Sam818

Go see Matt Iulo at Scalp Micro in New York.

The smp did a great job even before you put the chest hair back into the donor and it’s obviously even better now. I am going to do smp into my fue scars next month I hope it comes out as good as yours. I don’t have thick chest hair like you so it’s my only option. Dr. Mwamba is doing great work with these kinds of repairs.

You have so many fine miniaturized hairs along your hairline that would be completely shocked out with surgery. There is a good chance you can reverse the hair loss and get them growing again if you get on the big 3 and add micro needling. Take a look at this thread.

10/10 result. I really want to know if you are just a freak of nature that you healed that good without evident scarring in your donor or is it just your surgeon’s skill.

Such a great result already and plenty of time left for improvement. I’m happy for you. You’re at least the third patient I’ve seen who had a great result with Dr. Rahal but went to Dr. Gabel afterwards to complete everything with great success. Dr. Gabel does great work and is underrated. I was so close to going to him for my repair and I hope I never have to do another surgery again but if I do he’s at the top of surgeons I trust in this horrible industry.

Don’t take this the wrong way man but you have a propensity towards making poor decisions. You rushed into SMP and didn’t even go to someone trained in how to perform it, you went to a tattoo artist who went too deep with the needle on your scalp. After realizing your mistake instead of consulting experts on how to properly and safely remove the ink your solution was to go to Turkey to god knows which clinic to get a hair transplant. And then after that while your scalp is still healing you’ve now decided to use powerful lasers to remove the ink. I’m glad you at least sought input here and you got a doctor to give you his opinion. Trust me I am not trying to beat you down and make you feel bad. I used to be the same way and rush into decisions without seeking input from others who’ve been thru it because I thought I was smarter. That’s how I had a horrible experience during my first hair transplant surgery. All I’m saying to you is going forward with every important decision in your life not just cosmetic ones like this you should always seek input from real people with experience. Good luck and I hope you get awesome growth in the coming months.

I agree with everyone else you are too young and you aren’t on meds to stabilize your hairloss. No ethical surgeon would touch you yet. You should try low dosage oral finasteride at least and maybe even in combination with topical. I currently take .5 mg every other day and on the days I don’t take it I use topical at night. It’s pretty much stopped my hair loss. Another thing you say you have a great donor area but the nape area above your neck seems a little thin based on that picture. You shouldn’t see scalp at that length. Do yourself a favor and consider finasteride and reconsider surgery in a few years when you’ve turned 25 only if you’ve stabilized the hair loss. In the meantime use this forum and search function to research the hell out of this crazy industry so you understand the real risks. Finally, don’t limit yourself to California. Research. Research. RESEARCH!

The SMP actually did a really good job but the problem is you had really large gaps which become more obvious with longer hair on the sides. The SMP won’t replace the bulk of real hair. Whoever punched your grafts out during your first surgery had no clue what they were doing. I’m curious how it looks at a shorter guard like a .5 or #1 with the SMP. You have a thick beard it looks like. I think Bisanga’s game plan is better using beard and chest hair only because I remember you saying in another thread you also weren’t happy with the results in your recipient area so if you have any precious donor area hair that can still be extracted it should be used to improve the results in your recipient. But first things first you need to fill in the donor scarring. Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

I’m not going to even get in to their marketing or quality or lack thereof of their results. I just think it’s interesting how they attract the same type of dudes to their clinic. Maybe it’s because of this guy? 👇 https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/9658827/jeremy-mcconnell-quits-fame-to-become-director-of-a-hair-transplant-clinic-in-turkey 🤷‍♂️

@jimcraig152 In my opinion for either FUE or strip the best in North America for repairs are konior,gabel,H&W & Shapiro. For strip only add cooley and bloxham to that list. I went to konior.

Just make sure you go to a top doc and you’ll be fine. My first surgery was a total disaster...much worse than yours as at least you got good growth. I went to a top doc for my repair and it’s coming along great. I am also looking into doing some smp into my donor just so I could occasionally get some close fades as I used to before. Good luck and I hope you keep us updated.

Awesome write up and it’s great to see a patient documented case from Dr. Shapiro. Work looks excellent. Good luck with everything and keep us updated!

Hell ya man! Finally got it done! Woulda been even sweeter against the cheatin astros but it’s still sweet nonetheless!

😂 ya I know what you mean. I remember the first time I tried fading my hair I kept going until I pretty much gave myself a buzz cut. Your donor honestly looks good considering how short your cutting it. Still some redness but I don’t see any hypopigmented scars.

That early growth is hopefully a great sign. What guard length are you getting your sides cut with?

Read this to learn about the process: https://www.ishrs-htforum.org/content/26/3/85 You need to research the clinic you choose for SMP the same way you would a hair restoration surgery

Looking great rolandas! Very happy for you. Bruno seems like a talented, ethical and very hands on doctor which are all things that are very lacking in this industry so we need more guys like him. In my opinion you were an ideal candidate in a lot of ways. Your contrast having light hair and light skin make any imperfections less visible and also make the fue scars less visible. Also, even though you have fine hair you have a dense donor and the fine hair looks a lot more natural in your hairline. I think these things are important to point out so guys doing research who don’t necessarily have those characteristics know what to expect. This is the best and most honest documentation I’ve seen, especially how you’ve shown much different lighting changes the way it looks. Awesome job!

I know what it’s like to be a repair patient so I hope you get the awesome result you deserve. Work looks extremely clean. I like Melvin’s guess but I’m gonna guess Dr. Nadimi and if I’m right I’ve looked at way too many results and need to take a break from this forum.

I have to commend you for doing such a great job in documenting your case and remaining level headed even though there are things about your surgery that upset you. I think it will really help out anybody who is smart enough to find this forum and do proper research so they know what to expect. Diep is an absolute enigma to me. I’m not a fan of his work but I will admit he has some very impressive results on this forum including Melvin the moderator. He even has some impressive repairs, both FUT & FUE and yet he has some cases that make you scratch your head. It’s obvious and you can’t deny that lately there is an issue with consistency in his surgical protocol. Some guys get a pattern of rows implanted and others don’t. Some guys get grafts extracted somewhat evenly through the donor area and others don’t. I have no idea why this happens but his explanations make no sense. I do think that doing two procedures a day, one strip case and one fue where you also have to extract the grafts whether you like to or not due to the law day in and day out with his fully booked busy schedule will exhaust even the best surgeons and perhaps force them to take “shortcuts.” Having said all that though I think when it’s all said and done you’ll be happy with the results. Based off of your post op photos you didn’t get the crazy obvious corn row looking grafts implanted and your donor area was extracted pretty evenly so there won’t be an obvious uneven density problem there. You’ll be entering the official growth phase soon so good luck with everything man.

@whattheFUE I think it is an excellent result and it looks completely natural. Nobody including the veteran members on this forum would ever think he wasn’t born with that hairline if they saw him on the street. I agree with @win200as well it’s not possible to drop your hairline that much and get perfect density in 1 procedure especially with his skin/hair contrast. Some doctors will compensate by putting large multi grafts in and around the hairline but elite doctors will always place soft naturalness in hairlines above unnatural looking density. Also let’s point out the fact that the OP is taking very honest photographs in harsh lighting with a good quality camera to show the details. Even someone without hair loss at all will look a little thin.

You made great decisions on not getting this done in California and also going to Dr. Konior. You probably would have been very happy with the results in your recipient area from Spain but when you factor in everything including the donor there are no doctors that come close to Dr. Koniors attention to detail. I can almost guarantee you that you are going to have a hard time even finding the scars from this procedure and you can continue going to your barber and getting short fades after a few months. Good luck with everything!

Incredible result as usual! She must be incredibly happy!

Wow that extraction pattern is awful...much worse then a standard linear scar. Great work here....it is a huge improvement. With the huge increase of awful clinics doing fue procedures there is going to be an increased demand for SMP into fue scars so it’s great to see more examples. Is filling in bad fue scars like this still easier then doing an fut scar or are they both equally as challenging?

Ya his hair clinic is based in the UK but they have chains here in the USA. They were major innovators with SMP. Most of the top smp artists got their training thru them including guys like Matt iulo and Zang in Los Angeles. Even new hair institute in Los Angeles initially started their SMP as a partnership with them. The company went completely downhill though and all the top guys who worked for them left. They had a forum on their website which has been disabled unfortunately which could have shown you a lot of examples of guys who did scalp treatments to help their scarring. If you are asking for SMP recommendations, I actually plan on getting it done myself to fill in my fue scars. I am looking at new hair institute, Matt iulo at scalp micro, and zang in Los Angeles but I’m not sure where I’ll end up going yet. I am leaning towards new hair institute though. I wish I had a quality dermatologist who is a laser expert I could recommend to you but I don’t. It won’t hurt to actually reach out to some of the top ethical doctors on this forum and seek their input. Guys like Gabel, Konior, Cooley, Shapiro. You’d be surprised...some of them are very generous with their time and they might have a dermatologist they can recommend to you or some other advice.

The his hair clinic which specializes in SMP has a forum on their website. There were many guys who shared their stories of botched hair transplants and gave up on hair restoration altogether. They just wanted to normalize their scalp so they could shave their head or follow up with SMP work so it would better take on the top of their head or into a fut scar. Unfortunately for whatever reason his hair clinic has disabled the forum and removed the history so I can’t send you a link to any of those guys. Some guys saw a huge improvement with professional microneedling sessions which are less invasive. Others used fractional co2 or fraxel restore lasers. There are a lot of treatments out there you can try but no guaranteed solutions. Your scalp will never be the same as it was before the surgeries but you can definitely improve the scars as I saw guys much worse then you on that forum greatly improve their own with treatments. I wish I could recommend you someone in so cal but based on my experiences most cosmetic specialists here are only interested in spending as little time on you as possible while extracting as much money from you as possible. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.