gradina22

16th of June Day 1, phase 1 of my big FUT. I came early in the morning. I slept pretty fine. First thing doc did is that he drew a hairline again. We again discussed some things. I also showed the doctor my pictures from times when i started to recede and showed him some pics with my hairpiece when it was positioned pretty high. I also showed him previous skeches of examples of my new hairline. He commented that the transition he drew from forelock to temple zones was way milder than in a proposition by one clinic. He did the same hairline as yesterday. Forelock region around 8 cms from glabella. He also told me my new hairline will follow features of my skull. Then we commented on my pictures when I was starting to recede and he told me that my position will now be a better one because of softer temple zones that he drew (for a lot of years before my hairpiece, my temples were very high). Then I said to him that my 3d knowledge is very poor and told him can he show me in some way how will things progress. He then used his fingers and hands to show me how my hair will look like after a bath, a pool or a swimm. And then he showed me roughly how will my hair look when it grows a bit and is fresh and dried. I thought, okey this is reasuring... Im liking what I see. Cause you need to be aware that when hair grows under the certain angle that it looks like it is covering more ground. Of course, this really sounds logical, but then again its your life involved. And you are afraid of whst will future bring So, I was showed the operation room. It has a mobile bed in the middle, large SF equipment for illumination... Behind the bed there is a large table with four microscopes. Hattingen uses stereoscopic microscopes to dissect strips and to cut the grafts, plan them and have an overall number on them. I then went on the bed, lying on my stomach. Head was on a "hollow pillow". I think I was lying like that from 60 to 90 mins. That is the most uncomfortable position throught the day but aint a biggy. Before that team came in. I met Laura and the 4 girl tehnician team. Sever prepared the outline of my first strip. It was one between my ears. He drew lines with a pen. Of course I didnt see anything of that. He and Laura then took the first strip. If I remember correctly it was around 13.5 cm in lenght. It was 2.5 cm wide. Thats pretty big, although Laura told me that in Hattingen they can do up to 3 cm. (laxity!) I have a pic of this. Hope its not disturbing. I cant do a real timeline here but they told me what these stereoscopic microscopes do. And also told me that i can watch the progress. Not whole of time ofc https://ibb.co/g91326z So. Sever administered lot of needels for anastesia. I have read a lot of comments that it can be really painfull. On the scale of 1 to 5 for me it was 1 or 1.5. Really easy. There were a lot of needles. I felt them but it was easier or same as doing bloodwork. Sever told me that the operation table is not a place where you play a hero. So if I feel anything, just need to shout. Laura came and she also administered lot of solutions, and repeated same things. They really didnt prepare me for the slicing and dicing But I think that was fair. Cause at some point, they start to cut the strip. Feeling wasnt frightening or strange at all. Ofc I didnt feel any pain or discomfort. The feeling was that somebody was scratching a dashboard surface or cutting paper. Haha, I dont know to do a proper comparison. Strip was then taken to tehnicians table and they stsrted to prepare the grafts. My wound was closed with staples. Unusuall feeling, cause you can feel that skin is joined again and tied with something. Again no pain whatsoever, but there is a feeling of tension or straining for a minute or two. Then you dont feel nothing again. Great thing to hear was that tehnicians have a 10+ years of practice. So everybody knows his job. While tehnicians were cutting my grafts, Laura personnaly prepared 5500 incisions in the recipient area. I asked and if I remember correctly she used 8 or 9 milimeter punches. Hope this is the right term. After this was done (it lasts pretty long) I went by the tehnicians table and saw what they were doing. Under the last microscope I saw the end product. Graft with 1 hair, with two, three and then a graft with four hairs. At any point of operation you can say that you need to go to bathroom or use some water. There are chocolate bars also on the side. And naturally before operation you get all the meds. So when the incisions were made there was a break for a really nice lunch. Risotto with mushrums, banana and more chocolates. And more pills I then went back and was shown implanters. They look like grafitti pens, and when you press the button hair comes through. Laura said to me while she was preparing new places for grafts that my new hair will follow my naturall angles that were designed by my genes, nature, whatever. Implantion lasted a lot! There were always shouts of A double A triple one A quadruple Before the team placed new grafts. During incision and planting time you lay back on the bed. I was barefeet, had stretchy comfy pants and medicinal shirt. Afterwards when they remove this shirt you need to have something that has buttons. Also you need to sleep in something close to this. You must not pull anything above your head! Laura had help from tehnicians while implanting all these grafts. They have a system "first serve, first come" which means that the first grafts that were cutted and prepared came first back to scalp, to minimise the threat that they die out. Grafts are of course in certain solution placements before they come back as everybody knows. Cant say how much hours implanting lasted. Everything was finished around 16:00. My back nor my neck was hurting me. Good thing. Throught the window you can see a blue sky and green bushes. In Hattingen you dont look at movies or listen to music In the end it was really long, but not boring. You just need to go through the process. Total recap. 2700 grafts A lot. And final conclusion was that with the next day I will have at least 5500 to 6000. And maybe even more. I have been given a certain type of padding, like gause (or so, haha) https://ibb.co/vjJ5nGy When its torn, looks like this https://ibb.co/sRNrHwy So on top of this padding I was said to put solution that they gave me in 18h, 20h and 22h. And before sleep and in the night if I wake up. The idea is that this padding needs to be dripping wet. On top of it comes a bandana. My first one was black, army style. I have a pic of second one. Blue one, pretty medical look. It was nice and wery comfy. So this one is from the second day. https://ibb.co/5FmxC83 I was resting a bit later. Was spraying solutions as planned, took some ibuprofens. I went for a short walk around 21h. There was very little pain in my scar area. I called Carmen via whatsapp and she commented my sleeping preparations. I had a few extra pillows prepared. Did a 45 degrees slope. And used my neck pillow. In the morning I told Sever that I tied my left foot and right hand to bed and chair. He laughed at that bit of BDSM, haha I was afraid that I will move something during night. But in the end I just slept all of a sudden and woke up around 5:30. Wasnt a full nights sleep. But I really woke in the same position I fell asleep. On the scale of 1 to 5 i think it was 1.5. So, honestly no pain, no discomfort. 1 phase was over

Hello people. I think Im ready for some input Around 17:00 hours it will be practically full three days after my hair transplant in Hattingen clinic, by Laura and Sever Muresanu. Im still not at 100% but will try to write what has happened. 15th of June. Day of consultation. So I came to the Severs office in a tiny beautifull village called Stetten. Its just 10-12 minutes from Schaffhausen with a direct line from Schaffhausen main bus station. For the first time in my life I saw snow on the mountains in June. So we chatted a bit and then doctor started to do the examination of my head. He used a comb with a small handle to do a gap between my hairs at the back of the head, where I suppose everybody has a stronger bulge, or whatever, where skull makes this "bump". Before he did that, he commented that he expected more hairs on my head, as far as he could remember it from our skype interviews. I thought, wtf.... We just started and the first step is already looking bad.... But then Doc started to mumble, mhm, okey Okey, better... Somthing like this. Cause of course he used a certain tool to magnify the area and look for what is really happening down there. He then told me that the situation seems pretty good and that I have a very good hair groupings albeit average density (doc already told me that via skype). Conclusion was that I will surely have 5000 FUs (via FUT) and probably even more. A good sign He also checked my existing hairs on top of my head cause I asked him what does he think about them. He told me later that I still have some leftovers, but big part was highly miniturised. Conclusion was that they would go "throught hair" during operation. Lot of that hair will surely suffer shock loss but something will eventualy come back. Then dr. Sever drew my new hairline. Cause I was a hair piece guy, this was my biggest fear or in other words I didnt know what outcome will I have. Hairline was positioned at around 8 cm from glabella. Doc did a small correction cause I showed him where I glued my piece. So I was satisfied with placing in the forelock region, cause that was practically the place where I myself was putting the piece On the other side, since piece was roundish, temple zones were a bit higher than the area piece was usually covering. But I was expecting this. And you need to agree on some form of hairline that is bit higher. I was a NW5 guy in the end... But it wasnt too high so my thoughts were - this is okay. Probably I left the clinic. And was scheduled for 7 in the morning for my first phase.

Will do that. Cheers

Of course. And not just here on this forum. Also they have some wonderfull YouTube videosthat are worth of watching

Hey John. Of course I will think about Finasteride again. I already mentioned that I was prescribed a dutasteride topical solution after my trycho test (or genetic test for AGA from saliva). But I didn 't really find so many information weather the people are taking this option to combat further hair loss. My country was on the FOPH red list until 3 of June, so that`s the reason I opened this thread just prior to the HT. I have a plan to rest for a few days in Germany after my operation and from there I will be sending my first update

Hello everyone, After a really long long time...going in and out from different world wide forums...looking, searching, chasing different info`s, acquiring knowledge, checking the best (and the worst) cases and scenarios... I decided to put up a new thread on this site. The clinic that I picked for my hair transplant is called Hattingen clinic. Hattingen clinic is situated in Switzerland in a small place called Stetten that is very close to a city of Schaffhausen (a seat of Schaffhausen canton). I am 32 years old. The first moment when I started to notice that my hair is really falling out was somewhere when I was 20 years old. That happened during the colledge period of my life. No point describing how did I feel emotionally and how did I responded psychologically... More or less I was devastated at that time (I was sporting a longer hair - parts were touching my shoulders) and that notion of anxiety, stress, angriness, occasional rage whatever... lasted for so many years. I visited a few dermatologists and they said to me that I will probably loose a lot more hair during my twenties. Also, there was a known phrase - „just shave it of bro“. I was prescribed minoxidil 5 %, some vitamins and some shampoos. As everybody practically knows, shampoos didn`t do a goddamn thing, but at that time I was not ready to try anything invasive. At the age of 26 I realized that my balding pattern was worsening. Not that I was loosing my hairline and was starting to thin in the midscalp area, my crown was in a bad condition and that struck me really hard. I started to search a lot about AGA on forums and YouTube. I discovered different types of hair thickeners - or fibers. And I learned about a drug called finasteride but at that time I was really afraid of using it. I think I was an OK responder to minoxidil, but it was hard for me to keep up with the application twice a day, so I transferred to once a day on some areas. At the age of 28 I decided to have a leap of faith and I bought myself a hair piece. Maybe it is hard to believe, but I did this transition in the manner that nobody knew about it. Not even my family, when I got back! I didn`t really know anything about wigs, but when I got out from the hairdressers shop it felt like everything looked more-or less normal. I talked a lot with the lady that did my hair piece (she had and still has years of training and practical knowledge) and she did a bit of „hacking“ on the piece so it looked like it was very uneven (my wishes!). In a year or so I tried finasteride for a very short time. Didn`t pass that threshold that sometimes is spoken of, cause I had some side effects (they were not severe and went away after stoping the drug). During my hair piece era I used just a small proportion of minoxidil because it was really painful for me to strip the piece, put the lotion on and glue the piece back. I also did sprinkle just bits of fibers to cover the section of crown and the back of head where piece was merging with my native hair. I was really happy in a few weeks when I finally realised that nobody knows that I`m wearing a piece. But a hair piece has a lot of issues, mostly when you communicate with the opposite sex... Of course, my condition worsened while I had a piece on. And I was wearing it for a long time. Not to prolong the story... I was communicating with a few very good clinics in Europe. In the October of 2020 I reached out to the Hattingen clinic. I was first introduced to Ms. Carmen. I sent my pictures which I will post bellow so that you can see my starting position. I was described as a Norwood 5 guy and told that I can communicate with the dr. Sever Muresanu in person! Doc and I skyped for 4 times! And not to say that I didn`t even pay any money before our fourth and last talk! Doc was really friendly. He asked me about family hairloss history (I'm the black sheep – the baldest of the baldest – my grandpa was loosing his hair, albeit was not a Noorwod 5 in his thirties, but later on – I would say mid forties). My father has a good hair in his 60s and my older brother still has a full head of hair. We were also discussing my goals. I asked a lot of questions and showed the good doctor some of the outlines that were sketched in other clinics. Also doc did in some way look at my donor area because I bought an USB microscope. He said that I have an average donor. Also he did check my scalp laxity. In the end he suggested that I opt for a big FUT. Also we discussed the medications. Doctor Muresanu isn't obligatory towards Finasteride prior to surgery. I also did a trycho test for AGA and was prescribed in my country with topical dutasteride – 0.25% in a liquid solution. I have a prescription for Finasteride again so I will decide what to do after live consultations with my doctor. I told him that my biggest concern is the hairline and 1/3 of scalp. He suggested that he can do a „bell shaped“ hairline and fill in the rest of balding space as possible. Don`t have any problems if my crown area stays thinner. I am very well aware that transplant cant do miracles. We will of course speak of this the day before the surgery. Also I'm opened to do a new transplant in the future. In the end, why did I choose Hattingen and dr. Sever Muresanu? 1. Many positive feedbacks 2. Great YouTube live videos 3. Natural results 4. Friendly approach; multiple communication via Skype 5. Whole team with doctor Sever will be dedicated for two days to my operation 6. Managing of the scar in the donor area 7. Dr. Sever is associate member of IAHRS and listed on Hairtransplant mentor.com Deal was struck to do a 5000 FU or grafts via FUT. We will see what kind of graft count will I have in the end. Operation will take place on 16th and 17th June. I will have live consultations prior the day of surgery - 15th. Will post my thoughts and pictures after the procedure. Hope I wasn`t too long My current state