matt3480

I also am a bit surprised you were advised that tanning was OK.....no way in heck would I over-expose the area to sun for a solid 6 months after.

2 weeks? Eh.....can't say I've ever heard that is OK. Having redness is a small price to pay versus over-exposure and grafts not growing.

Agree with Sean......not only run away from this surgeon, but demand a refund. You went from not looking thin to now looking thin.

Did he really say stem cell replication? Well, by damn, you are a first in history then. You should out this surgeon and he should lose his license. It's surgeons like that who shouldn't be practicing, at all.

In my time on this site......I just still can't understand why some of you people pick the surgeons you have. It can't be money because the difference in price is not huge between hair mills and some of the top surgeons. There are about 10-15 surgeons in the US who should be considered and NO ONE ELSE. The rest either plain suck and shouldn't even have licenses or they don't consistently produce quality results.

Lucky for you this can easily be fixed by having a top surgeon fill in the areas. Regardless, you wasted, what, a year of your life now and $$ because of a bad decision.

Both are excellent....but I agree with spanker, I do not believe Shapiro is held in higher regard than Dr. K.

Also, you are missing one very important thing with FUT....the incision in the back. Dr. K is known to have flawless and pretty much invisible scars. Remember, he has a background in cosmetic surgery. When other surgeons screw people up scar-wise....they go to Dr. K to have it fixed.

As for being conservative.....it depends on your hair loss and expectations. Sure, you might want a low hairline when you are a NW5. Maybe a surgeon out there will try to do that (unethical) for you, too. Or...you could get a hairline that is appropriate for the extent of your hair loss....Konior will definitely do that for you.

They are both great....you won't go wrong with either.....but I think scar-wise in the back, no one will make a better incision than Konior.

The quality of hair in your donor is EVERYTHING. You look to have a finer caliber of hair so you need a ton more grafts than the normal person (who has normal caliber hair or even coarse hair) to get where you want to be. The pics of the Italian guy who received 5k grafts is not something to base a decision on....Italians normally have thicker hair. 5k grafts on someone with thick donor hair would cover A LOT....probably would take 7k to 8k on someone with fine hair to achieve a similar result. If you ask enough doctors, someone will take your case on. However, Dr. K was honest with you.....you can't ask for much more.

The good thing is beard, chest hair, etc. transplants are getting better it seems in terms of growth. If I were you, get on Propecia now and see what it does for you in a year.

Yep, Dr. Gabel is very highly regarded......he was taught well.

Dr. K is excellent....I've had 2 FUE surgeries with him and his FUE work is as good as his FUT work. There is a reason he is booked out 8-9 months.....he is just an all-around caring and great surgeon. Very glad I found him and had access to him.

Yep, totally normal....not much you can do about it. I was pink for many months.....like 4-5 at least. At that point, the hair started growing in and eventually covered it. It does fade eventually, though....

Cooley is definitely a well-respected surgeon in the field....but Dr. K is in a whole nother' stratosphere. If you can wait out Dr. K's backlog....I would definitely go with him.

Looking good to me......great job. And trust me, getting a little sun will be your friend, too. Shaved head, SMP, balding, shaved head with no balding...all just look better with a little sun and color.

If you were a NW5, there is no doubt you would need a second pass for density. That's a lot of loss....it's hard to go for the home run there because you have a finite amount of grafts and with the number you need.....you would be screwed if only 60% grew.

No doubt, hair characteristics is the single most important factor in looking like a 10. If you have course hair.....even if you are a little more advanced NW-wise, you can get back to normal density. If you have fine hair....even with a lower NW, you will still need a lot of grafts and definitely 2 passes. A NW3 with thick hair (let alone one with great donor density) is going to look better with less grafts than a NW3 or even NW2 with fine hair.

If you were a NW5, you would have to probably about max out your donor to get normal density all over.....and sometimes that isn't smart. Remember, on a scale of 1-10...it's not like thick hair is a 10, normal hair is a 9, and thin hair is a 8. It's more like thick hair is a 10, normal hair is like a 7 and thin hair is a like 3. Just even normal hair caliber is easily 2x as good as fine hair caliber in terms of results.

Hair style is big, too. I don't know how old you are.....but the faux hawk thing is out. Stop doing that once you get in your 30's. I could have no baldness at all....and the spiking the hair up think would still not work for me because of how fine my hair is. You'd have to have ridiculous density (AKA teenager like) to do that with fine hair. With normal or thick hair? You could still pull that off even with signs of balding.

My whole goal is to look good with hair at 1/2 inch or so....because even though I would never keep it that short...I know if I'm even density wise at 1/2 inch, I will only be better at 1-2 inches.

I know we all look at Matt1978 as the gold standard but Matt had some thicker hair....and especially when grown out, makes it look great. He was lucky with his characteristics.

No, someone canceled so I was able to move up. I did shave....wasn't a big deal to me. I am self-employed and work from home so almost literally never have to do my hair if I don't want to. I think my ideal length is 1 inch to 1.5 inches....so it's really only 2-3 months of growth.

I had a quite a few 5's in my first one.

Again, we only went in the first 1.5 cm on the December 1 one....you really don't want to use 4's that far up....you want to keep those for areas further back. I think 2's and 3's are ideal there in the area right behind the initial single hair hairline.

Yes, the 2.6 is definitely because the doctor can pick and choose the multi-hair follicles. That was for my original 2,075 on March 31. For instance, when I went back April 15 (which he only worked on my temple points), I only averaged 1.0....which was the whole plan on temple points (775 grafts....all singles).

From what I've researched.....those with lower densities in your donor area (I have an average, at best, density in my donor) normally have naturally higher amount of 3 and 4 hair follicles...whereas someone with real high donor density has a naturally less amount of 3 and 4 hair follicles.

I had another transplant with Dr. K on December 1.....just under 1,200 grafts...for about 2,600 hairs (so about 2.2 hairs there)....all in the first 2cm of the hairline. They were maybe 800 2-hair grafts and 300 3-hair grafts. Trust me, I indeed do have very very fine hair (the pics aren't high quality to show that).....I needed the density bump, no doubt. The second one has not yet started to grow....but I expect to have good progress by the end of March or April (although second HT's normally grow slower). That was the downside of my transplant maturing...it went from coarser hair in the initial growth (which I loved) to my natural finer hair...so naturally I lost a little bit of coverage due when that maturation happened. I truly felt I was pretty much done sprouting hairs by month 4.5 and fully matured by month 6 or 7. Again, that is just my characteristics. Many people's HTs start out growing what they consider "thin" (but that's probably because they have normal/coarse hair).....and for them to actually have that fine hair turn into normal hair....it could very well take a year.

If I had even a normal caliber hair (let alone coarse)...I probably would not have needed a second pass. However, it was definitely necessary.

No doubt that your hair characteristics play a HUGE role in what your final outcome will be. If you have fine hair....it will take much more donor (and much more $$$) to achieve the result that someone could achieve with normal or coarse hair.

Yeah, shock loss went away 100%. I didn't have any shock loss from my December one. I recovered fast and well from that one.

Let's be honest.....run from any place who does FUE or HT's in general because it's an extra "revenue stream." It sounds like a shi**y tavern that starts serving food to generate more income. Would you pick that food over a 5-star steakhouse? No.

It seems FUE is the new Botox.....where anyone and everyone is now dabbling in it. Like others have said....for starters, stick to only surgeons who perform HT's and nothing else.

2 months to 2.5 months post-op was probably my worst looking period post-op. I had shock loss in my donor, I was pink.....etc (so you could argue I looked even worse than pre-op).

By month 4....everything was turning around and by month 5.5-6 it was pretty darn good. You won't notice hairs even growing for another 30-45 days and even then it's just the beginning.

Like chestnut said, you basically guaranteed yourself a successful HT with Dr. K so rest assured.

Actually, just saw your other thread....no doubt you are receded on the temple points/sides. I think getting 750-1000 grafts to redo those would do much more for you than lowering the hairline (not to mention would use much less donor).

You look receding in the temple points....which makes you look like you have a wider forehead and thus a larger degree of hair loss than you might really have. I had a similar issue...Dr. Konior brought my temple points out and it helped considerably. I think you might also benefit from that. I know some doctors simply won't do temple points....but I think most would agree they are essential in framing the face. It's hard to tell without being able to see a side shot of you, though.

Wouldn't get one in Turkey.....even if I lived there. You said the magic word, "doubt", and there has been a lot of it coming from Turkish doctors the last few months on here it seems.

I had mine financed through Lending Club through my surgeon....12 months, 0% APR.

Your other alternative might be to apply for a 0% APR credit card....I just got one with a $20k limit and 0% APR for 12 months (Capital One) and another for $6k with 21 months 0% APR (Citi).

Looks good!

I get what you mean....it looks a little thin at the hairline. That being said, yeah, a lot of people would kill for that hair. If you have the available donor, then why not. If you had 1,000 grafts left in your donor....then, no....I'd leave it.

I would not think you would need more than 1,000 or so....especially if you have a thicker hair caliber. Obviously, reduce the chances of problems and go with FUE and go with one of the 5 best surgeons.....you know who they are....Konior, H and W, Gabel, Shapiro, etc...

Looks like he did a nice job....good luck with the healing!

Exactly...it's well known Urlacher isn't the brightest tool in the shed. Most of these guys (celebrities) have no clue what they are doing when looking for something like this. Hell, the doctor could be one of his friends and he could be doing this as a favor. He definitely has concealer in, too.....

Eddie Olcyzk had one?? I just saw him on TV tonight, he looks awesome. EDIT: Now it makes sense...he was bald in his crown but has a pretty perfect hairline.

Yes, an extremely unknown......can't say how good the work is without seeing pics of the hair he had grown out. I'm skeptical....

Agreed.....I insisted on name brand Propecia as I read too many stories of people switching and finding out the generic didn't work, as well. It might be a myth but why risk it?

Looks great, SUCH a difference.