Rootz

The views are mostly looking downward. At this angle, and with the way this guy styles his hair, the view of the hairline itself is hard to see. Consequently there's no "money shot" revealing the hairline. Also the temporal corners are a bit obscured. The pics are not bad, just saying I wish they were a bit better. I will emphasize based on what I can see I really like the result and I think this is about as good as it gets.

The views could have been better, but from what I can see this looks really nice. Top notch.

If I were to go down that route I imagine I would definitely start with temporary. Once you get it done you could have a change of heart or grow tired of it.

I think I'm looking at the 15 month ones, I'm just extremely critical... perhaps too critical. The ones towards the very end with the hair pulled up and back don't give the impression of low-ish density, but if you let the hairs stand upright naturally you can see it. For example in pictures 12/19 and 15/19. The area is a bit large for 2500 grafts so I don't necessarily think there was a problem with the yield but it doesn't seem like the frontal hairline was transplanted any denser. The transplanted density seems pretty even throughout the entire area (looking at the immediate post op), which is odd to me.

I didn't mean to downplay what you went through. Whether you're losing hair from genetics, disease, or some other condition it's a rough experience either way. You had scalp reductions to cut out the disease on your head and then hair transplants on top of those scars? Never heard of that before. What was the name of the disease if you don't mind me asking.

Good call Jotronic, I edited my post and added a note about that. I'll resume believing they're a waste of time and money.

Edit: After posting this I realized the following study is probably biased and should be taken with a grain of salt I was about to say you should probably throw it out or Ebay it, but to my surprise according to an NCBI study it can be beneficial. Not sure what brand of comb you have but maybe it's not a waste of time.

Looking at the immediate post op it looks like hairs were transplanted at a fairly even density throughout. What are your thoughts on using a higher density at the front of the hairline? This was a large area for 2500 grafts but if I was this guy I would be planning a 2nd HT to increase the density at the front. It looks on the low side to be honest.

In my opinion your game plan should be to get on medical treatment ASAP and try to preserve what you already have. After you've been on a good treatment plan for at least 6 months, reevaluate your hair situation and go from there. You may no longer want SMP or a HT. But doing a HT without being on treatment is a bad idea. You want to stabilize your hairloss first, and you might just regrow hair too. The miniaturized (thinning) areas will progress and eventually become bald. The timeframe this will happen is hard to predict, but generally the younger it starts the more aggressive it will be. For example, a 20 year old with thinning will probably lose the hairs in the area rapidly in the matter of a few years or even months, whereas a 40 year old would likely experience the same thing but over a more drawn out period. With proper treatment this can probably be prevented, or at least drawn out significantly. The big three that you ideally want to be on are Minoxidil (topical stimulant), Nizoral (shampoo), and Finasteride (systematic DHT inhibter). The closest cure to hairloss is basically Finasteride, so whatever treatment you decide to take you should seriously consider that one.

What's weird is the doctor must genuinely think this work is good (or good enough to fool us), otherwise I doubt he'd want it posted... you don't have to be a doctor to realize these results are poor.

The result looks poor for 3000 grafts. Specifically, he didn't get a whole lot more surface area and what he did get the density seems lacking. The pictures could also show a lot more. He's sporting a combover from right to left in all the pictures. Combovers are used to hide bald spots, obviously not ideal for showcasing a result. The third pic also shows the hair combed forward across the entire hairline, blocking it. Not very useful. If this patient really is "very pleased" with the result, I think that is unfortunate... unless he was specifically looking for a result involving 3000 grafts that looked more like 1000. In which case, mission accomplished... I guess?

350 grafts would be less than 8cm square centimeters at around 45 grafts per cm. That would translate into about a 5x1.5cm strip. That's smaller than your pinky finger. As Dutch said, $10/graft is a bad deal. The very best in the world don't charge that much.

Inhousepharmacy.biz requires a prescription now, but you can still order without one using its counterpart Inhousepharmacy.vu with E-check as payment. It's kind of weird but with E-check you enter your routing/banking account, some E-check representative calls you the next day, you identify yourself and say "Yes I placed the order," and the order ships.

For a clinic I think these are pretty weak pictures, and I get the feeling they were taken to intentionally conceal what appears to be relatively low density at the hairline. The pics are all taken at angles and distances where the details are hard to see. He has blond hair which makes closeups (and of course better angles) even more necessary. This guy is only 7 months so he probably has more growing to do. If this was his final result I would not be impressed though.

If I change my answer can I get a gold star too?

Before a hair goes dormant (falls out) and eventually permanently dies, it becomes thinner and "miniaturizes." A doctor can look closely at the areas of your hair that may be experiencing hairloss (the hairline, crown) and see how many miniaturized hairs you have. The more you have, the more impending your hairloss will be without proper treatment.

Looking at your immediate post op I think Spanker is right about the gaps being due to low density/yield in the area. From the edge of your native hair to about 1cm in where the gap is, I can only make out like 15 transplanted grafts. Not many or sure. The contrast in density is probably creating a line/gap effect. You may have had some very slight recession too, but it's unclear. All the seemingly credible studies on Fin (including the one from Merck) show about a 2% chance of side effects. The fact that several large scale, credible studies all agree with each other on that statistic says a lot IMO. I believe in all the studies the side effects resolved when the drug was discontinued. I forget if anyone ever actually had permanent side effects in a study. So you have about a 1/50 chance of experiencing noticeable side effects with Fin... side effects that would almost certainly resolve if you stop taking the drug. If you start out carefully with 0.25mg/day, I think the risk is almost non existent. I think the people with permanent side effects that you read about online are mostly (if not all?) hypercondriacs of some sort. People can lose sexual interest, get depressed, freak out, etc. for a multitude of reasons. Give someone a sugar pill that they believe could cause these and... who knows, it just might.

Based on that one pic, I think you either had a very sloppy HT (the gaps should not have been missed) or yes you've lost some more hair. How much hair comes out when you wash/comb is not a very good indication of whether you have MPB. The best way to determine your level of hairloss is to be examined by a hair doctor and see what your miniaturization is like. I should also add if I was you I'd definitely give Fin a try. I'm sorry to say I think the laser comb is doing nothing, consider trading it in for some Nizoral shampoo.

Well if it makes you feel better everyone experiences hair loss, just to varying degrees. Some of your friends who comment about your hair may be in the same boat soon. And you probably know some people with the same or worse hairloss. You don't have to be NW1-2 to look good. My advice is to get bold and experiment with hair cuts/styles. It can make a BIG difference in your appearance. Unless you've tried shavig it short, you can't say it doesn't work for you. Try it. Keeping it long and trying to hold on can look much worse. Don't live in the past with your current hair.

A cosmetic procedure doesn't follow an emergency lol. Who did you go with by the way?

Are you suggesting if there was a yield issue, it was good because you don't want higher density there? Sounds like a waste of grafts. I'm still of the opinion a higher density (if all the grafts had grown in) would have looked a bit better. I think that makes it a little bit easier actually. Look at picture 5/8 which shows the immediate post op. You can see the holes for the grafts pretty well. In particular note how the grafts form the outline of the sideburn, and how packed together they are (density). Now look at picture 8/8 which shows the result. The outline of the sideburn is missing many hairs, and look how the density contrasts. For example, pre-op I'm counting 10+ grafts in a small area towards very bottom tip of the sideburn. In picture 8/8, in that same area, there's maybe 2-3 hairs there. What happened to all the other grafts?

Wow if this was his final result I would say it was pretty dang good... should get even better in the coming months

Sounds like it was probably psychological

Her right side pic is blurry, but based on the left side pic I'd say this was just OK. I think 1341 grafts was a lot for this, and the yield doesn't seem very high. I see lots of grafts in the immediate post op that did not make it in the result. For FUT especially I would have expected a higher yield. This is just my opinion and I could be wrong of course. The area on the her left that was purely transplanted hairs (bottom portion) looks thinner than the immediate post op would suggest. Lots of grafts holes shown before do not have hairs in the result. The area that did have existing hairs (very top portion) looks good, but it had existing hairs to begin with.

Well put, that's about as good an answer as you're gonna get!