johanchicago

19 minutes ago, Lennney said:

Genuine question, how does approximately 2 inch length look like from the front. You can crop your eyes and face out if you're sensitive to your identity. I'm curious to see how you look 6+ months (and again 12+ months) from the front with 2+ inches of hair. 

Top down view doesn't tell the full picture (no pun intended).

The density placed was always going to be less than the pre-balding Johan density. In my humble opinion, I think your hair from the front, with some length will be a marked improvement over your previous situation. I know some people aren't happy with "improvement", and want full satisfaction. In my humble opinion, as long as there is improvement, there is some progress.

I think it would be helpful to at least see what that looks like. With the frontal+length pics, we could all see if you are improving, no change (in), or regressing with your hair situation. I wanted to "appear" not bald, not necessarily be not bald. Members continue to use hair products to style their hair in favorable way, this doesn't mean they're disappointed with results. Melvin and many other members style their hair with hair fibres, it doesn't mean they're unhappy with their results, or didn't achieve what the sought. 

It's your thread and I apologize for sidetracking it with the earlier posts.

I am not cutting my hair anymore. I will keep posted once it grows longer.

It does make difference from the front when I use hair fiber compared to pre-surgery but overall the density is so low you can see shiny head from all angle. I am considering a 2nd HT next year to fix the situation but my donor area isn't all that dense.

Great results.

I had a horrible HT and now I need to fix. Could you please pm the surgeon/clinic if you don't want to disclose in public yet?

3 minutes ago, Lennney said:

Probably me Bill was referring to. Nebulosity repeatedly told me I wasn't going to be happy several times, and that it was imperative that I sign up/plan for another HT now. 

His comments to me are fine, because I don't have doubt another member may have. I do agree a constant insistence against a patient's happy results should not have a place here.

Johan, you're free to feel however you feel about your HT. I still think you'd feel better if you grow your hair out. 

I didn't read the entire thread before commenting but I responded based on the fact the thread was about my surgery. I see this thread is becoming a long conversation about blaming one another.

Also, I have tried growing my hair out. I have shared a photo of it with @Shera in pm. It's honestly looks worse than keeping my hair short. Check attached.

On 6/27/2019 at 7:22 PM, ViciousKeepLeftSign said:

Hello @johanchicago

I know it's not a great result, but your pictures are under pretty harsh lights.  Could you show us more?

Oh and please

@Melvin-Moderator

@Nebulosity

Please treat this thread with respect, it's not about you.

Here are attached pics taken at night, the light source is pretty far but it's at the ceiling.

10 hours ago, Bill - Managing Publisher said:

@Nebulosity,

 Frankly, I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that you are trying to convince a happy patient that he should be unhappy. His expectations were met and realistically, there’s only so much that can be accomplished with a certain number of graphs and a certain degree of baldness. If you understood that concept, you would understand why the patient has every right to be happy. 

While members of this community are welcome to share their genuine opinions, good or bad, trying to persuade a patient that he should be unhappy is just blatantly inappropriate and clearly agenda driven.   

Therefore, it is best that you find another community to post on 

Bill

I am getting confused here, because I never mentioned for once that my expectations were met. Could you please quote me exactly when I said my expectations were met?

Unless you talking about some other patient I think this is absolutely unacceptable that you claim I was satisfied by the outcome. You have no right to to speak on my behalf if I am satisfied or not.

I have been consistently saying that I am extremely disappointment with the results and even to the extent that I stopped posting my outcome.

My experience at darling buds and communication with Dr.Bhatti has been clear and to the point and I was satisfied with professionalism of Dr.Bhatti, however the results I received from the HT is nothing short of disastrous. It is absolutely wrong to say I was satisfied.

Again, none of the admin or the users are impacted by this horrible outcome of my surgery. I suggest you, specially you being a moderator please do not falsely claim the patient was satisfied and accepted the bad outcome.

Thanks for you response @Nebulosity and @delancey. This is failed surgery by Dr.Bhatti, no matter what other senior members are saying. I totally agree with @AltonMeyer. I think most of my hair grafts died, 5100 hairs in the 2500 grafts but look at my scalp.

Also, please suggest or recommend top doctors whom I should consider for fixing this HT.

I trusted the forums and the positive post in most of the sites. I have attached a pic taken today 06/25/2019 and the more I look at my shiny scalp, the more I get disappointed and frustrated because I lost my 2500 grafts / 5100 hairs. Most of the hair was double hair follicles and now I have very limited grafts to recover from the damage, I check forums and I see results from 2500 grafts to be much superior than what I have received. I am left with a shiny scalp after my HT with no way to cover my head with hair. It's very disappointing and saddening.

Guys, let's all stop blaming and shaming. This forum should be used to help people who may be considering a HT. I think anyone considering a HT has the right to research and have prior result of the doctor presented to them.

Again, I think @AltonMeyer is just sharing his opinion and I respect that and I do agree with him that my surgery wasn't a particularly successful one.

I have experienced that lot of the senior members jumped into conclusion that I was too bald, but the fact is Dr.Bhatti inspected my situation and seen my photos and based on the assessment decided to go with 2500 grafts. He also proposed to take 500 beard along with 2500 grafts to spread it over the entire head including the crown. I decided to go only with frontal / mid scalp section only.

I have attached a photo taken today, it would give you a close up idea on the current situation of the scalp. I am considering for a 2nd HT next year  to get some density on the front/mid and get some hair on the crown as well. I should have about 1500 grafts as per Dr.Bhatti's assessment post surgery, I am willing to get some body hair / beard taken to increase graft count.

@AltonMeyer - Yes it was a total disaster surgery. I would like to perform another surgery next year to fix this but now I am even more limited on my donor area, based on the after surgery records. Dr.Bhatti mentioned another 1500 grafts can be harvested for future sessions.

On 5/1/2019 at 5:56 AM, Shera said:

Hi Johanchicago,

With the area to cover and the limited availability of grafts the expectation for anyone of your balding should be to appear not bald with the added option of creating an enhanced look through the use of fibres now that you have sufficient hairs for them to attach to.

It is simply not possible that Dr Panine or any other surgeon could have covered that area more effectively with the limited number of grafts available.

Also in similar cases as yours more than one procedure and possibly a course of SMP is recommended and I'm sure this would have been made clear to you as it is with all similar balding patients.

Saying that, you are 6.5 months in and appear to be growing very well. You still have quite a few months of growth left so I think from what I can see there is much improvement to be still had.

Try to be more positive, you are on your way to making a big aesthetic difference to where you started.

Feel free to contact me personally if you need my support.

Hi Shera,

Dr.Bhatti explained me what to expect - 'he clearly mentioned I should get decent density'. I was actually inclined to go darling buds/Dr.Bhatti after seeing all the good results but I should have clearly done more research on bad results. I don't know if any other surgeon would do it better but I consider my surgery a example of Dr.Bhatti's bad result.

Again, I am not putting blame on Dr.Bhatti as there are other factors involved and not only skill set of the surgeon and I would still recommend Dr.Bhatti as he did respond promptly about my concerns and he was always professional and positive.

The total number of hairs was 5115

Single - 328

Double - 1657

Triple - 491

I think most of the hair grafts did not survive. I am considering a second surgery later next year. Check out my outcome after 9 months of the surgery.

Dr.Bhatti suggested the number of grafts. He suggested to take some beard but he said I would get decent results with 2500 grafts. That was also his initial estimate for the procedure.

I have also seen people saying if I was give the option to have a higher hairline. Again, the hairline was also designed by the doctor and I did not even ask to put the hairline one cm lower. 

I am not blaming the doctor here as I was satisfied with the professional atmosphere at Darling buds.

However, I am not going to accept people trying to tell me that I should have known beforehand the results would be disappointing as it is right now. Dr.Bhatti is a good doctor and I did my research before going to him but unfortunately the outcome of my procedure was not satisfactory at all.

I am extremely unsatisfied with the results therefore I didn't bother posting any update. I have attached photo taken today 04/26/2019. 6.5 month post surgery.

#Darlingbuds and #dr.bhatti was very helpful and always prompt to respond to the emails . However, I am very disappointed with the results.

This is update after 6 weeks.

The photos were taken with flash on for clearer pictures of newly growing hairs.

Do you have any update on your hair growth? It looks like good at 3 months point.

Dr.Panine also suggested the same approx 2500 grafts for hairline and mid scalp but I went with Dr.Bhatti after going through the positive post in this forum. Do you think the 40 grafts / cm2 wasn't meet? Please let me know your feedback, I am starting to get concerned about the comments related to the gap. Total of 2476 grafts were extracted approx 5000 hairs - for hairline and midscalp.

Week 3 after the surgery, I am noticing a lot of hair loss and native hair not growing.

Week 2 after the surgery, most of the crust came off by this time after following the instruction booklet provided by Dr.Bhatti

Surgery was done on 9th Oct, 2018.

Week 1 after the surgery.

Surgery done on 9th Oct, 2018

I have been losing hair since I was 19yrs old and I was on and off minoxidil since I was 24 but at 28yrs I completely stopped minoxidil for 1 yr and it was the worst decision ever. I lost almost all my hair within this 1 yr. I tried to get back on minoxidil and finasteride but it did not help. At age 30, I finally decided that I will do HT.

After some research and some consultation with various doctors in Chicago, including Dr.Vladamir Panine, Dr.Allan Purgangao and some doctors in India including Dr.Madhu and Dr.Bhatti. I finally decided to go ahead and fly to India to perform my HT with Dr.Bhatti.

Here is my experience with Dr.Bhatti at Darling buds.

I reached India on 8th of Oct 2018, Dr.Bhatti had arranged transportation from Delhi airport to Chandigarh. It's a 3hrs ride which was pretty decent even after the long 19hr flight. I was taken directly to the hotel where I slept few hours. At 430pm local time a car was sent to pick me up from the hotel for my consultation with Dr.Bhatti.

The consultation was about my hairline design and inspection of my donor area, after which blood sample were taken for necessary investigation.

Day of the surgery.

I was give antibiotic and sedative injection. I was drowsy very quickly and felt slight pinch at the back of my head at the beginning but soon I fell asleep and did not feel any pain.  The surgery was about 7hrs during which a total of 2476 grafts were harvested from the donor area.

Single - 328

Double - 1657

Triple - 491

I did not have any pain after the surgery and came back from dressing the donor area early next morning. The healing was pretty good and on the 3rd day my dressing was completely taken off, I never took any pain medication after the surgery. I am pretty pleased with the healing process so far.

I have posted pictures taken on the day of the surgery and progression on week 1 , 2, and 3.

Dr.Bhatti has prescribed to take finasteride 1mg + 5mg biotin and spray minoxdil 5% for the first 6 months only to promote hair growth. I am taking the medication religiously and hoping for the best outcome.

This is the current photo, week 3 after the transplant.

30th Oct, 2018

Here are some update from week 2 of the transplant. Most of the crust came off by week 2.

23rd Oct, 2018

Here are the updates of week 1 after the transplant.

16th Oct 2018.

I have finally decided to do my hair transplant. I went to Darlingbuds of Dr.Bhatti to perform the hair transplant.

Total of 2476 was used in my surgery to build my hairline and some coverage in mid scalp.

Here are some photos from the day of surgery on 9th Oct, 2018.

I have attached my current status of my hair loss.

I have narrowed down to Dr.Bhatti, Dr.Panine, Dr.Madhu

Please let me know what you guys recommend.

I am 29 yrs old and I have been losing hair for about 10 yrs. I was on minoxdil on and off and also used propecia for about 6 months. I had full head of hair until 2015, I stopped the medication and pretty started shedding crazy after few months, now in 2018 I am diagnosed with Norwood V and becoming Norwood 6. My dad has a Norwood 6 pattern baldness and my grandfather on mother side has decent hair at his age and at Norwood 4. My progression of hair loss seems to be going towards Norwood 6 and matches more with my Dad.

I have so far discussed with Dr.Bhatti, Dr. Suneet Soni and Dr Agrawal via emails, and in person with Dr.Paine and Dr.Allan Parungao. I have also scheduled appointment with Dr. Keller next month.

All doctors are suggesting that an FUE can extract about 2200 - 2800 grafts, and 3000 - 3500 FUT method.

At this point. I need some suggestions on which doctor can get be the best results based on a Norwood V - VI pattern.

If I choose to do future transplant, is it preferable to do FUT first and then FUE later? This is going to be my first HT and I want to make the best of my donor area, please suggest what would be the best approach.

My goal is to achieve a conservative hairline with decent density than an aggressive hairline but less dense hair. I usually style my hair moderately short e.g. 3-4 size and like to spike the frontal hair.