LordWalden

Forgot this - yes! I am on Fin. I've been taking a generic fin for at least 5+ years or so. Have had no bad side effects. I haven't touched minox for a LONG time. Not sure if I even need to anymore at this point, and since I also have a cat, I love not having to worry about using it (minox is seriously deadly to cats!) I use a sulfate free shampoo for daily use, I use Nizoral about once a week, and I have a Head and Shoulders for a "stronger" clean if I'm feeling my hair is really grimey from product after awhile.

So, I went and got me an undercut, a haircut I've always really liked and one that's been stylish for a very long time throughout a number of different eras, and also a big reason why I wanted to undergo FUE - no strip scar for a short cut in the back! I tried to get some close-up pics of the hairline but the results were less than stellar... apologies for the slight blurry-ness. There is a clay-matte pomade product in it - shoutout to Lockhart's hair products. I am going to see Dr. Gabel for a check-in on my 1 year period of growth soon. I will have some really nice high quality photos around early June. Stay tuned.

Hmm... I saw growth very quickly. The very first month though, all my hair fell out. I was back to looking like I was before the hair transplant. 3 months in, I remember having a bit of growth, but the hair was thin and sparse. By 6 months, I had seen significant growth. Just keep waiting man. I'd say at least give it 6 months. Between 3-9 months in, I got a massively significant chunk of growth in. I'm coming up on 1 year at the end of May and over the last few months I feel like the hair has really matured well. For the first time in over 10 years I actually visited a barber - a husband/wife pair who run a local business. I mentioned I got a transplant after they had done significant cutting work - they had no clue and couldn't tell at all I had anything done.

Hi everyone - thank you for all the wonderful responses. I got out of the shower the other day and was pretty amazed at how well my hair looks even when wet - because obviously, the hair clumps up and may show more thinness than usual. One of these is literally me walking out of the shower, the other two are with wet and semi-wet hair with it slicked back so you can see the hairline quite well. These are some simple pics with bathroom lighting and some natural light from my bedroom window. Regardless, I still think this looks incredible. It's been 9 months and I'm still amazed... things feel surreal sometimes when I look at myself in the mirror now.

These are some photos from today (1/23/2018) just sitting around at my office. You can get a decent idea of what my hair is like on a day to day basis. My office has this gross fluorescent lighting.

These are photos Dr. Gabel and I took back in late November. My hair has since grown A LOT. I'm growing it out for now. I'm not entire sure what I want to do with it yet.

We did not discuss my temple points.

Hi all, I recently went in for a 6mo check in. Everything is going very well. I have hair!! I will have some photos to post soon once they get them to me. Also yes, Gabel did indeed train under Konior. When he went his way I'm not sure, but it's probably on his website if I double check. These guys did a killer job. Pics soon!

Hello once again everyone. I recently went to go see Dr. Gabel for my 3 month check-up. Dr. Gabel said everything is going perfectly as planned and was even a bit surprised by the amount of growth already - as am I! Last time, Dr. Gabel posted photos of my 2-week check-up. All the hair in those photos over the following month completely fell out and I was back to being bald in the front again with a lot of redness. Now, the hair has started to come again in bit by bit. I did get a lot of zits, pimples, and ingrown hairs in the donor region in the back of my head for probably a good month or so as the hair started regrowing from being shaved in the back. I hardly got any in the front. They have since completely stopped aside from a random zit here or there. You can see the back is just a biiiit thinner, but I think you'd only know that because you know I've had a hair transplant. Family and friends say you'd never know from looking at the back. My hair is quite fine - and it was the reason I didn't go through with FUT and I'm VERY glad I did not. At this point, it's just a waiting game and I'm very excited about the coming months. Anyway, here are some 3 month photos for you all.

Thank you so much, Dr. Gabel! Glad to hear encouraging words and I'm very excited for the coming months.

Hopefully I do not have to do any crown work anytime soon. I've been on Fin for a number of years now and my crown area is actually quite intact.I hope it stays that way!

Unfortunately these are probably the best I can get right there. These are off my cell phone. This is day 8. Yesterday and today I did a soak to remove crusting. Most of all the crust easily came off very easily - a lot more than I thought. There is still just a little bit. Maybe a few more days to remove everything. The donor area is still a tad bit red and I get some random spot pain here and there. The clear-ish flakes are bits of polysporin clinging to my hair. Tuesday I will have much better pictures.

The two consultations I had with Dr. Gabel were both about restoring my frontal hairline. Though I naturally have a high forehead, where the new grafts are placed in the post-op pictures are roughly about 1/2 inch above where my hairline would naturally start (like when you raise your eyebrows and squinch the skin of your forehead - you can see where the skin changes at your start of your scalp). At this point is where I had some very wispy miniaturization left. I pointed at this spot of my head and said to both of them, "How about we start here in the middle and work the hairline outwards." They both agreed on this and we designed it from there. I am very happy with the result. I am also local. I am in the Corvallis/Albany area of Oregon, just about an hour and a half drive away down south. I will be visiting Dr. Gabel a number of different times in the coming months for updates and new photos of progress.

I chose FUE strictly because I was very weary of a linear scar. My overall hair quality is quite fine and very soft, so I thought because of the quality of my hair, the linear scar would look more exacerbated. I understand FUE also has some scarring issues, but in the right hands, the scarring risks are very minimal (little white dots, vs. a line). I liked the idea behind FUE. I've seen Dr. Gabel and Dr. Konior's FUE work and I am confident it will turn out very well. Dr. Gabel did not push me to one side or the other. He asked what I would like, I told him FUE because of the linear scar issue, and he said "Okay, that's a perfectly fine answer." However, he did give me a general assessment as to whether I would be a good candidate for FUE procedure. If I was not, I am sure he would have said so. He felt very confident that I was after a second consultation and we both felt good going forward. I'm sure Dr. Gabel and Dr. Konior spoke more about me privately. Dr. Konior did not do any second guessing or anything on the day of the procedure. I believe he is very confident in his colleague's work and judgement.

And what probably everyone wants to see: immediate post-op results. I will be visiting Dr. Gabel again for a 2 week check up. We will take photos again and I will post again in the future of my progress.

Here are some pre-op photos of what my "hairline" and thinness was like. Additionally, the hairline we agreed upon from a few angles.

Hello everyone, I had previously come on here after going to a consultation with Dr. Gabel. I opted to go for a second consultation around the beginning of this year and Dr. Gabel told me Dr. Konior was coming to visit his practice in the coming months! I was ecstatic - already by the fact that I was 100% going to go with Dr. Gabel, but Dr. Konior as well? Sign me up. I underwent surgery on Thursday, 5/18. It was great! I came in around 6:30 am, did paperwork and got to work. We spent at least 30 minutes or so constructing a hairline that we all felt was going to be perfect. It was kind of funny standing in the hallway with Dr. Gabel, Dr. Konior, and an entire staff studying your soon-to-be-hair. Once I was happy with with it, Dr. Gabel and Dr. Konior took turns extracting grafts via FUE. They talked a lot of shop about different techniques and whatnot. I dozed off a number of times. I felt nothing. The only pain I felt was when I needed numbing or re-numbing. Everything else was painless. Once extraction was done around 1:30pm, they bought be lunch, I had about a 20 minute break, and then we got to inserting the grafts into my newly formed hairline. Dr. Gabel's staff are incredibly friendly and professional. We played all sorts of music (and embarrassingly maybe there was a little bit of karaoke going on...). We finished around 7:30pm - an all day event! I cannot recommend Dr. Gabel and Dr. Konior enough. These two guys are incredible and their staff are awesome. Dr. Konior did bring along someone with him (I am sorry I forget your name!) and she was very nice. Everything was about me, my expectations, and what we could accomplish. I had an awesome experience and I am very excited for the coming months to see how this whole thing pans out! I also hope this was a great experience for Dr. Gabel and Dr. Konior as well. I understand that doctors working together like this is incredibly rare. I felt like I struck gold. For those who want numbers: Total: 2084 1s: 176 (8%) 2s: 792 (38%) 3s: 924 (44%) 4s: 192 (10%) I will add pre and immediate post-op photos here soon.

OtherSyde, I have definitely seen your threads. I have also seen Gabel's videos he puts on YouTube about patient experiences post-op, 6 months down the road, 9 months, etc, etc. I noticed you were on there. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and advice. We will see where the next few months takes me.

Hello everyone - long term lurker, first time poster. This might be a bit long-winded and a bit of a brain-dump. Back in May 2016, I visited Dr. Gabel in Portland, OR and had my first consultation with not only him, but my first consultation with a hair restoration doc ever. I did quite a bit of research into different surgeons and was quite surprised that I am lucky enough to have a highly praised and well respected surgeon right in my backyard (I'm only about an hours drive away from his office). I am currently 30 years old. I first started noticing my hair going the way of the Dodo before I even got out of high school. Throughout my early 20's, I had a wicked receding hairline - straight up "V" shape and over time the front thinned out considerably. I've tried Rogaine/Minox to no effect. Honestly, I hated it. I got on Propecia maybe a little over 3 years ago and it has pretty much completely halted my hair loss but did nothing to regrow it. Some family history: my father has very similar hair loss to me, my mother has some mild frontal hairloss with overall scalp thinning (both are in the 60's). My mother's farther was bald. My father's father had a lot of hairloss. It looks as though I'm genetically doomed. The photos attached show my current hairloss as of May 2016 during our consultation. The lines drawn are nothing set in stone. These are very simply a first pass at what could possibly be accomplished. We drew these once and very quickly. It was just to give me an idea of where to start. Dr. Gabel said, "Go home, buy an eyeliner pen, and draw on your head." From there, we'll assess what is actually possible with regards to my expectations. Dr. Gabel estimated that to restore my frontal hairline it would take roughly ~3,000 grafts. I'm very heavily considering FUE. I like to wear my hair quite short and my hair has always been naturally very fine. I feel a FUT scar would be very noticeable and I do not wish for that. FUE scars I am fine with. We chatted for probably an hour and a half. He was very nice and knowledgable, as were his staff. I have received no sales-pitches or other junk since that day - I have only received emails from his staff checking in on my thought process and how they could help. I feel like I struck gold on my first round to bat. Since this day, I've visited this page almost daily, reading about different surgeons and patient experiences. I've found a number of users who are very happy with Dr. Gabel's work on them and I too believe he did excellent work from what I see. I am considering calling back soon, having another consultation, and as I write this, I feel very confident that I will go through with the transplant - I'm hoping sometime around February when my funding goals have been met. Of course though, I do have some lingering doubts and wet feet. Should I look into more surgeons? Should I seek out other consultations? I don't know what they would tell me that Dr. Gabel hasn't already. I like his work and his philosophy. Would I be reckless going into this without further research?