baldforalongtime

90 days...since I'm working from home during quarantine, I got my hair cut short on the sides and back. I wanted to see the scar and how short I could get away with...only to realize not a 2.

I'd ask your doctor. Mine recommended starting after day 7

I'd give yourself a lot of wiggle room as people have different reactions in both the donor and recipient. You need to plan at least two weeks to get the scabs and peeling to be gone from the recipient and then the redness will persist for months. For the donor, you need to anticipate how long it will take to grow back and then shock loss is a real possibility.

On 5/5/2020 at 3:51 AM, Sijac09 said:

Might be worth going onto the foam version of minoxidil as people report that it’s way less oily. That’s what I’d be doing in your situation right now and hopefully get back what you had before 

Agreed - I changed to the foam and it is substantially less oily.

Do you have pictures of your hair grown out more? If the hair is thin in the donor area, you may have a difficult time covering scars sufficiently from any procedures.

36 minutes ago, LonelyGraft said:

Was the extent of the scanning shown in those previous pics? Did it get worse cause it doesn’t look that bad

The scabbing wasn't terrible, but on the front left thick enough that I didn't dare scrub them after seven days. Here is the day after surgery:

Are you looking at FUE or FUT? Also, have you only been consulted from the pictures? No microscope to detect miniaturization?

I'm dealing with this same question but on the after-HT surgery side. Honestly, I'd kill to have your donor area, but am interested in what the community recommends.

2 hours ago, LonelyGraft said:

Hello how old are you? Did the excess bleeding cause any issues during the surgery?

I'm 44. The excess bleeding made the surgery take a little longer and led to a lot of scabbing, but nothing else adverse that I've identified so far. I'm only two month post so the results are still unknown. Since I had a few larger scabs, I was hesitant to remove them after the 7th day. The staff recommended I scrub a little more vigorously when they removed the stitches, so I did in the shower after soaking the scabs in Neosporin for 30 minutes.

60 day update:

• Supplement routine: Finasteride 1mg daily; Rogaine twice daily. Biotin 10k mg once daily
• Started microneedling three weeks ago with a Dr Pen A6...I'm only doing the donor areas and crown. The recipient area is left to heal. I'm definitely seeing hairs on the crown that weren't in the earlier pictures.
• Starting to see hairs come up all over the recipient area
• Got a fairly aggressive haircut two weeks ago as I wanted to see how low I could go while still working from home in quarantine. The barber said she couldn't see the line, but my iPhone picture definitely showed it. I'm going to grow now with no cuts until 90 days
• The donor area is so thin below the transplant scar...I know there is some shock loss, but at this point I'm on the fence about any future surgeries. What are your opinions?

The hardest part of this process is cutting off all dating. When I go places I always wear a hat. All of my old dating profile pictures were of me completely shaved bald, so I don't have a good set with friends, etc that I can use. Have people found success dating through the ugly duckling phase? My original plan was to wait six months completely off the market, and that is still the plan, but quarantine is getting to me a bit.

30 day update. No side effects from the medication and the shedding is slowing down.

I knew my hair was thin, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to cover the FUT scar. We'll see how things progress though. The shock loss under the scar seems to be lessening a bit, but is still glaringly obvious. I also think the hair line is going to end up really high; it seems like I have a lot of forehead still. The plan is still to do two more surgeries, one to fill the crown and another to lower the hairline if I have the donor hair. But wow the donor area is thin.

People say the ugly duckling phase is difficult and I'm definitely finding that to be true.

I started using self-tanning lotion on my face last week and the contrast with my scalp is noticeable. I don't want to risk anything, so I'll just wait and hope the transplant hair grows in.

When is it safe (if ever) to use a self tanning lotion on the scalp post transplant? I'm 1 month post and starting to use Jergens Natural Glow on the face, but the front scalp is starting to contrast in it white glow.

39 minutes ago, Cahustler said:

Any idea how long it takes to cover up the FUT scar? Assuming you had FUT? I’m worried it’ll never be covered up ... sorry TB, I’ll get off your thread after this 😂 

 

I'm wondering the same thing! Still super early to tell but sometimes I wonder if it will ever cover with how thin my donor area is.

Week 2 in the books. Random details:

• Shedding has started
• Fin+Min is going well...no side effects to report
• I knew the thinness of my donor area would be an issue and I need to respond well to meds, so I'm trying to be patient about scar coverage...good thin I can stay home during the quarantine

End of week 1.

Random details:

• Only needed pain killers for sleeping the first three nights
• At the end of the week, the stitches were removed. During the follow up, I was instructed to be a little more persuasive with head massage while showering. This successfully removed the scabs
• Started fin+min on day 8

Surgery results. The procedure went well. I arrived early in the morning. The procedure took around 9 hours, with a break for lunch.

The only complaint I would have is partially my own fault. I was having discomfort during the procedure, but was managing my way through it by breathing. This ended up wearing my down a bit and the stress was causing bleeding.

The staff straightened me out and I was more communicative about pain after that. They kept me numb and finished the procedure. The night after was not fun. It was hard to sleep as there was no side of my head to lay on. I tried an airplane pillow, but only ended up with about 4 hours sleep.

After shaving my head for 15 years, I finally decided to take the plunge with HT. I was (am) a Norwood 6. 

Before pictures. I started growing out my hair two weeks before the procedure. Plan is to update monthly.