FireFly

Ok, so somewhere along the line managed to erase the 4 month pics I had been meaning to upload, so I'm afraid I'm just going to have to skip to month 5. Sorry about that! But basically not much has been happening except watching some slow growth and the density beginning to creep up slowly. Months 3 & 4 I was using Toppik to mask the new growth and blend the recipient area with the native hair. I've got pretty fine straight hair anyway, so the Toppik did make a big difference and around the 4 month mark people started to comment that I was looking good, but they couldn’t really put their finger on what exactly was different! :cool: At the 5 month mark I ran out of Toppik and decided just to do without it, as the density had reached a pretty acceptable level. My right side is definitely taking a little longer to build up, but it's always been my weaker side when it comes to hair loss, so it's not a huge surprise to be honest. Obviously it will continue to build over the next year or so but I thought it best to just proceed ‘au naturel’ and let it thicken over time to avoid any unwanted attention. But all in all, I’m really happy with where I’m at right now. Dr Feller’s hairline has created the kind of subtle changes that I was hoping to achieve and I now feel I have a defined, denser hairline that I will be happy with as I continue to age. Looking forward to seeing the results continue to grow over the coming months!

Thanks guys! I'm hoping things will start to come thru more and more now in the next month or so, it'd be cool to look even semi-normal by Christmas. I think the past week or so is really the first time I've looked in the mirror and thought "Yep, definitely something going on up there!" Tacolino, I've been following your post-HT journey and I definitely think it's looking better and better every time you post! But I guess 7 months is a heck of a wait. I've always had crazy straight and fine hair, so it looks pretty ok when it's just washed and without any product but once it started receding it was getting more and more difficult to style. So I figured I'd just bite the bullet and commit to going the HT route, hopefully I'm coming close to the end of the 'ugly duckling' phase soon!

So here I am, 3 months after having my first HT with Dr Feller in Great Neck, New York. Firstly I decided to travel from Ireland to see Dr Feller, as I felt that his results and pricing were far superior to anything on offer this side of the Atlantic. (Same procedure in the leading Irish HR clinic would have cost €20,000 or c. $27,000 USD, so the choice to travel to the US was a no-brainer for me!) I stayed in the Andrew Hotel in Great Neck, and as it's close to the main street, I decided to stock up on water, snacks and some soda the night before, as I figured I'd want to just crash when I got back to the hotel after the surgery. In hindsight, I'm glad I did. The morning of the surgery, I got a 2 minute taxi ride from the hotel to Dr Feller's surgery and arrived just before 7.45am. The rest of the surgical staff hadn't arrived yet, so Dr Feller and I had a chat and then moved on to the consultation, this is where he looked at my hairline and scalp and we decided how best to proceed. I know everyone says this, but it really is kind of amazing how he immediately puts you at ease, he's a really funny, personable guy and we ended up talking about most things throughout the course of the morning. He positioned the hairline where he felt best and it ended up pretty much exactly where I'd expected. I found the whole procedure pretty quick really, the anesthetic injections are really the most uncomfortable part of the procedure and Dr Feller is really great at chatting to you and explaining exactly what's going on... so your imagination doesn't run away with you! After the strip has been removed and stapled closed, you get a short break and can go to the bathroom if you wish, kinda weird to see yourself in the mirror at this stage! The next part of the process is where Dr. Feller places the incisions for the grafts, so there's no chit-chat as he concentrates fully on this stage! After that, the surgical team then place the grafts into the incisions. I was told that I "placed" really well and the whole thing was done and dusted just before lunch. Not sure if that's pretty normal or a little ahead of time, but all and all I think it was around 5 hours from leaving my hotel room, until I'd returned after the surgery. The next few nights I slept propped up on pillows and pretty much managed to avoid any swelling around the forehead, which was nice! I decided to stay in the NY/NJ area for about two weeks so I was able to return to get my staples removed. The staples are the most annoying thing during the first two weeks and sleeping can be a bit frustrating. But to be honest they were pretty much unnoticeable other people, as I'd decided to keep my hair long enough to disguise them. So when I was wearing a baseball cap I was able to go about my day to day business pretty much as normal. But once the staples come out you really do feel like a new man!! After that, it's just the waiting game... I'm 3 months out now and it's only really in the past few weeks that I've began to see much new growth. But in the first couple of months, you pretty much fixate on every aspect of your procedure and can sometimes get a bit nutty thinking about it. I thought I'd be different in this regard, but everything from shockloss, to the scar stretching, to the position of the hairline, to "why isn't it growing?" are all things that go through your head... in short, all you can do is wait it out and know that it will come good in it's own time. At this point I can go out in public without the hat, I use some toppik and brush my hair over to the side to kinda mask the recipient area. Some days it looks good, some days it looks just ok. But in the end up I figure it's all just part of the process, so I just gotta get on with it and make the best of it. One thing I would say for any Irish guys out there thinking of undergoing a HT is that I managed to find the most amazing barber in Dublin, for that awkward post-op stage when your hair is a mess and you're not really sure what to do with it. The Grooming Rooms on South William Street seem to do a lot of cuts on guys who are post-HT and the barber I had was really discreet, but really interested in my procedure and said that it was pretty common for them to see a lot of HT patients in there. This was news to me, but I thought it was information well worth sharing on here! Finally at this stage looking back, I'm delighted I decided to go with Dr Feller as my HT surgeon, he's a great guy and an amazing surgeon, extremely easy to talk to and the support that his team and Spex were able to give me the whole way through the process left me in absolutely no doubt that I had made the right choice! At this point I'm looking forward to seeing more growth and hopefully messing around with some new hairstyles, aside from my trademark mohawk-combover, in the months to come. Thanks for reading guys, didn't really mean for this to drag on so long, but if anyone has any questions, especially if you're considering travelling over from Ireland to NY, just drop me a line. Or you can see more pics from along my HT journey at Hair Restoration Social Network ? Community for and by Hair Loss Patients - FireFly's Profile Onwards!!

Hi Yaz, Might be a stupid question, but have you tried Finasteride or Minoxidil? From the looks of things you could potentially be quite a strong respomder to finasteride, as it is possible your follicles are still only in the early-mid stages of miniturization. (Impossible to tell from pictures, but just my opinion) It certainly may be worth checking it out if you haven't done so already, as it could potentially yield real results, yet avoiding the long term commitment that comes with having to 'chase' that first HT which defines the hairline. The above is only my own opinion, but I know I'm definitely glad I hit the meds for a few years before deciding on the surgical route. FF