pinky_head

No, this is all over the back of my head sadly... The picture represents the worst part, though.

Thank you guys for quick response. The extractions were done by a tech, actually, two of them at the same time - I've seen some results from my clinic and the donor usually looked pretty neat, but mine is a bit bumpy after the surgery, I dont think it healed quite well which could have cause the fibrosis to be larger than the usual. I contacted the clinic and they offered me a discounted SMP (for 500eur) but I'm hesitant as far as using them again. Will SMP have anything to do with me wanting to have another HT somewhere in the future? In next 4-5 years? Do you think FUE is still possible with donor looking like this? I'm just worried I run out of options at an early age. I knew I'm having a HT early but epected to be able to use more than 3000 grafts...

Hi guys, I did a hairtransplant 11 months ago, and you can check my story here: I did my haircut today and for the first time, barber cut my hair super short - 3mm. I kind of moved on from my hairtransplant as I am satisfied more or less with what is happening at the front. I am however utterly shocked by how my back is looking. Attaching a picture. If I keep my hair about 1cm long, almost nothing of this is visible, except for small parts in the back of my head. However there are massive scars and blank spots. What does that mean? Is it overharvested? What doest that mean for the future HT prospects? This is obviously very surprising and definitely is affecting my day to day life now, at least until I grow my hair back. Of course easy solution - never cut this short, but I assume I will need another HT at some point. What to do then?

Hey! This is an update after 7 months. So I think this is more or less the final results that I got. Am I happy with my hair transplant? I would say I am, I think it is a major improvement over what I had before and it definitely boosted my self-esteem and my overall looks I believe. I think going in you cant expect a perfect outcome. What didnt work out? Two things - my right temple is still way less dense than the other one and I havent seen any growth over last 2 months, so I think that is what it is. It is not bad, but definitely stops me from showing the hairline there as it does not look good enough to be exposed. The hairloss continues also behind what was transplanted so it isnt helping much. The other thing is the scarring from my donor area, which has improved as you can see on attached photos, and I hope there is some room to improve left. But there are definitely some bald spots left and they are visible, especially on the right side. It was way worse looking at pics from 2 months before. The pics are in extreme light so it is a big overexaggerated but that was the point. The redness is gone completely but dear lord it was something unexpected as it lasted well over 4 months. I do enjoy my hair way more and don't think about it that much in general, as I consider it as "handled" and don't want to obsess too much over it. What do you guys think?

Hey there!. Sorry if I am replying very late, but to be honest outside of trying to keep track of my progress I try to stay out of the forum and move on with my life, so that the hair doesnt become a main focus of it I really do appreciatey our kind words and encouragements. This is my 4.5 month update, after my second proper haircut. What is changed is that the hair is growing, and the right temple at this point basically looks like it wasnt touched which is nice. The front is also looking quite promising, and I do see new hair sprouting. The redness is there, even though it is slowly (very slowly) fading, but the hair growth is big enough to cover it anyways. The other temple has progressed quite a bit but it's still patchy and see-through. However, during the day I use toppik on it and it looks quite well. The donor area is still patchy and I am not sure how it is going to resolve. I feel some bumps in the area where it is patchy and I am afraid it just might be scarring and I should consider just not cutting it so short, as when the hair grow back a bit more it's impossible to tell that there is anything going on. I asked the barber to use a longer blade this time and it looks a bit better though. Let's see how it is going to change in the coming time. Sadly I changed my phone and I no longer can show my post-op donor site on the pics, as someone asked via PM. I don't know what kind of punch was used to extract the follicules. I forgot to mention, that before my 3 months I got on finasteride (1/4 pill of proscar per day), and I have not experiences any sides.

DAY 105 Hey there, so now it's been 3.5 months since my surgery. I am not very happy at the moment. I went to get a proper cut today for the first time since the surgery and my barber asked me if I suffer from some weird hairloss... turns out my back is pretty scared which I didn't see as I kept my hair way longer. It's not so bad at the back, however the side is pretty patchy I am not sure if this is just scarring or some kind of shock loss, but I noticed it way before, just thought it went away but turns out it was just my hair being longer. As far as recipient, still a lot of growth on one side, way different story on another temple. Redness is still there and not willing to go away. I know it's still early but its not that easy being positive at the moment. I'm happy with the growth I have however after 3.5 months it's still very apparent I had a surgery, and could possibly be scarred for life. Hoping this will turn around soon.

DAY 87 This is how the situation looks right now. I noticed first hair sprouting right before the 2 months mark. The redness is not very visible anymore, except for the right temple, where it is still quite red but the growth of hair in that area is big and it already covered the redness in some degree. I had some shock loss above my right ear where it was a big bald patch, but over the course of 3 months it healed perfectly and there is no visible mark anywhere in my donor area which makes me very happy. Im worried a bit because my left temple is not progressing much, you can see there are some small hairs there ("the dots") but there is no hairline and it's clearly nowhere near where its supposed to be. However, I am not even after 3 months, so I am being optimistic and not trying to think about much. I stopped using the concealer, and now because there are some hair in my temples I started using toppik to go outside, and to be honest it works amazingly, to the point where I don't need to think about my hair throughout the day at all. I hope that in 2-3 months from now I will have a nice hairline with good density. What do you guys think?

Hey! I think thinking much about whether the clinic was a good or bad choice is beyonde the scope. This forum seems to obsses a bit over some of the clinics and doctors, and even though I am sure it is well deserved, doesn't mean anything regarding the people who did your surgery. I think your post op pics look fine. As far as the progress goes, there is not much to do other than wait. It seems you indeed suffered a lot of shock loss in the recipient area. Try to be patient, even though I know myself it's ridiculously hard, and keep us updated. Good luck

Hey, thanks for the input. I for sure did underestimate the redness. I am mostly ok with it, and try not to think about hair much to make the time pass fast and it works, only getting frustrated from time to time. My redness post-op was insane and I honestly have never seen one like that ever, and I watched a lot of the pics post-op. It was dark purple. Then it kind of got better in two weeks, but since then the progress slowed down a lot. My clinic told me not to use steroids, so I will withold for now. I've read that some of the hair may not fall out and it happened in my case - I have a patch of transplanted hair that never left and that part is actually more dense than my native hair now, which makes me hopeful for a good result. However, I've noticed I have little tiny hairs, that sprouted but then didnt continue growing? Like I think they are stationary for now. Is that normal?

An update after 7 weeks. The redness is still there and it does not seem to go away anytime near. I'm so pissed. I was not expected to rock red temples after almost 2 months. Hiding my head all this time is horrible. One of the temples is healing very nice, on the contrary the one is still very red and bouldery as well. It was this way from the start. Not to mention, I this I suffer quite a shock loss where a theoritical line connectins my temples would go. On a before the surgery pics I have a pretty full head of hair, just receded. Not it's far from that. Attaching the pics. I contacted the clinic as I want to use a topical steroid pronto and not have done it yet.

Thanks for the input! Im here on day 17 with some good news - the redness is fading Here a comparisment between day 7 and 17. The temples differ between each other - one had a very organised placement of follicules, and I heals sooner. The other one has a lot of multi-hair grafts and seems a bit less organised? Heals way slower. Anyways the shedding continues and now boy does it look freaking awkard. Some hair fall out, but then I see they start regrowing? So I have all in different length and also different directions even. Very patchy and awkward, but totally expected. I'm abroad for two month working so I need to look more human at week 11 so that's a bit of relieve I can hide the ugly ducklin phase. Attaching pictures to demonstrate the progress.

Day 14 I see no changes. Sometimes in certain light it seems even worse. I just laugh at the idea that "after 14 days it should be hard to tell you had anything done". I have a freaking red batman logo on my forehead. Also I notice some ridging of the area, the skin just seems different than the rest of my forehead. I'm considering using an over-the-counter topical steroid cream to see if it helps as by 14 days the hairs should be well located. Shedding continues as I find small hairs on my fingers if I run my hand through them. Not sure how one gets some comments here? A bit discouraging.

Thanks for the input! I did research a bit and it seems some people just get it very red like I do, but it eventually goes away. It does seem to subside slowly, but very slowly. Im not 12 days post op and shedding is starting as today while washing my hair with given regimen I've noticed small hairs on my hands. I continue to put aloe vera on my scalp twice a day. I was able to get my pre-op pics from the clinic so I'm attaching that here as well. I have naturally thick and brown hair, so I'm hoping it will be a good result. I'm happy with graft placement and new hairline as it seems natural and dense packed, the only thing I'm worried is how pink the scalp is. Donor is healing nicely. I was able to get my post-op to the doctor and he assured that healing is correct. All is left is wait and see. Trying to be positive.

Thanks for the thread! Amazing results and very well documented.

Hi guys, Today marks 9 days since I got my FUE procedure in Istanbul - 3050 grafts. I was pretty decided about the surgery, read everything about it, felt prepared and decided to keep it a secret. I was suffering from my hair-loss for about 5 years now, which caused decreasing self-esteem and affected my social life. I became really conscious about myself – I started to work-out and did everything I could to make up for my thinning head but sadly my thoughts kept resoving around it every time I left the shower seeing all the hair lost. I decide to go with Elithair transplant, as they had a lot of good reviews on facebook, and I liked their results. It was also the easiest to contact and arrange. Before op I was told there will be a need for about 2500 grafts, but ended up getting 3050 as we went a bit lower on my hairline. I always had a very high forehead, therefore I think that this hairline is still somewhat high which is good for the future. The procedure went smooth more or less and took about 8 hours to finish. However I was kept for quite a while post-op as I was bleeding a lot – almost 5 hours. This caused my crust to be somewhat thicker than the usual. Now, 9 days forward and the crust is gone – sadly my recipient area isn't necessarily red, it is very pink, almost purple and seems somewhat uneven. I tried talking to the clinic and they informed me that is it normal and it takes few weeks to get rid of the redness. I know it is still early, however comparing how fast my donor is healing, I'm really worried something went wrong with the recipient. I might have exposed it to sun on the fourth day as I took a walk around the city, but only watched out to walk in the shadows, might have walked in the sun for few minutes for sure. The recipient was pretty dark from the get go, which I believe is caused by dense packing (it seems very dense), me being quite white, blonde and blue-eyed and being 26.5 at the time of the procedure. I was supposed to go to work this Monday, however I called in sick to get 7 days more to heal, but I’m being pretty sure it’s not going to change much and I will have to make a reasons to wear a bandana at work, as I can’t really think anything better to mask it and I am being very worried. How can I help this process? I got aloe vera cream and witch hazel which I am applying once per day, adding to the regular doctors routine. I am in nature quite depressive and anxious, therefore this situation has not done me any good in terms of my mental health. I try to remind myself that HT procedure are all about long term goals and patience is needed. I also clearly underestimated the recovery time it would take to make the surgery unnoticeable, which sucks as usually you can read all over the internet, that after 14 days it should be hard to tell you had anything done. I will keep you guys posted, as I am looking for a place to stay in touch with people who went through the same thing. Pics are before, 48hrs post-op and now 9 days post op.