Speegs

Indeed, the myth of a scarless procedure needs to be extinguished in full. It is an irresponsible piece of salesmanship by some clinics, thankfully none recommended on this forum to my knowledge.

It is a very technical process and you do in part get what you pay for, but many reputable surgeons have competitive pricing compared to the sums you're citing from the Bay Area. All the same, it is an investment, and needs to be conducted with great research and not pursued on the cheap nor if it is financially cost prohibitive for you to do. If you're not in a position to finance your procedure it's best to hold off until you have those means, this will protect your pocket and make sure you're not being led around solely by your wallet, but by what is indeed the best medical procedure and physician suitable for your case.

Take preventative treatment such as finasteride and take pictures every few months to assess if things continue. Right now you're too early in the process to merit surgical attention.

An American trip may be worth it, friend. Closer than Europe, many of the world's best to choose from.

I'd advise you consider finasteride permanently if you have male pattern hair loss, it's progressive.

Feel free to PM me if you want me to share you my story with Dr. Gabel, I have pics I can share with you too. I may be biased in his corner, but not without reason, I chose him after a lot of vetting.

I have all frontal loss, and Dr. Gabel did a very refined hairline on me, took 5 years off of my face. Dr. Gabel and Konior are practically joined at the hip in terms of results and mutual respect for each other's practices, they refer patients to each other from time to time, so if you're considering one you might as well take a look at the other as well. Last bit of flattery I can give Dr. Gabel is that when I went in for a hair cut about three months ago the woman cutting my hair remarked without provocation that she thought I had "one of nicest hairlines I've ever seen on a guy". It felt amazing to hear...and little did she know it was a surgeon's work, Dr. Gabel.

All surgery leaves scarring, mitigating it with expert tools and techniques in the hands of experienced professional surgeons is the key. An FUT will leave a linear scar at the back of your head that will be evident if you shave your head. And an FUE will leave pock mark scar tissues all over your head that will be visible if you shave your head. The real questions is, if you're getting a hair transplant, why would you shave your head?

It's deemed a dicey proposition to any ethical surgeon to tap into a depleted donor, whether that depletion is from previous surgeries or on account of some unfortunate physiological realities such as thinning.

You're making headway, the next four months will be kind of fun as it fills in gradually, then you'll be able to gauge if you want more density or not.

Propecia works the best for the crown and vertex, it can slow down hair loss all over, but it really seems to hold strong at the crown and vertex. Early shedding can be part of the process, but Propecia will not make you lose any hair that wan't already on the way out.

Have had two FUTs with Dr. Gabel, thumbs up all the way. He cares and is involved every step of the way, my only regret is he didn't do my first FUT. He augmented the density big time to make a happy camper, and refine the hairline.

A competent surgeon should do everything in their power to have only one scar, and the tri-closure is a plastic surgery suturing technique known for mitigating scarring potential. The justifiable reasons for having multiple scars are few, perhaps a previous surgery was taken outside of the safe zone of the scalp, or outdated techniques were implemented in the past causing a lot of donor damage. But if any modern surgeon is doing it on an otherwise healthy scalp, run away.

Both Konior and Gabel are trained as head and neck plastic surgeons. I'd reach out to one of those two, if not both.

They are an outlier that effect a minority, and typically only men of an age group that are already predisposed to sexual side effects without finasteride. A vast majority of people get to use finasteride risk free for many years, and see benefits to their hair loss from it.

I've had three FUT procedures, and have one scar to show for it, Dr. Gabel was meticulously careful to make sure that when he did my second and third procedures, that he didn't make any additional scars on the back of my head from my procedure with another physician. I've been fortunate in that I've had enough elasticity for three and only one scar-line, namely because of the skill and care of my surgeon to harvest from an area surrounding the minimal scar tissue and the fact he's made sure the tissue is not damaged so it can be donor hair in the future. All three times my scar has healed successfully and been invisible to my hair dresser and the general public, the trichophytic closure successfully mitigating most scar tissue and allowing hair to grow through portions of the scar to further camouflage it. The success of FUT and donor harvesting placement boils down to two main factors: your personal physiology in regard to donor availability and elasticity, and the skill of the surgeon you entrust with performing your procedure. So choose carefully.

All about your face shape, some men rock a high forehead and slight recession with distinguished looking results, but many others need some aesthetic help and a filling in of the temples or lowering of the hairline to make a cosmetically beneficial framing of the face. No one size fits all solution for this particular issue, it's patient to patient, and all about your personal expectations, facial structure, and donor availability.

Doesn't sound very thorough, I'd be disappointed making an in the flesh visit that wasn't more in-depth.

I'd be curious to learn about this, as I have no experience with it personally or anecdotally. I'd be curious to see how that effects the scalp's response to DHT since it's not directly effecting the blood stream the way the traditional intake of finasteride does.

I'd take pictures and look at them every few months. You have a receded hairline, now it's a matter of making sure your existing hair doesn't thin, thus finasteride is a good idea, especially if there's hair loss in your family.

Hi Uk, Dr. Gabel is in the room to supervise everything, and even places many of the grafts personally. Ultra refined is just describing the meticulous process of individual graft placement, particularly in the hairline, to give a soft realism that blends in with existing hair or recreates a hairline.

It's awesome to see good results for a female patient, this forum is dominated with male cases and for the sake of patient education it's a delight to see some variety in gender cases. HT is for women too, and it's a great advocacy for ladies to see that someone out there is going through similar things that they are grappling with to address. And better yet, you have found a top notch doctor that's helping to remedy the situation. I'm a Dr. Gabel patient too, and can't help but fanboy a bit when I see happy patients come from him.

I'd wait and see how your hair loss looks after taking preventative treatments, FUE is good for smaller procedures, but isn't what I would recommend for your first procedure, particularly if you need to maximize coverage and grafts. I've been in your shoes, and at 33 totally empathize, it was a journey to get my hair back. I started finasteride at 21, I suggest you do the same.

I've been there, my friend. I had a high forehead and natural recession and then in addition started losing my hair at 18. I suggest keeping an eye on it, seeing a dermatologist and getting on finasteride. What's the hair loss history in your family? Is your dad or grandfather bald or thinning?

Hi UK, I can 100 percent vouch for Dr. Konior's professional trust in Dr. Gabel, the two are practically tied at the hip in some of the work they do, including writing literature about their field together. Dr. Gabel did my last two procedures, and his beside manner won me over quickly. He's worth a trip to Portland to see.