refuse2lose

Hairline taking shape! Get ready for an explosion of hair these next months

On first glance they do seem to be spaced out a bit. You had a similar pattern that I had, but the doc told me I needed 2000 grafts. Once it finishes growing and you can evaluate it, you can always do another procedure to increase density. Did the doc suggest only 1290 or was that what your target was?

I would use this thread to share your consultation experiences and then create a new one once you have had your procedure. I had my surgery with Dr. Cooley and he is awesome! I know he does fue but I think his wheelhouse and general recommendation leans towards fut. do you have a preference? In the usa to maximize grafts for 10k you would be getting about 2500 - 3000 grafts fut which is not going to give you a low hairline without sacrificing density. Fue can cost as much as double per graft Turkey does amazing fue and much cheaper. I would do an online consult after your us a consults and then you can have a ballpark for how many grafts for 10k you can get. Can't hurt. Good luck!

Thanks for the kind words everyone. No toppik in these pics.

4 month update. Hair is really starting to come in! Its still very wispy and thin though which shows up when using flash. Hopefully it starts to thicken but I am pretty happy with my progress so far. Using some toppik really makes it look good and match the surrounding hair better.

Awesome progress so far, you started growing pretty early. I'm a week before 4 months and its such a great feeling having the temples seem to get better every day.

Honestly I think the nature of our transplants is just different. My recipient area was slick bald, so any tiny hair is much more visible and easier to see, where as if you are are grafted into a diffuse area its harder to see it at first. Who did you speak with? Lollie did my consultation and she was great.

This should be a fun month! During the first 4 days, he gave me a spray bottle with "vitamins" in it to spray on the grafts every hour. Other than that i'm not on anything else but fin.

3 months. Very exciting to see more growth and a hairline getting established.

2 months! Not seeing anything different so far since one month in my recipient areas. I do feel like my donor is slightly improving. The shock loss got a little worse shortly after month 1, but I feel like it has at least stabilized now and is slightly improving. One month left until I see some growth hopefully!

It took about 11 hours, I watched Seinfeld episodes the entire time, haha.

At the one month mark is it safe to say that all shock loss has "stabilized" and will only get better and not worse?

One month update! Around week two my grafts started to fall out, as expected. A few days ago I noticed what looks like some growth beginning up front which is very encouraging! My donor area feels better every day. The bad news is that around week 2 I noticed some shock loss under my suture line. The good news is that dermmatch makes these areas pretty hard to notice. Not sure what I would have done without this product! Hoping for growth in my shock loss areas but I know that takes time. Everything I have read elsewhere makes it seem like shock loss in the donor is very rare, but thankfully I know that it is nothing to be alarmed about thanks to this forum/site. Just part of the pain to get the gain. :cool:

I have some shock loss under my scar as well. Its tough to handle at first but part of the process. The good thing is you don't look to have any shockloss in your forelock. Have you looked into dermmatch? I use it in the scalp areas in the back and it does a really good job at hiding them. I will try to post some pics.

I got my stitches out last Thursday, 2 weeks after my procedure. Everything seems to be going well, I think i'm starting to shed some of my grafts, but thats to be expected. I trimmed my hair with a #6 guard and the suture line is still not visible in the back, so thats nice. I'll try going lower once the suture line has had more time to heal.

I've been on fin which as stabilized my hair loss, so lets hope that continues. Are you looking at the first set I posted on this page? I think it fills in my bare areas pretty well. My temples were slick bald, zero hair.

And for easy comparing... Damn it was bad!!

Here you go. Can't wait to see what it looks like all grown out!

Here I am at 10 days. At 7 days I went in to Dr. Cooley's office and they gave my hair a good wash and removed all the crusting and scabs. They said that the grafts are now permanent and I can shampoo normally. Still wearing a hat when I'm out in the sun though. I love the look so far, its so nice not having to constantly worry about my hair. Can't wait to get my stitches out this week!

I'm actually about to head out for the first time since my surgery. I let my hair dry and draped it gently over the grafts, I think it hides them pretty darn well. The redness is pretty much gone. I don't go back to work until next monday so i'm pretty confidant I won't have any issues. I'm going to be sad when the grafted hairs fall out :mad:

Thanks! I decided not to do the prp. From the results I saw, it looks like it helps more with diffusion thinning to thicken it. My crown and forelock were of reasonable thickness so I passed and decided to put the money towards more grafts.

haha thanks, yeah my hairline was odd. My forelock was pretty strong, but my temples were slick bald. I'm guessing this is why it took so many grafts for a relatively smaller area, because there literally was no hair there. So thankful for Dr. Cooley and his expertise! I wonder why Donovan and other stars don't often opt for transplant, its not nearly has intense of an operation as one might think!

Day 4 update: Today is the day that I can finally stop wearing saran wrap around the house! I must say that every time I look in the mirror it feels like Christmas with a preview of my new hairline. At first I was wondering if we went too conservative with my design, but I think that 2300 in my temples is going to give me a strong age appropriate look with good density. I'm looking forward to day 7 when the grafts become permanent to see how they look with my original hair after a normal shampoo. What do you all think?

Haha no worries. I actually paid for 2000 grafts, but once surgery was complete he told me they were able to get 2300 out of my strip! So I guess the number you pay for is the minimum yield.

1 hr after procedure: