Sam818

Hey Gatsby, I think you are truly an inspiration for how level headed you are after everything you’ve gone thru. I don’t think your scarring in the recipient zone is very bad at all and the smp work has done a great job to conceal all your scarring. There are so many scar treatment solutions out there and it is all subjective. You can spend a ton of money on laser resurfacing and gain some huge improvements but in your eyes you can still see them a little so it may still bother you. I wouldn’t do any laser skin resurfacing if you plan on potentially doing another procedure as it may make placing grafts in the area more difficult in the future. I wonder if maybe a glycolic acid peel or lotion might even work to improve the bumpy skin texture. I think your best bet is to find an experienced board certified dermatologist and laser expert that is interested in helping you and not just interested in making a ton of money from you. I hope you can find a permanent solution that can take care of these issues rather then conceal them but even if you don’t the SMP has done a great job at concealing them.

I’m in Los Angeles.

Hey Gatsby, I know you’re from Australia. Have you heard of dr. Davin lim? He’s a dermatologist and I’ve seen his YouTube videos and he seems like an ethical straight shooter who specializes in scars. Wondering if he would be able to help you out.

It really depends on what the scarring is. Is it pitted grafts? Is it cobblestoning or tenting? Each would require a different approach. There are lasers which have been proven effective in helping. But would the laser damage the surrounding hair and fade the smp? You need to find a board certified laser dermatologist or plastic surgeon who will actually have empathy and give you the time of day rather then milk you dry for their time. By the way how do you like your smp? Where did you get it done?

Matt iulo, the guy in the video, just like many of the top practitioners actually did his training at his hair clinic in the uk which was at one point known as the premier smp clinic in the world. From my understanding though the company went downhill and the top original practitioners all left and started there own clinics. Paul Clark at Brandwood clinic is one of those guys. You should talk to some of the guys in the smp section of this site who are in the UK who have had it done to help guide you. look how natural his work is: https://www.instagram.com/paulclark_brandwoodclinic/?hl=en

Stay away from umar. I’ve spoken to guys who went to him and had to get repaired afterwards after he damaged their scalp. He’s an unorthodox surgeon but not in a good way in my opinion. Anytime the topic of body hair comes up so does his name but there are top surgeons who are capable of using body hair when necessary. Check out these results if you haven’t already.

I completely agree with you and if you read gatsbys thread as I’m sure he’ll explain it to you he was prepared to leave Australia to get it done until he found someone reputable. Also even though I told you to not dwell on what’s been done I just want to reaffirm that none of what you’re dealing with is your fault at all. You were a young guy dealing with hair loss and wanted to fix your situation. That took courage in itself. You chose a world renowned doctor as well who has some of the best results I’ve ever seen. It’s not like you walked into Bosley. But in my opinion that doctor failed you. I looked at your pre op pics and at just 20 years old with that aggressive balding pattern he should have better guided you by putting you on meds to see how you tolerate it and told you to come back years down the line.

Looks very good. Turkey has a very well deserved bad reputation for the amount of hair mills they have but demirsoy with his cheap budget prices and all does better work then probably 90% of fue clinics in America.

Those are ethical doctors. Dr. Pak is the one doing the surgeries at new hair institute for Rassman. I can’t speak to the quality of their work as there are not many patient documented results for them which is what matters most. I highly recommend you also reach out to Dr. Gabel and also Hassan & Wong (post COVID for Canada) to compare and see which evaluation and doctor approach you like most. Those are 2 and a half hour flights out of LA which is nothing.

Yup

Please be careful. I had a bad experience in so cal and if you talk to the top ethical docs in private they’ll tell you themselves how many repairs they do on guys from California and they certainly don’t have “high respect” for their work. Mohebi is the only doc that you should even consider but even then then you should think about traveling.

Hey Guano, I’m a repair patient. I had a horrible experience last year except I didn’t go to turkey, I went to Beverly Hills and payed top dollar to get botched by a doc not recommended here. I had a repair surgery a few months ago by a great doc recommended here and everything from the surgery itself to my recovery is like a night and day difference. I had pitted grafts and chunky grafts that needed to be removed so my case was a lot different then yours. I looked at your case and based on the pics it definitely looks like the surgery permanently shocked a lot of your native hairs. Because of that it’s hard to tell if you got a low yield from the surgery or not. I feel like this risk doesn’t get talked about enough on this forum when guys with minimum hair loss want to have surgery. I don’t know why some guys are more prone to it than others but hey if you look at past cases on this forum it has happened many times and even with reputable surgeons. Take a look at this guy for example: I’m not a fan of diep at all but I’ll give credit where it’s due he actually repaired this guy. In any case if you feel like you have to have another surgery to be happy the best advice I can give you is to research docs that also have great experience with repairs. If you’re in Europe you should consider Dr. Feriduni and Dr. Bisanga. Good luck.

Hey azza, thanks for sharing your story on here I know it took a lot of courage. Maybe it will help the next guy who is in his early twenties and wants to have surgery without thinking of the risks. Those words really resonate with me. If I could give you any advice it would be to find a good therapist that you can talk to. Also, stop looking in the rear view mirror and thinking about what was done and just think about moving forward. When you were in your twenties you envisioned that surgeries would restore your hair and probably saw other guys have great results and that inspired you to keep trying. If I were you I would look at a guy like @Gatsbyas Melvin suggested and use that as inspiration for what can be achieved if you shave your head and liberate yourself so you can move forward. If I were you I would look into putting beard grafts into your scar and then follow up with a clinic that does quality SMP work. Look at what a great surgeon can achieve with a few hundred grafts into the scar: Whatever you decide to do please research properly. A bad SMP job is just like a bad hair transplant. A great one like @Gatsbyhas will look great on you and help you move forward with confidence.

Another thing since I just noticed this comment, if a girl really said this to you she was probably just testing you to see how you’d react and measure your confidence. They are amazing at detecting low confidence in guys. The correct reaction if a girl actually said this to you would be to laugh it off and say something funny like “you know I read a Harvard study which showed a direct correlation between penis growth and hairline recession”. You never show a girl a comment like that bothers you even though it obviously did since you’re looking into surgery! Listen to the collective wisdom of older dudes who have been thru more than you and get the idea of surgery out of your head.

For starters you should know that a woman will never respect a man that doesn’t respect himself. Also, if your only goal is to attract shallow gorgeous women instead of focusing on improving your hairline just focus on improving your bank account because trust me that’s all they really give a crap about. Your a good looking young dude with a nice head of hair. Find other ways to improve your self confidence and get the hell off this forum and enjoy your life.

I don’t think it looks too bad at all considering the shock loss. You still plan on doing smp in the donor? Did you talk to dr mwamba about smp at all? I plan on doing it for my fue scars around end of the year.

Not smoking anything. The guy has fine hair and rebuilt his whole frontal area with a complete temple restoration. When I look at his before and after it is a pretty great result in my opinion and his donor area isn't damaged at all. Hard to get a perfect result in one shot fue surgery with a case like his.

This would be a great result from any clinic especially considering your tough hair characteristics having dark hair with light skin. Your expectations are too high of what hair transplants surgery’s are capable of if your not happy with this. It’s completely normal to want a few hundred grafts to make it “perfect” after lowering your hairline as much as you did. If you asked for a refund from cinik he would tell you no and probably refuse to work on you again.

In my opinion, DHT and it’s benefits are borderline a marketing gimmick. The biggest issue I see with it is grafts are not trimmed of the excess skin before being placed. This increases the risk of grafts not being placed properly and healing incorrectly with skin irregularities like tenting. Basically what it comes down to is DHT is actually easier on clinics because they don’t have to dissect or trim any grafts so common sense tells me if it was beneficial I think every clinic would do it since it actually saves them time and effort. Maybe I’m wrong though and some doctors can actually give their opinions on the matter.

I’ve tried the top reviewed ones on amazon that supposedly don’t use alcohol or other bad preservatives and they gave me irritation so I don’t trust them. Go to the market and buy the actual aloe Vera leafs which are all natural and cheap. Peel the skin with a knife and use either the knife or spoon to get the gel out. Then use a fork to whisk it to the right consistency or even better a hand blender. You can store the extra gel in the fridge for a few days and just repeat the process when you need more. It gave me a lot of relief in the donor area from itching and I applied it on the recipient area to loosen the scabs.

Are you on any meds? You have a great head of hair. I see your concerns but you need to also understand the risk of permanently shocking out those miniaturized hairs along your hairline with surgery. Before considering surgery take a look at this thread and what thus guy was able to accomplish with meds and microneedling. There is a strong chance you may be able to get some impressive results with a similar routine which would look much more natural than a hair transplant because it is. Trust me I was in a similar position as you with minimal hair loss and approaching my mid 30’s and thought I was a great candidate and now and regret my decision to have surgery. Having a great head of hair with minimal hair loss at your age doesn’t make surgery low risk it makes it MUCH HIGHER risk because you have more to lose if it goes wrong.

There is no solution to surgical errors. Hopefully you get great growth in the next 6 months that will help camouflage the pitting you have. It doesn’t look too bad at all based on the pics you posted. Your only option is to remove the worst ones and implant more to hide the rest. There’s this misconception with hair restoration surgery that the most important steps are the extractions and/or the incisions and that graft placement is no big deal and techs can easily handle it. That’s not true at all. If the technicians don’t place the grafts at the proper depth you end up with issues like this.

I get it....I had your same attitude....but take it from me, a guy who rushed in to surgery with a doctor not recommended here with patient posted results and ended up with disastrous results and had to then come on here looking for help from an ethical doctor to fix those issues. If I was dead set on doing this surgery and I just waited for my surgery with a great ethical doctor I would have saved time, money, and a lot of stress. the fact that you think that worst case scenario you will just need a touch up tells me that you, just like me didn’t do enough research into how detailed this surgery is and all the things that can go wrong if you go to the wrong doctor. Konior or any doctor near his level is worth the wait.

Hopefully it will soften up and improve over time. If it doesn’t it is an easy fix if you go to a more meticulous surgeon. How is your donor area?

Some great doctors doing great work overseas with cheap prices compared to the US. Only a few doctors in the US are worth the prices they charge for fue.