spartan13

I had about 2200 grafts done by Robert Haber in a FUT session back on Jan 10 of this year. I take finasteride daily and have been for almost a year. Also do minoxidil. I used to do the liquid at bed time, but have been doing the foam twice daily for the past month or so. I went to great lengths to follow the post-op instructions to a "t", and don't have any physiological issues I'm aware of that would impede growth. I saw the clinic at 3 months and they just said "shock loss". My six month follow-up is in July, so I'll have more info for you guys on that in about a month. I definitely realize I need to wait another 6 months to make a fair and accurate determination. The intention of this post was mainly just to see what people think about the different "plan b's" should it come to that. And again, any "plan b" wouldn't likely be until a year from now...a full 18 months post-op.

I'm disappointed to have to report that at six months I still haven't seen much growth. I'm generally where I was when I posted my 3 month pictures...ie, balder than I was before my January hair transplant. While I am certainly planning on giving this last HT a full year, I feel like I have to start thinking about what to do in the event the transplant is an abject failure. I would honestly be fine with a normal thinning look, but here's my problem...because this last HT knocked out a bunch of existing hair, I now have visible pitting from a couple of old 90's HT's. Furthermore, the hair I have left in the frontal 1/3 are those old split, mini & micro-grafts, so it doesn't look natural without my previous native hairs to "soften" the look. Assuming the status quo by spring of next year, I was brainstorming some possible solutions. 1.) Some sort of laser scar treatment like Fraxel in my recipient area to try and remedy the pitting as much as is possible. Then laser out the bigger unnatural looking grafts and just accept balding. 2.) SMP in the recipient area to help hide the scarring while also providing some more illusion of fullness. I've been living with X-Fusion concealer the past three months, and it does help hide the scars...but I hate to think of using it very morning for the rest of my life. 3.) Consult with a good HT surgeon to see if this can be repaired. I should point out that I've had 4 HT's in total, so I'm not real eager for more surgery, and I'm not sure how much more I could realistically get anyway. Three HT's only came out of the back, while this last one took from the left temple through the back. I managed to take a usable self pic tonight for comparison purposes. The one on the left is me 3.5 months post-op, and the one on the right is me no )six months post-op). While there is some improvement, I'm still at a net negative compared to where I started the year at. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I have a blog in which I've posted some of my pics at three months, which is my bottoming out point so far as that is when my shockloss finally subsided. I'll be posting monthly pics there, so I'll be doing 4 month ones next weekend sometime. As you'll see from my picture of the back, I can still hide the scar pretty well, even from myself. I completely agree with you about strip. Even before this issue, I had resolved that this would be my final procedure to "bulk me up" a little and then not worry about my hair from then on. Because it isn't an obvious defect right now, I'm going to just let it be until at least Fall to see if there is indeed some shockloss that might grow back and mitigate it some.

The three scars together are a combined 1 inch, with the very right side of the scar creeping up closer to 1.5. What I was trying to get at was that I had never noticed any significant level of scarring in my donor region prior to this last HT. For some reason this last one seemed to magically expose everything else that had been done previously. It is sparse right under the newest scar, so maybe you are correct about it still being shocked, and that is why I'm noticing all this now. At this point, I'm leary of getting cut anymore, so I may look to FUE some day to help fill things in. It will depend on how successful or not this last HT is. If I don't get any yield from it, then I will likely just look into undoing the 90's work if possible (pitting and larger grafts) and be happy with a balding head. If that comes to be, then I wouldn't mind using FUE grafts in the scarring area. If it produces some results so that I have a normal, mature looking front 1/3rd, then I might not want to use grafts in the scar.

I've been thinking about the body hair/SMP thing more most recently because I'm just not sure that I want my scalp cut anymore, even for a revision. My surrounding hair is still thick enough that it is relatively easy to hide as I've always worn my hair longer, so I feel like that gives me time to make an informed decision without the scar affecting me day to day in the meantime.

They are. What's weird is that I still never had such a gap until this last surgery. So...is this beyond hope?

Dr. Haber in Cleveland was my surgeon, although the lower ones were from prior surgeries. I have not contacted him figuring I will wait until my 6-month follow-up as I'm not sure what he could tell me anyway. Frankly, I doubt I would go back to him if a revision is even an option for me.

I was hoping some of this would fill in, but now that I am closing in on 15 weeks post-op I've resigned myself to the fact that this is the best it will get and began researching scar revision. There's a ton out there, but many of the pics/videos I've seen that indicated a "wide" scar were still only about half the width of the empty patch I've currently got. The average width of my scar is about one full inch, though behind my right ear (the left side of the attached pic) it extends even farther...maybe 1.5 inches. Can this possibly be fixed?

I had the exact same thing 3-4 weeks ago (I am now 14 weeks post op), and I experienced it for maybe a week to two. I called my HT surgeon about it because I was worried it was related to a bad shed I was going through at the time. His explanation was that the prickling was very likely the result of my scalp nerves regenerating. If you guys had FUT as well, that could be the explanation.

After the funeral experience, I made an appt. to follow up with my surgeon just to check on things. I had experienced no shockloss whatsoever after my 2006 procedure so I wanted to make sure nothig was amiss. My scalp looked fine and everything healed up well. I had been on finasteride since the prior September and minoxidil maybe a month or two later. I kept taking the finasteride straight through, and got back on minox maybe a week after surgery. It was just determined to be a classic case of shockloss and my number happened to be up this time. I purchased a case of Dermmatch on the way out to go with the Caboki I had already ordered. I thought I was feeling crummy by the end of month 2, but month three was definitely rock bottom. I had a shockloss reprieve for maybe a couple of weeks tops before it came back with a vengence later in the month. Now I was getting very thick dark hairs coming out in droves whereas before I was mainly getting thinner lighter hairs. And the middle of my head was really starting to clear out when that had always been a fairly bulky area for me. I was fairly dependent on concealer now, just because I couldn't take the constant looks. Attached are some pics taken exactly three months post-op. Again, I'm kicking myself for not taking any pre-op pics for comparison purposes.

I'm a little late to the game as I'm 3.5 months post-op as I start this blog, but pre and shortly post-op I was only minimally aware of this site. As such, this blog will begin with my three-month photos. Unfortunately i didn't take any pre-op pics as I had no inkling I'd ever be doing something like this. So I'll start with a little background. I had two small HT's over the mid-to-late 90's with Nu-Hart when I was in my early twenties (maybe 250 and 400 grafts respectively). In hindsight I had plenty of hair, but I was starting to recede and the prospect of being bald freaked me out to no end. While I should not have done anything at that age, tt was actually fine for a long time but I'm now living with the results of those bad HT's from 15+ years ago. I had another HT with Dr. Robert Haber in OH for approx. 1200 grafts back in 2006. This current procedure from earlier this year was my fourth and largest HT, also with Dr. Haber. MONTH 1 The surgery, while long (I was there approx. 8 hours) was generally comfortable and a fine experience. I was diligent about my post op instructions and never really experienced much pain or discomfort. The area above the FUT scar was numb, but that is normal and something I was used to. The first month was actually awesome. While thinning, I still had a very decent amount of hair, and I loved seeing and feeling the "reinforcements" and envisioning how good things would look once they grew in. The transplanted stubble didn't actually shed until into month two, and I had no noticable shockloss after one month. I had no shockloss from my prior procedure, so I thought I was in the clear. MONTH 2 By the end of month two, my "reinforcements" were all gone and I was starting to experience shock loss to the point that I was balder than before surgery. I mainly believed it was just the transplanted hairs falling out, so I thought; "Yes, progress!" My first real clue that I was losing native/prior transplant hair was catchng people at work staring at my hair during meetings and conversations. Then I actually began to pay attention to the number of hair I was losing in the shower as well as my comb afterwards. Yikes! Shortly after that I had to attend an out-of-town funeral and saw a handful of family I hadn't seen for about 3-4 months. Same story...no one could resist looking at my hair. What I didn't realize at that time was it went beyond just thinning. Those 90's HT's had left a fair amount of pitting and cobbling in my recipient area that I never realized was even there. I'd always had enough hair (until now) to cover it. Furthermore, those old HT's were placed at 90 degree angles, so that hair sticks straight up for almost 1 cm before laying back down (I wear a longer style), leaving a nice open window to view the scarring. Needless to say the close of month two wasn't quite as awesome as month 1. Crap!

Hair321, this is directly from my transplant surgeon's office post-op instruction packet: "After five days your grafts have thoroughly adhered" I even asked again when I was in for my procedure this past January and they told me that once the recipient area heals all up, the grafts would have to be surgically removed to fall out. So in short, I think your grafts are going to be fine this far out.

Hey Spanker. I do actually. I started a thread titled: "Introduction and Shockloss Question" under the Hair Restoration Q&A that this thread is in. There are also a couple of recent pics of mine in that thread as well. Unfortunately I didn't document things from the beginning, but at least you guys can follow my progress from "ground zero" forward.

I agree with the others so far in saying that 2500 would not be to many. I recently had a procedure of nearly 2300 all in the front third of my head, and I went in with a little more density than I see in your pics thanks to prior procedures. As far as reducing shockloss, I have never heard of those protocols you mentioned. I have heard finasteride, minoxidil, and even laser therapy mentioned as modalities to help with shockloss... either individually or all three together. My personal opinion on shockloss is that it is just the luck of the draw. In my prior procedures, I had very little such that I didn't notice any difference. This past one I got hit by the shockloss freight train, and my massive shedding only just stopped about two weeks ago (when I hit the 3 month mark). I have to say though that I seem to be in the minority with that, so I don't think my case is usual. Plus, at 29, I think your existing hairs are probably stronger than mine (I'm 40) and better able to withstand the trauma.

I went to Dr. Robert Haber who is very well regarded on this forum and in the industry. My expectations were to expect nothing until month six, so I'm obviously a long ways off yet. The shockloss/pitting issue I mentioned just has me a little extra anxious for results as I have an office job that I obviously can't wear a hat to. So...my morning routine now rivals my wife's with all the attention to hair. lol! Not familiar with Dr. Feriduni, but I am relatively new here. Where is he located, and is he one of the network surgeons?