Rolandas

2 Months

I'm sorry, a bit late with an update on here, but I've done one on my YT channel 😁

Ok, so in short of course there isn't much progress except hairs that didn't fell kept growing. No new transplanted growth at this moment.

There's almost no redness left which is a great surprised. Comparing it to my 1st surgery, this time around it went away much sooner. I guess it's due to less grafts/cm2 implanted, so less trauma to the skin.

I'm experiencing great amount of regrowth and thickening from Oral Minoxidil, so it's a positive change at this stage and it makes my ugly duckling stage a bit better.

Pimples are still present and they're a bit annoying. Not worried about them though, as they should go away in about a month.

And of course here's a whole video about it.

8 hours ago, Shaco said:

@RolandasI’m having a rather slow healing process very similar to yours. Do you also tend to bruise easily and bleed out from small cuts?

Yes, that's an very accurate representation 😁

Killer hairline 😵

18 minutes ago, GaryStruthers said:

Wow, and here I am waiting patiently for him to respond after 6 days. (yes I was holding out on the 48 hour expedited fee of €50)😂

Looks like I'll be paying that!

Yeah I'd suggest to just pay. Number of people told me they're waiting for 3-5 months for consultation.

22 minutes ago, JohnAC71 said:

Rolandas the rep does have a nice ring to it… 

Dr. Ferreira isn't looking for one. He wants to reply to emails himself. I already offered him my help with that as he takes over 2-5 months to even reply to email consultations...

I have done a live Q&A on my channel and decided to give my opinion on your case. Starts from 2:37

Most studies are done on 1mg/day dose where they say you can expect more improvement up to 2 years. It also highly depends on how severe your hair loss is. 
There's a 10 year Japanese study suggesting that up to NW5 you can expect continuous improvements every year, but if you're NW5 and over, you will plateu in the first 2 years.

From my personal experience, I've seen most improvement AFTER 14 months of being on 1mg/day. Less shedding (to the point I don't see any), more regrowth (nothing crazy though) and hair thickening. Keep in mind I'm NW5a.

I actually did a video recently on this subject if it's of some interest for you 

I started taking normal showers after about 7 days.

1 hour ago, teeplant said:

Wow truly amazing result!

How do you feel about the scars from the first FUE. I hope you don't mind me saying, however, they do look quite visible and large in size. Similar to @MrRolandas in appearance. Did the doctor comment on that?

If you look closely you will see scars are smaller on occipital area compared to temporal and parietal areas. The reason is an angle of hair growth. In these areas hair grows kind of downwards and more flat compared to occipital area, so with the same punch size scars are created slighly bigger.
Dr. Ferreira is using 0.8mm & 0.85mm (at least on me) during the surgery and I even "inspected" them during my 2nd one (being overly curious as always lol).

Holy cow what a turn around in just 4 months between month 2 and 6!!! O_O

I was looking at first pics and thinking "looks exactly like me". Hoping to get something similar!

4 minutes ago, giegnosiganoe said:

I flew back on day 5 post op. Considering the total travel time was ~17 hours, I wanted to recover for a few days to play it safe. Didn't have any issues while flying, it was just long.

Different doctors may have different definitions for DUPA, for example here's Lorenzo's:

Every person falls on a scale relative to the above factors. After passing one of those thresholds, you may be considered to have DUPA. I bought a USB microscope, recorded some pics/videos, and shared them with doctors. Many of them noted greater than average miniaturization, but said I didn't have DUPA yet. In the early stages, it can be difficult to detect - perhaps more so via pictures. But I most certainly have a thinner than average donor, and I know it used to be denser 5+ years ago. If I were to get off of the DHT blockers, I would likely end up with DUPA.

Interesting observations!

On 7/10/2021 at 2:27 PM, rob7331 said:

Not to revive this thread again, but now that some time has passed can anybody speak to their oral minoxidil experience? It seems like a relatively easy thing to add to a regimen. @Melvin- Moderator can you tell if it's been working for you at all? A net positive overall?

Here's my 2 week update so far.

1 Month

Apologies I'm not that active in here. Can't realistically spend all my time in various platforms!

Here we are - 1 month after my 2nd HT with Dr. Ferreira. Short Hair, Shedding & Redness.

Overall I'm pretty happy with what's going on right now. Not too much redness compared to last year. Shedding kicked in. Temple points are mostly gone, mid scalp & top of the crown has still about 40-50% of transplanted hair.
1st Transplant result looks pretty good with short hair - natural hair growth angles, correct hair caliber & type in correct areas. It's a little thin which is expected with my type of hair. I start to chase "perfection" which I shouldn't given my overall situation. Although comparing to where I've started - night and day. I've got hairline!

I'm more active on my YouTube channel, so if you want to see more of me, I'm there.

6 hours ago, gillenator said:

I went through intensive chemotherapy for advanced lung cancer…lost every hair on my scalp and my entire body…all hair grew back without the use of minoxidil or any other drugs.

Fair enough. I'm glad everything is well!

36 minutes ago, RandoBrando517 said:

How many grafts do you have left?

about 2000 if done correctly

4 minutes ago, gillenator said:

My question is how many guys are having as good as results with the oral form as compared to the topical?

Considering Oral Minoxidil is been used to bring back to life some hair after Chemotherapy, I'd say it's safe to assume it's much more powerful than topical.

2 minutes ago, JP28 said:

So are you still using the topical in this case? 

i personally don't. Whether or not you should - IDK. Do some digging & ask doctors.

1 hour ago, JP28 said:

Hey Rolandas I’m not sure I understand what you meant by that, would you mind clarifying?

thank you 

When taking oral minoxidil, it goes out of your body in shorter time than topical, so you might have hours without it. Not sure if this could be a problem, but worth keeping in mind.

15 hours ago, JP28 said:

Hey guys one question if anyone know, since I’ll be taking oral minoxidil can I get away with using minoxidil foam eod?

I know I don’t have to use the topical anymore but if I still wanted to would it be okay to use it eod now? 
 

thanks 

I say be careful. From what I've heard, oral minoxidil half life is only 6 hours unlike topical, which is about 22 hours.

Oh well, another failed "stem cell therapy".

For me, we already have a cure for vast majority of people - Finasteride + Minoxidil + Hair Transplant. If all of it is done well and you're not destined to be NW6-7 with DUPA or aggressive Retrograde, you will have full head of hair.

35 minutes ago, bw77 said:

Hey Rolandas,

Outstanding write up and fantastic results first time around. I'm sure these results will be also be great. Quick question for you, did Dr Ferreira express any concerns about reinforcing (implanting grafts between exisiting hair or grafts) causing shock loss or permanent hairloss? I don't mean to introduce any unnecessary anxiety for you but I've been wondering about this.

Early in my own HT journey I met with a local doctor and asked if my hair could be reinforced with grafts between exisiting hair and the doc said that this could cause loss or damage to existing hair and therefore wasn't possible. Admittedly, this doctor isn't recommended on this site and he didn't perform my surgery. I'm wondering if it just wasn't possible for this doc but certainly possible for the high level teams? Obviously Dr Ferreira doesn't have an issue with it but I'm wondering if he mentioned anything about this specifically?

I'm asking because I'm eager for a second surgery which I'm hoping will include a density increase but I've been nervous about losing some of my grafts in the process. 

Thanks again for your write ups and vids. They are hugely helpful and encouraging!

Hey man,

Appreciate kind words!

First of all - yes, it is possible to damage native surrounding hair either temporary or permanently. This will depend mainly on your current hair health and surgical skill.
The more miniaturised hair is, the more likely it will get into premature tellogen effluvium (due to surrounding trauma). It will grow back if surgery didn't damage it directly, but it will lose one anagen phase, to which it can grow even shorter and thinner. This is one of the reason you should strenghten your hair via Finasteride and even Minoxidil prior surgical intervention in my opinion.

Dr. Ferreira didn't specifically say "it can cause damage to surounding hair", at least not for me, but I'm very well educated on the subject. I fully understand and even expect temporary shock loss in my mid scalp. If this won't happen - great. He is always saying, he is "very used to diffuse thinners", meaning, implanting in between existing native hair.

There's of course a limit to where surgery isn't a good idea - if you have high amount of miniaturised hair/cm2 where it's pretty much impossible to implant decent amount of grafts in between. Then there's a choice either to go "through" and implant thick terminal hair on top of thin miniaturised (if the surgeon thinks they're on their way and not coming back strong), or don't do surgery. Again, use of medication is a must prior such decision.

Have a watch one of my recent videos. I wasn't specifically talking about it, but you can see my recipient areas with cm2 where I'm counting how many grafts I've got in each area. This should give you a very good idea what I mean by "if there's too much hair per cm2 to implant".

Day 17

Here's an overview of my 2 weeks after HT. In short - I'm starting slowly shed, itching is still present, but very minor, mainly in temple points.

Went to the gym for the first time post-op. Light weight, 12-15 reps. Dr. Ferreira said I can go "all in" after 2 weeks, but I've decided to take it easy this week.

Donor is healing well. People can't already tell I had anything done. More in the video.

47 minutes ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

Look forward to seeing your video on it

I actually did about a week ago

Early to say, but I will be updating once in a while, especially if I feel there's something wrong.

How are you doing on it Melvin?

I've started oral minoxidil last week. 1.25mg/day (quarter of 5mg). 1 week in no issues. Will increase dose to 2.5mg/day possibly in 2-3 weeks.

To be honest if you take off flashlight it will look incredible. Donor is spot on too!