RepairingNW3

It’s the name of one of his procedures.

I had a ‘Celebrity FUE’ five years ago. In retrospect I would have at least done a traditional FUE, or worked with someone else. What’s done is done and I still prefer what I had now than what I had before. But I’d encourage you to explore your options as you seem to be.

I’ve been meaning to post for a while. It’s been over 13 months since my procedure. Overall, I am satisfied with my final result. My hairline is lowered, and I’m able to style my hair the way I like without trying to hide any of my forehead. Its not perfect. There is thinness at the line where they tried to design my new hairline in the temple corners, so I have to style it carefully to disguise it. However, the frontal hairline is absolutely perfect. Compared to what I had before, this is a win! It’s possible in the future I will attempt to fill in the temple recession or, with enough grafts, lower my hairline more. I will wait for some time though to conserve my grafts for the crown whenever I need that. Depending on what my situation is at that time I may do more hairline work. This is good enough for me :)

I had a procedure with Dr. Mohebi exactly one year ago. You can search for my experience on this forum. My results with Mohebi were good, and I’m satisfied overall. It’s not perfect, but it was worth it to me. I’m no longer self-conscious about my hair. That’s pretty huge. I still think his bedside manner could be improved. I wouldn’t expect him (or any hair transplant doctor, for that matter) to be 100% honest and forthcoming, and he likes to interrupt and talk over people. But his team saved my hair, and he did in fact work out my grievances with me. That’s worth something too.

Overall, I am very satisfied with my experience with Dr. Mohebi. I recommended him to a friend of mine recently, and I would personally consider going back to him in the future for a second operation when I need one.

Sure. The detail is not as fine from farther out, but you can still get a sense for where the old hairline and new hairline meet. And you can see the empty-ish patch on the right temple corner from this view as well. The rest is blending in really nice. I'm able to style it now and blend it together. It will only look better from here on out.

5 months today exactly since the operation. Here are the results so far... There is a patch on the right temple corner that appears like it didn't hold the grafts. If you look closely, you can see the empty patch is where my pre-treatment hairline is. I'm hoping it will still come in and that it's just late growth, but I've had rapid growth so far and I know that the coverage area is apparent by 6 months even if fullness isn't. I have a feeling that this small section may not be as consistent as the rest of the results. But overall I am very happy with how it's progressing. I'll post again at 8 months.

1.25 mg finasteride daily for exactly 6 years now. It's also worth noting that I started taking oral minoxidil 5mg daily at the exact same time. 1) Yes. My erections are 10% less hard than they used to be. It's had no impact on my sex life/performance so far other than I can't get "rock hard" anymore. I'm also aging, so that could be contributing too. It's not a big deal at all. Side effects probably started within the first year. 2) No. If anything, I think it has gotten a little worse over time. Again, I'm not sure if this is age-related/ 3) I briefly discontinued finasteride for 1-2 months a few years ago. Because the side effects were so minimal I couldn't really tell if they changed during that time 4) I take 1.25 mg daily. I'd like to take 1mg but I haven't figured out a way to cut my 5mg pills into fifths. Too much work. I have a pill cutter and just cut them into four. 5) I took pictures before and after, and there was a major difference at 3 months. My hair became thicker and I grew new hair, which I believe the oral minoxidil helped with.

Here are photos taken just now, exactly 3 and a half months since the day of operation. Many of the hairs transplanted appear to have come through. They are still fine and some are kinky as expected in early growth, but the coverage is really nice and blends good with my existing hair. Most of the redness and any signs of an operation are virtually gone. I just had a pimple for the first time in about 3 weeks on my right temple, so that has pretty much stopped although it was quite minimal before. Itching isn't as frequent. If this is just a preview of what's to come, I am very curious how the final result will look. I am really happy with how it looks already. Over the next month or two, I am expecting that I will be able to style it better with my existing hair. I already feel more confident and think far less about my hairline than I have in probably 15 years! It's like a miracle.

Here is an update from Day 70. I am starting to see some early growth. Some of what you see growing is hair that was shaved off around the original hairline in the recipient area (particularly in the front). But I can also see and feel now some new growth all over the recipient area. As is typical, the hairs are quite fine at this point and are just initially coming in. Although there is still a ways to go to the final result, I am hopeful right now that it will be a nice result to show. The remaining redness looks more prominent in these photos than it does in person. It's hard to notice it at all when my hair is down. The donor area seems to have healed well from what I can feel and see, although I might buzz that area at some point to get a closer look at it. I've only had minor occasional pimples in both the recipient and donor area so far, although one burst on its own after a shower recently. I'm not sure if that could cause any damage to the follicle beneath it, but I doubt it. I'll post again in another 4-6 weeks when I get closer to the 4-month appearance. That should be a more interesting update.

I use the gentle dabber that comes with Dermamatch to conceal the redness, as well as any particularly thin spots on the crown. Dermamatch acts similar to brow powder - you can apply it directly to skin. Since the color matches my hair, I can give a slight impression of a lower hairline/fuller hair than what I have. Because of my recession + the shaving that we did during the procedure, the baldness in that area would be more transparent without the concealer. I will likely use it until the redness disappears and the hairs regrow more fully.

Here are Day 27 photos. You can see that I've shed most of the recipient hairs by now. I know a lot of people seem to get bummed when this happens, but I've actually been eager for it since it indicates progression toward new growth eventually. I've also still got a fair bit of redness on the recipient area, which I cover with Dermamatch when I go out. I think I might end up being one of those cases that stays red for 2-3 months. We'll see. I have no idea what the donor area looks like since we didn't shave back there. I've noticed an occasional pimple in the donor or recipient area the last couple of days, but it seems to go away pretty quick. Most importantly, I was recently able to work out a fair agreement with Dr. Mohebi that satisfies my grievances regarding the aspects of the procedure that I've detailed in my initial post. He was quite willing to consider my vantage point, even if we still disagreed on a couple of things. He was able to appreciate my concerns in such a way that led him and his team to consider some changes to how they explain aspects of the procedure to their patients. I really admired his patient-centered approach to our recent discussion and his ability to acknowledge the legitimacy in my concerns. I feel good about our working relationship again. I have a feeling that if we do more work together in the future, we'll both be on the same page next time. I even referred a friend to him today. This whole process has been such a learning and life-changing experience for me. I have taken up a much deeper education in hair transplantation than I had ever anticipated, and I'm still learning. I very much look forward to seeing how the results come in, and I'll continue to post with updates as things progress.

No, you are correct. The donor area was not shaven; only the recipient area where the hairs were implanted. Of the grafts that were implanted, I was told during the final stages of the surgery that probably 20%ish of the grafts implanted were my longer hairs (you can see from the post-op pics) - a very different figure from the 80% I was quoted in the email. Their not shaving my donor area at all is arguably the only aspect of the surgery that distinguished it from a traditional FUE procedure of this graft size. When you say "big effort for no benefit", those are my thoughts exactly. We could have used all that extra time for more grafts, an easier procedure, and a cheaper price!

I do not consent to disclosing my identity to you and am not required to do so in order to keep the post on the forum. I have followed the forum guidelines and provided a fair, balanced, and honest review of the pros/cons of my surgery. I am not particularly interested in an internet argument with my doctor for the public to witness. If you remove the post, I'll have to speculate as to why, and I can just post it elsewhere on the internet. I believe that there is room for honest, balanced reviews, not just ones that are glowing.

Recovery. So far, the recovery has been pretty smooth without complications. I stopped seeing crusts around the one week mark when I began washing my hair normally again in the shower and was able to scrub the scabs off using the special sponge I was provided with for post-op washing. I still had some flaking/dandruff until around Day 10, but that has since stopped. There was a period where I felt some intermittent soreness at the donor area when I would feel around it; it felt as if I was being poked with needles again (pimples? If so, they are no longer there). I still have redness in my recipient area, like a sunburn, but it's been getting better little by little. No pimples in the recipient area so far, but I heard that it's possible over the next few weeks/months I may see some of those. Grievances. I had my first follow-up Facetime consultation yesterday with Dr. Mohebi. There was no mention of my grievances. Someone on here said that it could be worth exploring some type of refund for the difference between the procedure I received and the procedure I paid for. I would have ideally liked to see some sort of discount worked out. But given how he responded with defensiveness when I brought up my concerns during our meeting the day after my procedure, I am certain that any attempts on my part to work something out would have been disappointing. I'm sure the last thing a doctor like this wants is to lose money. Really, the only thing about this procedure that was promised and fully delivered was that they didn't shave my donor area. Because it was a small procedure though, they could have just shaved a small strip and disguised it with my existing hair. Had I done that, I would have paid close to literally half of the price for it. Someone going in with a hairline like mine could save a lot of money and time by doing a partial shave FUE. I could have saved $9,000 had I pursued that route. My girlfriend has convinced me to stop complaining so much about it for the sake of my health. Photos. Here are my photos from 14 days post-op. If I've started losing grafts, I haven't really noticed. At least one person so far in my workplace was secretly checking out my hairline when I was looking away, but most people haven't said anything if they do notice that I had something done. My frontal hair definitely appears thinner and my hairline higher. I'm trying not to be sore about it and prefer to move on with my life. I'll continue to post occasionally with updates and, of course, show the results. I definitely like the new hairline that was drawn and am very interested in seeing how the final result appears a year from now. I think if it all comes in well it's going to look great. Future Work. I'd like to see how my hair loss stabilizes over the next 2-5 years as I move into my late thirties and then consider another operation where I thicken the top and potentially fill in the temples more. You can see in this picture when I pull my hair back how there is thinness on the frontal crown, for example. But I am a little worried about how much I can trust what these doctors tell me now if I do future work. I'd ideally like to work with someone who does the operation themselves and also delivers the procedure as it is agreed upon during the initial consultations.