matt3480

The results need to be taken for what they are....they are anecdotal. Four people is absolutely not enough to be statistically significant. You can't cherry pick stats. If you are saying 43% of FUE grafts won't grow.....then you are admitting 13% of FUT don't grow, either...and I don't think anyone would be OK with three of those four results posted for the FUT, either (meaning the 83, 87 and 76 percent yields posted given we are to expect 95-98 percent yield). It's simply one study by one doctor on 2 patients. Another doctor might have 90% yield versus 95% for FUT in 4 patients. That isn't necessarily indicative of anything either. Yes, generally we know FUE yields less and we know why. However, to imply it's 43% is a bit misleading given that people will run with these numbers as gospel, unfortunately. I'll tell you this much....my yield was sure as hell much higher than 57% on FUE (I bet it was easily in the 90s).

There are balances and trade-offs then. Would you be OK with the 97% FUT satisfaction rate if you have the chance the scar might not heal correctly? Would you be OK with 90% FUE knowing the scar won't be of significance? Most would. The scar thing is patient-dependent, too. You could get the nicest and most undetectable scar from a doctor...but if you stretch it or have a tendency to scar badly....no doctor is going to be able to account for that or fix that.

I know this. Go. to. a. good. doctor. That will severely limit yield issues. I'm sure Dr. Beehner is a great doctor....but both yields would not be acceptable that came up in his FUT/FUE study....so what is the common denominator there? We've seen his work...we know darn well we've seen pics of his patients with much more than 87% yield for FUT (so the stats almost aren't even statistically significant for him)....so the point is you need to take these numbers with a grain of salt. They are NOT statistically significant and these numbers can vary greatly based on the doctor and his skill and the patient and their physiology.

I would love to see stats from the FUE top doctors, too. Even that would not be gospel as to FUE rates...it would just be FUE rates for those doctors. It's like batting average in baseball.....a guy hits against the top 20 pitchers in a 20 game stretch and hits .200. We compare him to a guy who hits against the statistically worse 20 pitchers in baseball and he hits .400. Does it mean the second player is a better hitter than the first? No.

Blake, how realistic would it be for FUE doctors to actually look at these grafts under microscope....would this be a ridiculously time consuming thing (especially since you want to keep these out of body for as little time as possible). Honest question....I just don't know.

Let's be honest....do most patients really read the pre-op paperwork (with the exception of what medications to take and when)? Probably not.

Hair transplant surgery is very unique. It's not like getting a nose job or boobs....where the result is instantaneous. It's very unique in that the hair falls out for months that was there after surgery and then maybe it grows back...maybe it doesn't.

I do believe that people who come on here who don't know the very basic principle that your hair will shed after the transplant almost have no business getting a HT. If you don't even know that....how can you even have the knowledge to pick a good surgeon...which is the NUMBER 1 factor in a successful or failed HT.

I had about 2,700 the first time (althought 775 or so were for temple points and he brought my hair out a bit on the sides since it made the receding look worse with a "wider" forehead. So, I really only had 2,000 in the frontal third). My frontal forelock was pretty light (and obviously temples had no hair).....combined with fine hair....made it a necessity to have a second one to have good density. Like you said on your's....he did a good job with not a ton of grafts. I am going to have him just fill in between the existing transplanted hairs and make the hairline as dense as possible. I'll probably get anywhere from 1,000 minimum to 1,500/1,750...whatever he thinks I need. It's hair greed....plus I live 45 minutes away from the office...so why the heck not.

Haha, yes, I know! I wasn't criticizing. I am getting my second HT with Dr. K in T minus 10 hours actually:D

Looks real good! Remember, you said you were keeping your hair 3 inches just to get something similar before....and your hair is, what, maybe an inch and a half now? In your pre-pics....you could tell you were covering it up pretty bad...whereas now, it's your actual hairline.

Awesome work....

Harryforreal....gel normally clumps your hair together and shows more scalp than normal. I can imagine the patient's hair looks even better dry.

I get that you should have single hair follicles at the very front of the hairline for purposes of looking natural....maybe the first 0.5cm or so. After that 0.5 to 1.0 cm....what's more important, grafts or hairs per square cm?

In other words...would you rather have say.....50 2-hair grafts behind it? Or 40 3-hair grafts behind? I have fine hair...so I am thinking the more hairs, the better (whereas it might not make much difference if you had coarse hair).....and thus not to focus on graft counts so much. Also, I am talking about just at the very first, say, 2cm of the hairline (I realize that in your forelock and mid scalp that you would want as many 3 and 4 hair grafts as possible).

I am getting a density bump in the hairline with Dr. K next week....and I'm probably only going to have him transplant in the first 2 to 2.5cm of the hairline (roughly 35-40 square cm area total).

It seems I see mostly 1 hair grafts at the very front...and then 2 hair grafts behind it. Why don't people go to 3-hair grafts behind it instead of 2?

That's seriously a great result. I thought for sure you were going to be disappointed after seeing those 7-month results.....but that was seriously a 180 degree turn to 10 months. Congrats!

Yes, I believe average is just above 2 (thought I read somewhere it was about 2.2). I think a lot of it depends on the goals of the surgery. Obviously, if you are trying for coverage....you would probably want as many 3, 4, 5's as possible. At the hairline...you obviously would want mostly 1's.

3,000 hairs is 3,000 hairs.....but 3,000 hairs from 3,000 1-hair grafts is much different than 3,000 hairs from 1,300 grafts $$$$-wise. On my 2,800 graft session....I had around 2,075 put on the temples and forelock...and I think I got around 5,000 hairs. On my temple points....I had maybe 700 grafts but all were purposely pretty much 1-hair units. So I got about 6,000 hairs with 2800 grafts or so.....but most were 2,3,4,5 with the exception of those temple points.

I'm getting a second pass done in January for purposes of density....and I'm hoping to get as much bang for the buck as possible....lots of 2-4 hair follicles.

Is that little 3cm area the only part you are concerned about? That would be an easy touchup....I bet 100 grafts. It's not abnormal to sometimes need a small touchup and most reputable surgeons would have no issues doing that. Very easy to get between those hairs in that area since, as you said, you didn't yield much at all there....

Looks great! It looks like you actually had a fair amount of growth at the hairline from months 6-10??

5% won't do much alone I don't feel.....I know some say it works great....but it hasn't done anything for me. Reduce the Fin doseage and see what happens...I take 0.50mg per day and really haven't had much in terms of sides (had a bit of brain fog but I started taking the pills at night instead of during the day and that has seemingly solved the issue). I don't feel people need more than 0.50mg based on the studies....and I'm not sure I'd risk taking more than 0.50mg.

Tough one.....from what I gather, he doesn't like to do surgery on people that young unless it's an extenuating circumstance (like you are ridiculously bald at 24 and are so depressed you haven't left the house in years). You definitely don't fit anywhere near that category. That being said, if you are stabilized and have good donor, etc.....I bet throwing 1,000-2,000 up front would do a lot for you and you'd be golden.

Hard to tell from pics....definitely need to be examined in person. It does look a bit low from the pics....but the lighting can be misleading.

Looking good Matt! Congrats!

Thanks David, ditto!

Damn! such a beautiful result, I don't think you even need a 2nd pass through your result is so good! but I know how you feel about trying to get it better ... I just passed a month on a 2nd FUE with Dr. Rahal after he rebuilt my frontal zone, I decided I wanted more behind it to cover the crown .. we always seem to want more!?!? The naturalness of Dr. Konior's work is literally jaw dropping.. congrats man

Oh, no doubt.....like I said, hair greed is real. With most people, this would be more than satisfying and they'd be done. Again, I'm fighting the fine hair caliber I have. If I had even a normal hair caliber, I doubt I would need another pass. The donor area looks great....my stylist doesn't even know where it was done. Does a number 1 buzz on the donor area maybe show a bit more scalp than it used to? Of course.....I had 5,000 hairs taken. However, by the time it grows out to a #2 or so.....the scalp is covered and there is absolutely ZERO difference that I can tell or anyone can tell, either wet or dry....and I don't keep it that short (#1 guard) on the sides or back, so it's moot.

My whole philosophy is if one has the money....you might as well take what you can from the sides and back and put it where you need it. My donor definitely has some grafts left and I doubt I'm going to ever need one to address the crown or mid-scalp. I'm on Fin and I feel I've responded well (had really no sides) and I just don't think I'll progress that far (Norwood wise) anytime soon....and I don't see myself caring as much when I'm 60 (or at the least hopefully there will be other options by then...cloning, etc.).

Here are some more wet pics....bit higher quality....again, when I say the left side is a bit weak at hairline...it would be the right side if I am looking at you (or the left side if you were in my body). It's probably a side that Dr. K would look at it and want to do a small touchup.....like literally 50-100 grafts. Not a big deal. Again, I don't think the plan was to make the very front real real thick at first. Most of my grafts were concentrated in that frontal forelock and areas where, remember, I had zero hair (and two passes is the better bet in those areas). He definitely wanted to be cautious but I have a real good base now.

However, this is where another 1,000-1,500 grafts at my May appointment should thicken these up very nicely and provide very good density. The obvious plan is to get in between what is growing now.....although I obviously want as much in that first 1cm or 2cm as possible.....since the rest of my hair behind that first 1cm or 2cm gives a nice illusion of coverage when dry at this point.

I'm pretty sure I've done all the growing I am going to do....and again, even with hair maturation over the next few months....due to my fine hair, I doubt there will be a huge difference visually due to maturation versus someone with normal or coarse hair.

Here are some dry pics.....the one where I am looking at the camera has a little bit of Dermmatch on....but that is my natural hairline shape now. BIG different from before.....not to mention my hair is maybe 1.25 to 1.5 inches in these pics. I haven't been able to wear it that short in a long time.

OK, pic time.....these are with my hair wet and slicked back. My hair naturally lays to the right. You can see the only area I felt didn't grow real good was the left part right at the hairline.....I would say the first 1cm. It had been lagging the whole time. I was more bald on my right side....so more grafts were placed there. As you can see from the top pic....I just have fine hair, there isn't going to be much that is going to change that. Let's be honest, I'm never going to be a hair gel guy (all paste here). When the hair is dry, it's not see-through on top. You can see what a difference the temple points back. I like to keep my sides very short (like a number 2 or 3 guard). I'll probably have Dr. K add a little bit to the temple points....we are probably talking 100 grafts max....just to add a bit of density at the edges and also to make my shape consistent on both sides in terms of the temple points.

Hey, all is pretty good....I did book a second procedure for May just to get more density at the first 1-2cm of the hairline (Dr. K thinks another 1k-1500 will top me off pretty good....hopefully lots of 2, 3, and 4 hair grafts). Hair greed is definitely real. Remember, I have really fine hair so I'm going to need more density than the normal person. Hopefully I'll be able to spike my hair up after the second procedure and ditch the Dermmatch for good. The whole point of a first procedure is to frame the face and that definitely did this for me.....I am looking at the second as a cherry on top. If you are going to go some of the way, you might as well go all of the way.

Temple points are definitely a must....lot of bang for the buck there....at least in my case they were.

I'll get some new pics up in the next few days. Some definite pluses.....I can wear my hair much shorter than I used to. I used to wear it 2.5 to 3 inches long. One of the things you learn to do is experiment with hair lengths after the HT. There is no doubt there is a sweet spot as many have said. I have learned that even 1.75 inches for my fine hair is too long now....so I'll probably keep my hair between 1.25 to 1.50 inches. My hair definitely looks thicker from 1 inch to 1.5 inches than it does longer (I grew it to 2 inches until last week and just had a half inch taken off). That may change once I get more density in the front.

I'm definitely glad I did it......but I want that home run. Like many doctors will tell you....and it's not just lip service....but it really does take 2 passes (especially in areas where you had zero hair) to get great density, especially if you don't have the best hair caliber. Again, though, I want that 10 out of 10....whereas most of us would be happy with a 8 out of 10 (especially when I was probably half of that before).

Really looking forward to May....and hopeful I might be able to get in before then if someone cancels (people aren't kidding....Dr. K is indeed booked 6 months out). Heck, I booked this a month ago....and May 3 was the first appointment available....so that's 8-9 months.

Wow, looks amazing! You look like you have some killer donor hair characteristics....definitely always produce the best results!

You apparently have all the answers and have apparently answered your own question....feel free to move on:)

You come off as an incredible douche. Not going to get much help here acting as such.

I find "EXACTLY" to be illogical. I've seen photos of FUE voids and scars. Unless hair magically takes up no space there has to be some density loss. There are about 90k-140k hairs on the typical human head, depending on color and ethnicity. You had maybe 3% of them removed from a significantly smaller area than the whole scalp, making it a larger percentage loss relative to the donor area. If you have before/after photos, let's see them.

Not illogical, at all. It was probably a good idea for you to postpone...and you probably should use the time to do some research. If you had, you would know the donor isn't going to look less dense until 50% of the hair is gone. 2,800 from the back and sides of your head isn't even close to that....so yes, it looks EXACTLY the same as before.

Easy call.....Gabel. I believe he trained under Dr. Konior. Enough said.

Cosmetic surgery is not something you chance just to "give a new kid on the block a chance." Be serious. I had FUE 4 months ago....2,800 grafts (so not a small procedure). My donor looks EXACTLY like it did pre-op.....and I mean exactly. I could shave it to a 1 guard and it would still look the same as pre-op.