gbhscot

started it 7 weeks ago, feeling a bit weird from it so have reduced dosage to half.

Just to give the follicles time to rest. The thing is, like I've had relatively little shedding so I kind think minox would do a world of good currently. Had been on it prior to HT so worried i'll end up losing ground

Anyone think it's weird that the Dr. said no minoxidil for the first 3 months? Feel like I could really use it currently.

Really cool that you're documenting this so well. Great progress. How long after HT do you reckon is safe to restart dermarolling? I'd love to get back into it, feel it would really speed up my growth tbh. The brief time I was disciplined about dermarolling, I saw a definite spike in gains when I combined it with hanging upside down - sounds like a total joke but i got onto it via Stephen Foote's hydraulic theory of baldness - I think there's something to it.combined with dermarolling.

Could have easily not said anything about mine and nobody would have guessed - despite my ultra red head. In the end, I was too curious and asked colleagues if they noticed a difference, and then had to tell them what was up. All reactions have been super positive, even from my rugby team where I had expected to be totally rinsed for doing this. Its a great conversation topic. Haven't told any friends or family, back home in September for a wedding so excited to see who notices then.

So i am ... Just over 5 weeks post op, for some reason I haven't had too much shedding that I've noticed...maybe 30/40%? I did have some hair left but I certainly see some transplanted hairs which remain. A big worry of mine was the donor - I'd been critical of.dr yamans clinic previously for this. From the below.pics, I think it looks pretty good, will shave shorter in a few days to see just how short I can take it. Having seen so many results and posts on here, I never thought I'd suffer so impatiently waiting for the result! Its killing me! Just 47 weeks to go... Let me know what you think. In particular..anyone know why I haven't shed as much as most guys?! Cheers!

Think you're onto a home run mate, congrats.

Anecdote from today at work : I'm 5 weeks post op, shed maybe 30/40% maybe. Big red head, ugly duck hairs poking straight up everywhere. Colleagues know about HT. One of them who is NW7(more NW34) asks me if I'm happy with it. I say it's early days so need to see. His reply "But it looks like a full head of hair now, you wouldn't notice a thing wrong with it, I'd be thrilled". Other colleagues agree are are already impressed with density. I know it's 5 weeks in and looks terrible. Shows you the difference of experienced eye and what everyone else see's. Your illusion is an illusion to you only.

Looks good! please post some pics of the crown too!

This shows what I mean in one of my above posts too - without being on a hair transplant forum, if you saw a guy get out of a pool with Melvins hair, you wouldn't once think of hair loss. We become too precious about it because we are conditioned to look for it.

More than Cinik, less than Erdogan. Less than 1 EUR per graft however they gave me a particular offer due to my short notice filling a gap I think - you'd need to speak with the clinic for a quote.

Thanks Melvin - I hope so. Knowing I liked my shaved head look actually empowered me to do this funnily enough.

Ahh understand. Pre op he told me 3500 with probably 1500 more later if I want to, but be warned the extraction pattern would become quite noticeable. In the end he took 4k from donor and I think it's looking good. Will post pics later. Also want to ask him what he thinks I have left when seeing it now. My estimate is 2k. I'd have no problem depleting the donor a bit and getting SMP tbh. Sounds irresponsible, but if you go far why not go further. Nobody noticed a thing about the HT, they won't notice the donor either.

Feel free to message me any questions you have about Dr Yaman, happy to answer personally.

4620, but I have a feeling they left 50 or so at the end as the Anästhesie had worn off and o didn't want the pain of injections again.

4 weeks mark now and all see to be going well. Would have expected more shedding than I've had, and still have some pain in donor area when lying down, otherwise no problems to report. Will update with pics later.

Definitely agree that we are...how many guys here are under 30 currently and have had HTs? Seems to be a lot. My hypothesis is a combination of high carb & high fat diet which is playing havoc with cell metabolism (don't believe, google scholar "topical autophagy hair loss" - few interesting papers there. And if that's not left-field enough for you, I definitely think there is a link between our over-pornified youth with hair loss. Potentially due to the effects of prolactin shooting up (not the case through intercourse though) or more likely the effects of dopamine on cell metabolism and insulin - a wrote a post years ago about this somewhere, will try to find.

Yes it was all in one day - a very long, hard day. But over and done with.

How long after a transplant should we wait to get back to Dermarolling? I was getting some regrowth from it before my HT, would like ot get back to it.

Hi all, Can't believe after years of browsing that I get to write up a report on here. Particularly given that I'd been vocally saying I wouldn't bother with a HT having shaved my head and was loving it. In the end, a combination of right time, cancelled plans and a want for variety in the future won out, and I flew on July 12th to Istanbul. Why Yaman? I'll be honest, sitting in Stuttgart airport on 12th waiting on my flight, I was still booked in the next morning to see Dr Cinik. I'd made my booking with Cinik for his premium package, where he does all the channel openings and is generally more involved. I'd booked it, had it confirmed, and booked flights....once I sent confirmation of flights, they came back and told me it was double booked, so I'd be getting a tech only procedure. Obviously set alarm bells ringing and having spoken with numerous Cinik patients, realised that happens a bit too often to be purely accidental. I lost a lot of trust there, and having also seen a few really poor results, wasn't confident with Cinik at all. Nonetheless flights were booked and I was going...however I had Ayfer, Yamans contact, still saved on whats app. Yaman has always had impressive results, although certainly a few horror stories thrown in. I've been openly critical of his donor area work in a few cases on here. In his defence, he has replied on here often, and replied to my messages on whatsapp when questioned, this is something which impressed me a lot. I know there is an element of risk with any surgeon though, and as he was/is recommended on here and has some stellar results, I thought it was worth a punt. His new implanter pen really makes sense to me too in terms of graft survival. I reached out, and When Ayfer got back and said last minute she could make it happen, I jumped at it. Cinik was swiftly cancelled, and as my flight was taxiing, Ayfer sent me confirmation of the transfer pick up point. Game on. Surgery and Clinic Picked up early the next morning, met Yaman in the clinic lobby and he instantly just seemed like a relaxed, warm and confident guy - liked him from the offset, despite a bit of a language barrier. Soon as he saw me he greeted me warmly, and proceeded to have a look at my donor. I'm not an easy case, and I think he was expecting worse as he seemed pretty content with the donor on seeing it himself. The clinic contains a few other cosmetic surgery clinics and was spotless, very modern. Bloods taken and then to the meeting with Dr Y. He sat me down, went through my hair with a trichographic camera pointing out good hairs and weak hairs, measured the donor and recipient areas and then we had a very frank discussion about what is possible. I have a big head, medium thickness blonde hair and I'm heading towards NW6 at 29. I'll never be amazed at my hair density again but Dr Yaman was confident he can get a good look through the front and mid scalp with a thin crown. Possible to fix, should I want to look at it in the future. We talked hairline, he did measurements, I found it all very scientific which impressed me, and decided on a good solution - good to go. Surgery itself is brutal. Dr Yaman did all the channels at first (though I understood my package meant he'd open the channels for the hairline only - definitely a bonus for me that he did it all), and the PRP, then his team began the extractions. It seems a family clinic, his cousin was on the FUE punch, a lovely guy with good English, we talked a lot. They all seem very fond of dr Y as an employer and seem like a close team of family members and good friends. There's something I like about that. I was in the chair for 12 hours. The injections were hell on earth, particularly behind ear and on neck (beard grafts) but aside from that its fine. I forgot to take headphones which was an awful mistake - take something to entertain yourself!!!! After all the extractions, I was given a quick lunch then back in to get implantation started. Three of them worked for 3-4 hours filling the channels dr Y had opened. His implanter takes longer it seems but they used it confidently, were relaxed and just got on with it. In the end, we finished late, near 10 PM. I felt bad for the team, they must have been exhausted after such a large session. Yaman was in and out to inspect the work, and at the end was really positive about it. My Turkish is terrible but I had the impression that he was congratulating his team at one point for their implantations, he seemed really impressed with them. He told me it was very dense, moreso than he had thought possible, and that I can expect a good result. Aftercare So following a wash and final meeting, I was off back to Germany. Everything has gone smoothly, the after care is well documented and Ayfer has been in touch throughout the last days. It is healing well, I'm impressed with the donor so far, only issue being a lot of pain as it heals. Sharp stabbing and i'm unable to rest my head on anything without burning pain. I've hardly slept! I think I'm just unlucky in terms of how my body reacted to the surgery. The beard area healed perfectly with minimal pain - I doubt anyone would notice a thing. As I write this, I'm on day 9 post surgery. I've had some worries about the scabs coming off and taking hairs with them - it looked liked the full follicle at times but having spoken with Ayfer and looked at posts on here, it seems totally normal. I left the shampoo they provide in for a long time last night then gently massaged the scabs, pretty much all came off with ease - I'll stress though, mostly with small hairs, sometimes with the dark bulb like structure attached which scared me - assured that this is all fine and normal though, so anyone in the same situation reading this - relax! The pain persists and my head looks stained with red wine - no surprise to me, my Scottish complexion earns me a sunburn from the light in the fridge, so HT redness was always likely. Summary I've not put too much detail into this but will regularly be answering questions- anything you wanna know just ask. All in all, I'm amazed I went ahead and did it - I was really on the fence for years and was decidedly against it. That said, I'm happy I have now. I've criticized Dr Yaman previously on here, mostly out of disappointment as I'd saved enough to book then seen a result which put me right back to square one. On reflection, too quick to point the finger on my part. Having been to his clinic, I'd say Dr Yaman is a good choice of surgeon, at all times I felt he was competent and that his team knew their stuff too. Only thing I found a bit worrying at first was how young the team seemed - that did make me think twice at first, but at the end of the day, they are well trained by the Dr and all seemed highly competent. Would I recommend Dr Yaman? Yes - if you are thinking of going ahead with HT and have budget constraints, I'd seriously look into his clinic. Certainly before you look at Cinik, Smile etc. I feel he is a class apart, the only other Dr I had considered in Turkey was Dr Arslan Musbeh who I imagine is just as good. From experience though, Dr Yaman is a solid choice and won't let you down - his team makes the experience as comfortable as possible, and he really seems to try and push for the best result for his patients. He's not running a hair mill, I feel he cares about each patient he see's. Of course, It's a results business, and how I look in 12 months will speak for itself - watch this space! Over to you So there's my brief story. Pics are below are from post op, day 7, and day 9. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback and questions. If anyone has suggestions how I can get rid of this donor pain, I am keen to hear them!

Just back from Dr Yaman, was very impressed.

Had a discussion with a friend about hair transplantation - I've just shaved my head and told him I'd still consider a HT one day, potentially, now knowing that I'd be cool to shave my head if it didn't work. He is adamant that it would be impossible because of scarring - both in the donor and recipient area. I have never seen evidence of scarring the recipient area once the area has been shaved, but curious to hear if recipient scarring exists?

Hi Harry, Thanks for replying. Totally agree - every man must decide for himself and we all know how we prefer to look. What you describe was my exact situation. And at first, I probably hated how I looked in the mirror after shaving just as much...for about a day. Then it started to grow on me, its maybe just novelty, but it's actually so clean looking that it's hard not to like. My fear as a diffuse NW5 is that the best we can hope for is middle ground... even the best transplant is still going to be pretty thin, and the maintenance required to keep up the illusion is going to be hard going. To your last point - I agree and disagree - if I get a HT, I'll not go with some Turkish hack mill, but I won't go for anything above 5K. 1) cos it's more than I can justify, and 2) I think the discrepancy in outcome is closing a lot and 3) I know not to expect a miracle, I'd want hair to get me through the next decade, getting married etc, from 40 onwards, bald guys tend to look younger IMO. For me, it's pointless to invest too much. Like I said, all my own opinion. All i'm saying with these posts is to try and look at yourself without the baldness glasses on (which you've done tbf). Then it's time to make a call on it IMO.

Honestly, I would disagree. What the last week of my life has taught me is that once you're in the rabbit hole of hair loss forums and transplant critiquing, you become myopic about the importance of hair for the general aesthetic. It's a vaccum which sucks all other aspects of looks towards it. I've realized how little the rest of the world see's it like that. Also, nothing will age you more than balding, and if a HT can't get an individual beyond a balding look, I question if it's more hassle than it's worth? I was so down recently about my hair, I'd go as far as to say suicidal, I was constantly panicking about the trade off between my looks and mental health and having to gamble with my health on starting propecia and getting a HT. My reality is that I'm an NW5 diffuse thinner, probably too far gone to get a decent result anyways, particularly without propecia. I felt totally blocked in, no choices left. My gf made me shave it, and moreso, made me start paying attention to myself as a whole, not HAIR+me. I don't think I look better without hair now, but nor do I think I look worse, and nor do I think that it's really a big deal for anyone else. Hair is taken out of the equation, so suddenly other features are the focal point, not the lack of one. I'd say to everyone on here - get a HT, sure. Do your research, don't be put off by the thought it's an illusion but be realistic. But before that, shave it off, see how you look and feel, and really ask if its better for you personally to take the worry out your life. These forums seem to turn confident guys almost into Incels in my experience. And btw, I'm not ruling out ever getting a hair transplant, maybe one day - but f**k me, the feeling of liberation from worry right now is an incredible weight of my shoulders.

Hey Melvin, Pics look great - can I ask why you didn't just stick with shaved though? Really suited you. In terms of the maintenance, tbh I'm fine with styling it every day and using fibres, but it's the thought of going through the discomfort and the financial outlay of a HT to persistently feel the same sickening kind of stress I've felt in the last years whilst disguising it - that puts me off big time. How is that from your perspective? Do you ever get sick of worrying about it? Obviously for you the rewards outweight it, but i'm interested to hear how it impacts your day to day.