ADuckwithNoHair

About me: 28 Years old, started Finasteride in early-mid twenties. My crown has been very stable since then, though I'm not sure whether it was due to the medication or not. Finasteride, however, didn't do anything for my hairline, which has been slowly creeping back at the temples over the years. I first started looking into hair transplants in early 2020 out of curiosity. I was prepared to ruefully accept my hair loss since I viewed hair transplants as high risk and unnatural looking. I have to give this forum complete credit for reversing my opinions 100%. Research: I consulted with some popular clinics recommended on this site including H&W, Eugenix, Dr. Bloxham (in person), and Dr. Wesley. All recommended in the ballpark of 1500-2000 grafts. Obviously, each of these clinics and doctors are highly regarded and have remarkable results. During my research, though, I was delving into papers published in the ISHRS journal by Dr. Cooley where he would discuss the conditions ideal for hair transplantation and graft survival down to the temperature and humidity of the room, which he controls during actual procedures. This level of perfectionism and attention to detail, in addition to his phenomenal patient results, really impressed me and in the end I chose him. The procedure: I took an Amtrak into North Carolina and checked into the Hilton the clinic booked for me. All of Dr. Cooley's out of town patients pass through here and they accommodate his patients well with an early morning shuttle to the clinic, as well as a shuttle back after the procedure is over. I barely sleep because of nervousness. In the morning I use an antibacterial/disinfectant wash on my scalp called Hibiclens as suggested by Dr. Cooley, eat a simple breakfast of an apple and a muffin and take the shuttle over to the clinic. I arrived around 7:15. The clinic is located within a modern medical complex a few minutes away from the hotel. Check-in was very fast and easy - they let me choose what lunch I wanted from the local sandwich shop and pick 3 movies (I chose Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, one of the Cloverfield movies, and something else... these ended up being completely inconsequential). Dr. Cooley came in and took pre-op photos, discussed my goals, and drew on the outline for my new hairline. Dr. Cooley's demeanor was very friendly, but here I would say that the pre-op consult was quite rushed, taking less than 15 minutes or so. Dr. Cooley did not volunteer much information that outside of what was completely necessary for the procedure, for example, my hair/donor characteristics, my reserve for future procedures, etc. As I was pretty slide deprived and anxious at this point, I didn't get a chance to converse with the doctor as much as I would have liked. Regardless Dr. Cooley did seem completely present and was laser-focused on the procedure. I swallowed a bunch of pills, donned a gown and was escorted to the operating room. You'll have to excuse my vague level of detail for the procedure itself because the combination of pills and my exhaustion catching up with me hit me hard. I remember lying face down on the chair and hearing Dr. Cooley explain that he was going to begin excising the strip and that I may feel a pinch. I barely felt a thing and hardly noticed the strip being removed or even being stitched up afterwards. The techs went to work dissecting the strip into grafts and some indeterminate amount of time later, Dr. Cooley also made the slits on my hairline (I guess I also flipped over at some point). I had lunch before the afternoon implantation session. During implantation, the movies I selected also played but I was not awake for any of it. The only thing I remember is about 5 minutes of a fight scene from Crouching Tiger. That's it. I slept through literally everything else. I woke up around 5 and everything was done. Dr. Cooley wrapped my head up, went over my post-op instructions, and I took the shuttle back to the hotel. I was discharged around 5:30. Post-op: The week post-op was quite hard on me as I'm not good at sleeping sitting up. In addition, Dr. Cooley's instructions were to use a proprietary liposomal ATP spray every hour or other hour, I forget which. The combination made my sleep very poor. In fact, the night after the procedure, I pulled an all nighter - sitting up in my hotel bed, watching TV, and spraying my grafts as directed. I will say that for me, there was absolutely minimal pain and swelling during this period. The day after the procedure, I was shuttled back to the clinic for a post-op wash, exam, and instructions. Everything went well and they gave me some gentle copper-infused shampoo to wash my grafts with. I thought it was silly at first, but the stuff is actually fantastic. The following week was more poor sleep. I slept so badly (getting only 3 hours or so each night) that I was legitimately worried that I was stressing the survival of my grafts. I also washed the grafts daily, as per Dr. Cooley's instructions, with very gentle motions and indirect water. I continued using the spray as directed (after the first few days, you ease off the spray frequency, but are still asked to use it multiple times per day, sealing it with saran wrap and a surgical cap). Also, though not suggested by the Doctor, I took some supplements such as vitamins C, D, and Zinc. Due to the sleep issues, I was extremely grateful to be working from home during this period. There's not too much else to say about my post-op. As I was back in NYC, I had to go to a local clinic to have the stiches removed. When he was removing the stitches, the doctor remarked that he had done stitch removal for hair transplants before but had never seen one like mine before. He said that the fine gauge of the stitches used were much more like those used for facial plastic surgery and the stitching technique was excellent. Miscellaneous thoughts: Though I volunteered to allow Dr. Cooley to shave my recipient for the procedure, he refused and said it would not make the work much easier for his team. I insisted and he did end up shaving a small area on the temples for better visibility. Post-op though, I have to say, I was shocked by how indiscernible the hair transplant was. I was meeting people less than a month out of the procedure and NO ONE knew that anything was done. Chalk it up to the magic of no-shave procedures. Because we were at the height of the pandemic it would not have been a huge concern if I had to shave my head since no one would see me. If I had to appear at the office though, the no-shave procedure would have been a major benefit. I am about 7 months out from my procedure as of the time of writing and all I can say is that I am extremely satisfied and am tremendously grateful to Dr. Cooley and his fantastic team. I feel much more confident in my appearance and am genuinely having fun with my hair for the first time in years. Whereas previously I was hyper-conscious about sweeping my hair over my temples and cursing every gust of wind, I feel much more at peace now. I am happy with my results and I am optimistic that it can get even better in the coming months. Photos: I prefer to keep a minimal number of pictures of myself on the internet so here are my pre-op photos as well as my photos about 6 to 6.5 months out from the procedure. I have a few photos of the period between I can share if you are genuinely curious but only via private message. Ironically for a pre-op photo, the temples are a little flattering. Here it is in the worst possible lighting: Grafts implanted. Dr. Cooley implanted grafts in between my native hairs to thicken my existing hairline in addition to reconstructing the temples: 6.5 Months out: Thanks for reading my thread. If you have any questions feel free to reach out via the thread or private message.

100% hair transplant. I wonder how much of a boost Elon's transplant gave his career? I hear transplants are popular in the Silicon Valley crowd where you can actually lose business opportunities or potential investors if you look like an out of place old fogey amidst young engineers and high tech.

Dr. Nader did a great job working between your native hair! Thanks for sharing your result

Nicotine constricts blood vessels in your scalp so it's not optimal for graft health and healing after a transplant, though I'm not sure if the negative impact is significant. You should reach out to your doctor and ask for his/her opinion.

That's a good question. As I doubt even Dr. Hasson is the owner of the hair loss crystal ball, his is just an educated guess - granted, a guess 100x more educated and 100x more likely to be accurate than ours. Nothing is guaranteed, and it's entirely possible that this fellow's hair loss kicks into overdrive and somehow he ends up NW6. However, what is to be gained if Dr. Hasson's intuition is correct? More available grafts plus less visual impact to the donor zone since you can space out the extractions further. IMO there is risk to going outside of the guaranteed safe zone, but there are benefits to be reaped as well. And if there's anyone I'd trust to make that call it would be Dr. Hasson.

This is the first time I viewed your journey, so I saw your latest progress pics before anything else. I went to pg. 1 expecting your starting point to be like NW3 or something and I literally said, "No f***ing way...!" Do people even recognize you in person anymore?! Seriously, incredible result and props to Dr. Sethi and the Eugenix team.

To put it briefly, I don't see any signs of hair loss aside from normal hairline maturation. At 15 you should not get on anti-androgens anyway, and the hassle of Minoxidil is totally not worth it for you. Just enjoy your life and keep an eye on your hairline for changes over the years. For what it's worth, I think your hair looks great as it is!

I want to maximize my donor availability in case I need more procedures in the future as I have a family history of hair loss (though not severe NW6/7 type). My surgeon has a great record of very fine scars, and I generally wear my hair mid-length anyways so it should be practically undetectable. Finally, I think that FUT simply produces more robust grafts Thanks a lot Melvin - you've been a great source of guidance during my research. My surgeon is Dr. Cooley who I selected after numerous consultations and viewing no less than 1,000 hair transplant result photos. I sincerely hope you're right, and that my case is so easy Dr. Cooley could do it in his sleep

Sorry for a blog-type post, but hope you'll give it a read and share your thoughts/advice: I've booked a HT appointment that's 1 week away and all the sudden I'm being plagued by constant doubts and fears. "Am I too young? What if my hair loss kicks into overdrive and leaves me looking ridiculous? What if I get poor growth, a bad scar, etc.?" The only thing I can say for certain is that I have very high confidence in is my surgeon who, after so much vetting, is one of the only people who I would trust without any lingering feeling of "maybe I should have gone to X instead". I posted some pictures in an old thread. The current plan is FUT hairline work in the range of 1,800 grafts. I'm generally not an anxious person but the lead-up to my procedure has me rattled. Has anyone else who went through a HT also experience pre-op jitters, and how did you deal with it?

I had the same impression, but if you look at his pre-op pictures his natural hairline (unless he had a prior transplant, but it doesn't look like that to me) is actually that rounded, juvenile type. IMO you don't go wrong my mimicking nature, and what was natural in this case was to reestablish those rounded temple points.

The risky thing about doing an HT at a young age is that you may end up "chasing" your progressing hair loss over the years if you're not on preventive medication. In my opinion, a hair transplant in your situation is not out of the question. I have a low amount of hairline recession like you and when I asked Dr. Bloxham (a highly regarded hair transplant surgeon) during my in-person consultation about whether it's prudent for someone in our shoes to get a hair transplant he said (paraphrasing) "It's not a bad idea because regardless of whether you get a HT now or later you will still need to rebuild your hairline first". As long as you are conservative in designing a hairline, I wouldn't say it's foolish to establish one now. From a cost perspective, it costs much more to do multiple procedures (if say, you only wanted to do your hairline now and further revisions down the road) rather than waiting for a single larger procedure when your loss is established/stabilized.

A better intro 🤪

Dr. Path has been posting more results recently and I've been extremely impressed with the quality of his work. I see you're mainly concerned about the hairline, and I have to say, he's been knocking them out of the park lately:

This is by far the most active Korean site for hair transplants/hair loss: https://daedamo.com/new/bbs/board.php?bo_table=graft The great thing about that message board is that there are lots of patient (not clinic) posted before/after, much like this forum. Unfortunately, I think you need a Korean phone number to register, and you need to register to view whole conversations... This is one recent example someone posted of Korean graft work and this is another As for which Korean doctors are good, I'm nowhere near familiar enough to be confident making such a recommendation. This person posted his experience at Motion Clinic in Korea, including consultation (in English). As I mentioned earlier the scene is relatively difficult to penetrate as a foreigner. There is a small service industry dedicated to connecting foreigners with clinics for cosmetic surgery. In the end though, I have no doubt that Korea is one of the most slept on/underrated destinations for hair transplants. I hope that a Korean speaking member of these forums can light the way for us some time soon.

Check Europe. This chart was posted recently: One more suggestion, hear me out, if you're willing to break away from the tried and true of this forum there are some incredible FUE surgeons in Korea that are priced roughly between Turkey and NA. The Korean HT "scene" is obscure to most Westerners but if you're willing to put some work in it could be worth it. I've been doing a bit of research lately and their surgical standards, technique, and results are truly top notch.