YoungGuy

Good advice. But, I would not have a beginner start with heavy exercise composed of dumbells & compound movements. They'd be likely to do the movements wrong and could hurt themselves. That's why you want to start out with machines, to develop good form for the compound exercises LATER. It's why people skiing for the first time don't go on black diamond slopes

Entire surgery only took 4 hours? That would make me guess it was around 1,500-2,000 grafts? Please do post immediately post op pics, I'm curious to see, as well as a graft count if you could. Also, we all understand your reluctance to show your face and believe me, folks here probably don't care to see it either. I'm sure it's a great-looking face but what we're interested in is the hair Just edit the pictures in MS Paint or something.

...or so you think. MUHAHAHAHA!

Ah, let's not split hairs... it's all FUs anyway (Sorry, couldn't resist this particular joke!)

I guess I should have gone into a tad more detail on this one You're too young to have a HT. If you're concerned with your looks, get on propecia and start going to the gym. Working out ain't gonna do much for hair loss, but it'll do wonders for confidence which hair loss is eroding. Ailene, going to the gym rarely if ever means steroid use, no reason to equate them or bring up one when the other is mentioned

Propecia. Gym. No HT for at least 5 years. Can't put it any simpler.

Looks like radgav plugging Dr. DeYarman again after a few have posted negative experiences. radgav, do you work for the Dr.? It's prefectly fine if you do and nobody here will think the less of you, but you should state that in your posts the way some helpful members here do.

I can relate to the greed. I'm 9 weeks in and aleady planning a second HT!

By the way, as I'm sure you already know, the rule of thumb with financing is to check with a bank or two first to find out the rate for a loan of the size you're looking for. Then you can ask the doctors about financing options and if the offer directly from the bank is cheaper, choose the bank.

It just don't make sense to me, too. But I'll try it in and see what happens, because I can't see any possible way it can hurt. And it's free!

You don't need a ht. Should you decide to go for a consultation - and, you don't need one! you look great - don't go to DeYarman, I've seen some bad stories from his patients. There have been good ones too, but why chance it when there's so many doctors with nothing but stellar feedback. One other thing to consider - a good dermatologist. Your hair loss may be temporarily caused by some condition you might be able to remedy fairly easily.

It feels like I'm the only one who missed out on the side effects. I'm almost disappointed - if anything, my libido's increased in the months since I've started taking finasteride. I used to be able to come home after work & relax for a bit. Not the case any longer. Real thing's never been bad and there's really not been much change; the main one has been the amount of time I now devote to either thinking about sex or doing something about it. I'm fairly sure it had to do with the fact that I didn't know about the possible side effects before I started taking it. Most side effect sufferers seems to get affected within minutes of taking the pill. In fact, I'd bet that most of the folks complaining of libido problems would manifest the same troubles if they were taking M&Ms, provided someone scratched off the "m" and told them it's Propecia.

They told you that you were "lucky" not to be paying $10/graft? That's $15,000 for 1,500 grafts! I'd have laughed in their face if they told me that.

I wish I had hairbank's hair, it looks great.

Actually, I enjoy reading those old threads as they usually provide information that's news to me. Personal opinion, I know, but I think it does more good than harm.

I never did understand why everyone makes a huge deal about side effecs that 1-2% of people experience. "I'm afraid of side effects!" "But you have a 99% chance of never having any." "Oh..."

The resemblance is uncanny!! And, great growth. Over 10k grafts, that's some donor area!

Send Bosley's return address to Ted Kaczynski, then do some research starting with this site. $5,500 for 1,000 grafts is pricey, and if you factor in the likelihood of them butchering you - it's not worth it.

Boy, what a difference!

I don't know guys. I had 50 or 60 staples myself, was scared of washing the donor area properly and as a result had a good amount of dried blood, so hair were being pulled with each staple. Some were painless. Some made me see stars. I had to take a 5 second break once, but other than that, it was no big deal. What's a little pain, really, especially if it's a 1-time thing? Man up.

This thread is headed down the path to the dark side...

Updated for month 2. The wait SUCKS. For the record.

Bill, he mentioned no donor area left Mickey, I hope that's not entirely the case but either way Bill's advice is still relevant. Go see a good HT surgeon for a consultation. At the very least, a consultation with one of the top doctors could reveal that they can still take some hair via FUE for masking the old work. Edit: I just remembered that Dr. Feller (a coalition doctor) has a LOT of experience with repairing bad, old transplants. He's located in NY, Long Island, and he may be able to help. He's a great doctor. I don't work for him, but he did do my HT so I recommend him. A bit off topic but my Feller HT is only at the 2 month mark and it's noticeably growing. How cool is that? I need to update my photo album & show off!

Hi Sandy, Welcome to the forums! To answer your questions, well, female hairloss is a bit different from male in that it doesn't follow the same pattern so there can be no guaranteed supply of hair that won't fall out. I don't know enough about the topic to be able to say more than that, but I would definitely speak with one of the surgeons listed on this site. These folks are very good and will not bs you just to get your money. When consulting with a doc, remember to see mor than one to get a few different opinions! As far as cost goes, these things usually run $4-5 per graft for the first 2,000 and $2-2.5 for each one after that (so, 3,000 grafts would run $10,000 to $12,000). Having said that, if you just want to work on your hairline a bit, you would only need around 1,000 grafts or so which would come out under $5,000. I'm sure other posters with more info will add details & opinions

From what I researched, creatine itself won't harm you. The body uses it to create muscle tissue; it does pull some water into your muscles (which are mostly water to begin with, anyway) which will make them appear bigger. It also increases recovery rate and energy levels so that you can work out more intensely. Stopping its use will cause a weight loss as the muscles let go of the extra water creatine has been retaining. Still, if you've been able to train harder and you ate correspondingly, you will have gained more muscle than you would without it even after you stop the supplement. It has also been shown to increase the level of testosterone in the body. This is not caused directly by creatine but by the body itself. From what I understand, testosterone is the hormone that tells the body: "grow more muscle!" and its level in increased because with creatine, you are ablt to train harder than you would be able to without it. As far as I can tell, there's been no studies done on whether creatine raises the levels of DHT in the scalp. We all know that MPB is caused by a lack of resistance to DHT accrued in the sclp in hair for some people; it's genetic, some people have it, some don't. I suspect that for those who aren't genetically predisposed to lose their hair increasing DHT would not matter, while for those who are it would. This, to me, explains why some folks report increased shedding when using creating and some don't since it would appear to simply accelerate the process that would normally happen anyway. So the big question is: does using creatine increase DHT levels in the scalp? And second, does taking finasteride counteract the increase, if indeed there is any? ========================================= Now, the practical effects on yours truly. I've been taking creatine for 2 weeks now. Before I started, I've been taking 1.25 proscar daily for 2 months and had no shedding in my crown, which is the next problem area (I have a Feller HT coming in nicely in the front 1/3). Before creatine: I had no shedding at all (by shedding I mean pulling on the hair and seeing if I can pull any out). I was able to pull out 1-2 hairs, which is what I get when I do the same thing on my donor area. A week after: I had some shedding; I'd pull out 5-6 hairs at a time. I didn't like that! So I cut the dose of creatine by 1/2. 2 weeks after: shedding went away; I can pull out 1-2 hairs, sometimes 3. Seems to be largely normal. I'll post again in a week or two.