident things will turn out just fine for you.

FUT has been proven to yield better results than FUE, that's the main reason I chose it over FUE. There are a bunch of posts here and on other hair loss forums that explain it.

Let me begin by giving you a little background about me. Genetically I knew I was going to lose most of my hair at some point because most of the men on both my mother and father’s side have substantial hair loss. When I was 28 I got serious about trying to slow the hair loss by using Finesteride and Rogaine. Initially it helped, but I was still losing hair. In my thirties I was using Toppik on the crown area, and it worked quite well. Now in my forties my hair loss had progressed to a point where Toppik helped, but I noticed people looking at my head funny tying to figure out what looked odd about it. So I decided after much research to take the plunge and get a hair transplant.

I chose to do my first HT with Dr. Charles. I will begin by saying I considered a couple of other doctors, but decided on Dr. Charles based on experiences other patients had, cost, travel expenses, and the fact that he is an approved ISHRS doctor.

I lived out of town so Dr. Charles had not seen me in person before my scheduled surgery; he had seen some photos that I had e-mailed to him. Once he met with me he evaluated my hair loss and spoke with me about my concerns. My crown area was pretty thin and I have some recession in the temple area so he told me he would also put some grafts in that area as well.

I didn't know what to expect from Dr. Charles' staff, but after seeing them in action it was clear that they knew their jobs quite well.

During the procedure you can watch TV or Netflix. At lunch time they order you food and you get a small break.

Dr. Charles had originally told me I needed 1700 grafts so I was pleasantly surprised when he told me it was a total of 1849 grafts and he didn't even charge me for the additional grafts, awesome! Obviously money is not his top priority which I appreciate.

After the procedure is over Dr. Charles goes over the do's and don'ts with you and he even provided me with his personal cell phone in case there were any problems. One of the things he mentions is NOT to hit your head on anything. This will become important in a minute.

Later in the evening Dr. Charles called me to see how I was doing. At the time I was fine. Not long after he called I went to look for something in my car and hit my head right in the crown area where some of the grafts had been placed. There was blood running down my face! To say that I was upset would be an understatement. I was like a caged lion pacing in my hotel room. I immediately called Dr. Charles and left him a message. Not long after he returned my call and told me what to do. He reassured me that it should be fine and he would look at it when I returned the next day for a shampoo.

The staff took the time to replace what grafts they could find in the dried blood on my head and Dr. Charles took a look also. He told me it did not appear that many grafts were affected and even if a few don’t make survive it should not make a noticeable difference.

For those of you considering your first HT there are really only 2 unpleasant things about the whole experience. The first is you will need to have anesthetic put into your head so you don't feel where the donor area is extracted and in the area where the grafts will be placed. It's certainly not the worst pain I have ever experienced, but you should know it's going to be necessary so expect it. For the first 2 days I was sore in the donor area and had a mild headache. The doctor did provide me with medication to help with that. Aside from that I am at day 3 after the procedure and have had no other issues.

Being realistic with my family history of hair loss I will probably need 1 or 2 more transplants to maintain decent coverage and I would not hesitate going back to see Dr. Charles if that becomes necessary.

The first 3 pics are just before the procedure and the last 3 are post op. I plan on posting some more pics at the 6 month and 1 year mark so stay tuned!!

Had a similar experience about a year ago. Put Toppik on and I didn't realize that I didn't put enough on in my crown area. I went to an eye glass store and saw the horrified look on one of the women employees face :eek: and I said to myself um Houston we got a problem. Sure enough when I got home and used my hand mirror I could see scalp and powder on it. Embarrassing but I don't plan on going back to that store again anytime soon!