Spaceman

You seem pretty confident that your hair loss has stopped, yet you’re only 42 and lost most of the hair between ages 39 and 41. Are you sure it’s stopped and not just paused? Is that what Diep said? Or maybe you’re basing it on family history? It’s really important that you have a reasonable and realistic picture of where you are likely to end up before you start down the HT journey. Surprises down the road can be disastrous.

Came across an old article on Erdogan discussing his practice, and a few thoughts on his hairlines. https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/the-turkish-maverick-who-plants-hair-and-parties-hard-10025

I think your hairline could use fine tuning but the hairline you’ve drawn won’t look natural, nor will it be an improvement. The center is flattened too much and the line makes your temple points disappear.

Gillenator, sorry to hear one of yours was missed. That’s an unpleasant complication. In my case, Hasson and Wong gave me a staple remover at discharge, and instructions on how to remove them so I did it at home. In case anyone is interested, the instructions are here:

I’m a patient of Dr Hasson and had surgery earlier this year. I’m very happy with the outcome. There is a YouTube video of one of his surgeries that very accurately documents the experience. My experience was essentially the same.

It’s a really great result. A huge transformation for you that you’ll appreciate for years to come. Congratulations! Few clinics could have done this in one procedure.

An extraordinary result for a challenging case. Masterful.

Very clean post-op pics. Nice transition of density from front to rear. Overall, a very good result.

Thank you. My hair is actually average in thickness, but the waviness definitely helps the hairline look more natural and adds to the illusion of density and thickness.

Thanks a lot! Yes, I’m really happy with it. The front third was essentially bald and Hasson was able to give me great density from a single procedure. Lots of skill on his part, and luck on mine. I’ve taken finasteride for about a year. Wish I took it a decade ago.

Thanks @yesplease. I’m 50 and take fin. Here are a few more pics taken outdoors. These are from 7.5 months, taken in mid October.

It Is unlikely that the doctors will approve of your plan. Also, Diep is an excellent surgeon, but given that you need BHT, why not have Umar do the whole thing at the same time? That way he can blend your beard hair and scalp hair for maximum effect.

Virtually anyone can take the staples out. You just need a disposable tool that the clinic can provide. No medical training whatsoever is necessary. Regarding sutures vs staples, consider focusing on the result rather then the method and look for surgeons who consistently leave the least detectable scars.

I think everyone who’s had a HT would agree that a HT provides only an illusion of density. A successful illusion is the best possible outcome of a HT and often not achievable without proper length and styling.

While this is by no means a botched hair transplant, I think HT0416 looks better in the before pick. So I can understand his not being happy using 3000 grafts and $7k on the result. It’s my subjective opinion. Pictures can be deceiving, but I wouldn’t have guessed he needed 3000 grafts based upon the preop picture above. That said, one can only hope for natural looking density from a single procedure that significantly lowers the hairline. From any surgeon. One can not take for granted that it will happen. Many times you need a second procedure to achieve natural looking density in a lowered hairline. Even when you start at NW2 and go to a top surgeon.

there is a stale thread from HT0416 with some additional photos here:

No judgment here, but I would not recommend using all of your savings on a hair transplant. Few things in life are more stressful than financial insecurity. Ideally you would wait until you have additional funds set aside just in case the HT, or anything else in your life, does not go as planned.

Grafts are loaded into the implanter with a foreceps, so grafts are handled by foreceps in all cases. But it may be less traumatic using a foreceps to load grafts hair-first into an implanter pen than follicle-first into recipient sites for FUE-excised grafts that have less tissue around the bulbs. Some clinics use implanter pens for stick and place, making the recipient site and planting the graft at the same time. Other clinics make the site incisions first and then plant them with foreceps or pens. Some use one approach for delicate work (in eyebrows for example) and use another approach for filling in larger areas.

Your post op pics look clean. Density looks pretty good in 10 day pics. I really doubt you did any damage rubbing your scabs off at seven days. You were expected to shed most of the transplanted hair between 10 days and one month and you did. No reason at all to worry at this point.

As genetic baldness progresses, the follicles affected weaken and shrink and then eventually go dormant. As they weaken, the hair that they produce becomes smaller and thinner until ultimately the follicles go dormant and stop producing any hair at all. The thin weak hair is called miniaturized hair. The hair at your hairline looks somewhat miniaturized in the photos that you posted. Do a google image search for “miniaturized hair hairline” for more examples and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

I don’t know of any way to test Minoxidils effectiveness on you other than to try it. And of course there is no reason to take finasteride if you’re not comfortable with the risk. No one needs hair loss treatment. Its only a cosmetic benefit.

There is more internet content warning of PFS than people who have suffered from it. It is quite rare. A few thousand possible cases where men experienced at least one symptom among tens of millions of finasteride users. More commonly, a small percentage of people experience side effects that go away after the drug is discontinued. I’m not sure how much peppermint oil will help, but it probably won’t hurt. I suspect if it made a big difference people would have figured that out many years ago. And some shampoos already include it. Minoxidil is effective for many people, but not as effective as finasteride. If you’re in the US, Costco has good prices. Some people have also had luck with Biotin, which is cheap and easy to find. Published studies are inconclusive though. Whatever you try, you need to keep on it for six months to see what kind of benefit it does or does not provide. There are no quick fixes.

Just curious, have you consulted with both doctors, or just with the advisors in their clinics? If you haven’t consulted with the doctors themselves, you should consider doing that. If you have consulted with both Doctors directly then I would go with the one that most closely matches your goals in terms of density, hairline, donor management, etc. As Melvin said, both are capable of giving you an excellent result.

You can call Hims and ask what brand of generic Finasteride they supply. Given that it’s prescribed and dispensed in the US, the generic manufacturer has to be FDA approved so it’s probably fine. But it never hurts to check the manufacturer and the expiration date. In your case, finasteride can help strengthen and even regrow some hair in the hairline. For most people Finasteride won’t help regrow areas in the front that are completely bald, especially if they have been bald for a long time. However, you still have a lot of miniaturized hair that it can help strengthen and it may even help revive follicles that have recently gone dormant. The longer they stay dormant the less likely it is to help.

Exactly. You may find that meds strengthen your existing hairline enough for now. Especially if the third photo is how normally wear your hair.