menosmolas

Hello everyone, a 12months update. I have no big news, the hairline and density looks natural and solid since the 6-7th month, and I do not seen any noticeable trace in the donor area. I think I have been just very lucky and the procedure turned out very well for me. My main problem keeps being dealing with the sides of the medication (1.25 mg of finas four times per week), which now I know I cannot discontinue (when I did I have a terrible cosmetic loss in 6m). I attach some photos with the same light as always.

I 'm sorry that you have had no good results KO. I cross fingers for it going better as soon as possible. I do not want to add any noise to the conversation, but indeed the medication stopping its effect can have a devastating effect in few months, I had a terrible cosmetic loss in half a year when i was not taking it regularly (and actually this made me undergo to a HT under a unbelievable lot of stress). Also, another thing that we all should bear in mind is that, even if the doctor is good and the procedure/post-op goes well, there is no granted results, unfortunately. best of the luck again KO, I'm confident you will be in a better position in the near future.

Hi everyone, i thought i could make a small update, now that i've overpassed the 8th month landmark. Everything looks great to me, and honestly it was like this since the 5th month post-op, so I think I have been lucky. The hairline looks very solid and totally natural, and the rest of the transplanted area looks perfectly fine. There is no noticeable thing in the donor area neither at 3mm buzz (I did not cut it shorter lately). I upload some crappy photos I took with my mobile, I will try to take better ones and post it too. Overall, although there was some quite stressful moments in the way, the procedure has been a very good decision and besides the sides of the medication (this is another story) is quite liberating that the hair is not a big issue in my current life. good luck to everyone!

If for any help, the growing in my case started to be meaningful at the 4 and a half months post-op follow-up. hope you the best!

Hello everyone, another update in my 5 and a half months post-op. The growing has been happening since last month (meaning that it started to kick at 4 and a half months after the procedure). Together with the hair that did not fall in the ugly duck phase and the general longer length, the feeling of density is really good at this point. The hairline also looks very natural (I want to note that now I'm happy I chose 'the most conservative' hairline option, although I had second thoughts on whether it was the best option after the procedure ). The redness of the skull is also totally fade out since some weeks ago. In summary, and regardless of what is going to happen in the incoming months, it looks already very good to me at this follow-up time point. I attach some photos; as always, the look is really depending on the light, so I use the same one that I have been using for the remaining of my posts (which I would say is medium harsh). The upper row have two photos with the hair wet and two with the hair dry. The lower row shows the donor area with very short hair (2mm buzz). You can probably see some 'red-brown dots', which corresponds to the extraction scars; it is noticeable, but not that much, and they can pass for just some sort of pimples. In any case, with the hair a bit longer, you can not see anything. What it's a bit more obvious to me is certain depletion in some areas, but it is still in the 'totally ok' range. best to everyone--

Thanks for your comments; @fullheadofhair , to make a long story short, I had a short list of doctors based on the quality of their work (that I was able to recopilate browsing very intensively internet) and the feeling I had with the online contacts with them (and I say online because I had no physical visit before the procedure, which is not the ideal solution). Once I had such a short-list, the final decision was mainly driven by agenda issues. In general, the most important for me was to be sure that everything that is my responsability as a patient and everything that is relying in the doctor/clinic is carried on in the best way possible. Thereafter, I can embrace any result with some peace of spirit, and blame anything going south mainly to factors that can not be fully controlled. In this regard, and at this point, I'd say that two top-pros of Lupanzula is that he makes the grafts extraction and incision himself, which to the best of my knowledge is not that common, and a very good patient attention. hope it helps!

same here. Thanks for sharing!

Hello everyone, here the 4 months (and 8 days!) update. The hair that did not fall down after the procedure keep growing normally and with an optimal caliber. It has been great to keep them, so the ugly duck phase has been not that bad at all. There was no sign of any new hair till about 15 days ago, when some new ones started to appear little by little. It's hard to say how much of growing is happening, I would say that not that much at this point, but enough to improve a bit the overall density. I'm looking forward to see more of these guys kicking out soon. The most striking thing is to have recovered a hairline, it s a great feeling. All these visits to the toilet without the traditional 50 seconds combing the hair to cover the temples strategically is awesome. Regarding the density, I do not know in which zone I am as compared to the 'normal' follow-up. It's hard to say even my own feeling, since it depends so much of the mirror-light I look myself into. I attach some photos: the first row is with wet hair, the second one is with dry hair, both in my toilet mirror. I think it gives a fair appreciation of the 'real density'. However, probably it is too harsh for evaluating the 'illusion of density'. For that, I added a third row with photos taken under a less direct light that gives some kind of lion king hair diffuse effect. Probably the reality is somewhere in between. Hope that this helps to give an idea to the interested people of the follow up so far. Thanks to everyone and good luck!

Thanks everyone for the comments, specially to Gillenator and his expert answers. Today is the 3 months post op landmark, so I include some photos here, although nothing changed since the last post 2 weeks ago. The hairs that did not shed (transplanted ones and I guess some of my original ones too) keep growing happily, so the ugly duck phase has not been as bad as I was fearing. No signs of new growing yet though, as expected, so I'm looking forward very much to see what will happen in the incoming weeks. As another note, I just 2mm-boozed my sides and back at the barbershop, and although I can spot some 'red dots' from the donor scars, it's quite difficult to see them and I feel confident enough to have the hair that short without fearing anyone spotting the thing. best to everyone --

Hey KO, yes, I have also some flaking --specially in the transplanted area, meaning within the frontal-- after the HT (2.5 months post now). I have not have it before, so I assume that is likely related to the procedure. It is noticeable but not a big thing, in any case. By the way, congrats for the procedure, hope it will go very well. In case it may be somehow helpful, to mention that most of my transplanted hair was holding till the 6th week post-op, but it was growing very poorly. From the 6th to the 8th week, most of the shedding occur (difficult to say, but maybe I lost 60-70%), whereas the rest of the hair started to grow at a normal pace.

This photo is from this morning (so about 2 months and a half post-op); awful photo skills, but it reflects fair enough the current state. As a comment, the areas in which less transplanted hairs have fallen are those in which I have more original hair (in other words, the transplanted hairs have fallen more in those areas in which I was 'more bald' originally). But I do not know to which extent the guys that I have now in my scalp are my own versus new recruits. Not important, in any case, and I would say that so far so good.

Hi everyone, Just a quick 2 months update, in case that it is helpful for those seeking close follow ups. I kept about two thirds of my transplanted hair till the sixth week, although most of it was growing very slowly and in general looked 'sad'. From the sixth to the eight week I lost most of it, but I would say that I still have at least 25% of my transplanted hair in its place and growing healthy, and I guess this is a stable situation at this point. I do not have any other special issue to highlight at this time mark, my donor area looked fine when recentle boozed at 2mm (although a very ninja-close look may spot the scars), and my redness in the transplanted skin is still fading out but nothing too obvious. I do not have means to post photos now, I will do it at the three months follow up. Merry Christmas!

Thanks for the answer guys, indeed I was well-informed of the shedding, I was just wondering if I would be lucky enough to do not loss the 100% of the transplanted hairs, since I heard that not always have to happen. Today it's 5 weeks mark and the situation is quite the same, quite a lot of the transplanted hair is still there (although looking a bit sad and not growing well) and I would say that I start to have some tiny hairs just popping up now (although they could be my native ones that were still holding in the transplanted area) I guess that there will be a point where the shedding will happen massively and suddenly. I will update when something more meaningful happens. On the other hand, I did not take the decision of what to do with the topical finasterida, my side effects with the pill are borderline of being a big problem, so that is stressing me a bit, I will procastinate the decision till after Christmas. best to everyone!

Hi everyone, 1month update: I attach three photos, one with dry hair (up) and the other with wet hair (bottom left), both with artificial light, and the last one with natural light (bottom right) Probably not the most pro photos, but I hope they are good enough to give you an idea. I guess that I'm suffering the shedding, but it's quite progressive and I would not be able to say how much of the transplanted/original hair of the area is still holding. In any case, the hair there has quite a sad looking, since besides the density, what it is more obvious is that it is growing heterogeneously (i.e. different sizes) and at quite a lower pace that the rest (so the one in the rest of the scalp is larger). Since I'm still in my 30-days mark, I assume that it will keep falling, although I heard that it does not need to fall the 100% (any feedback here would be appreciated!) No big things to mention except: one, that I had a very bad itching in my donor area and I needed to go to the pharmacy; a corticoid gel helped a lot, and now it's much better (I did not check it out with the clinics since it was weekend and it was quite bad). And second, I'm using only the oral finasteride; I did not receive yet the data from the clnic (they told me they are waiting for the pharmacy) that they claim demonstrates that the use of the topic one does not expose the body to too much product but that it is equivalent to the 1mg oral Finasterida dosage. Let me know if someone needs some extra info! best

I have been provided with one topic finasteride to give it a try, in my case not because the side effects of the pill, but because the oral version seems that has decreases its efficacy after many years of using it. But I just realized that the concentration of finasteride in the gel is stated as 2.5%. This seems a lot to me, since (if i'm not wrong) 1ml of the gel translate to 25mg of the active product. Even assuming that the absortion of the scalp is far from 100%, it sounds like a lot. I also read some scientific literature, and they use lower concentrations to check out the effect of the med. Those other people that are using the finasteride gel (or hear about it), can you share the concentration? thanks!