I decided to share my experience hoping it will help others to make better decisions.
I'm 27 and I've been experiencing hairloss for about 5/6 years mostly in the frontal hairline. I have been using Rogaine minoxodil for about 2.5 years and have seen really good results with it. However, I started noticing serious change in the hairline last december and have been thinking about doing HT. I did not want to travel outside of the US since I read mixed reviews of peoples experiences and did not want to become just another case. Since the lockdown started I thought this is the best time to pull the trigger. I went with Dr. Vories of Caroline Hair Surgery. He does the whole process himself and read only good things about him.
We started the surgery around 9:30am due to me being late for 20 minutes (Stayed in downtown hotel which was a mistake) and we took 15 min break every 45 minutes. Surgery finished around 3:30 and I went back to hotel. It was mostly painless and smooth experience. I was prescribed pain medicine and sleeping pill. When I got back to hotel and looked at the donor area it did not look what I expected. I expected evenly distributed dots. Recipient area looked exactly how I expected. I decided to wait it to heal and the have a closer look after few days.
After waiting for few days I still saw patches of hairs removed and did not look good (I am on day 6 PO and still the same). I emailed the Dr with my concerns but it was suggested that there has been some shedding of donor hair and it will improve over time. Can hair shed right after the surgery? I read some conflicting other Dr's opinions and if hair sheds, it usually happens after at least two weeks. I might be wrong (I hope I am) but in my opinion it was overharvested especially (right side of head) and not evenly spread out (goodbye short haircuts). I thought it was all about punch size but it seems like density and location of harvested grafts plays a huge role too. If you take bunch of grafts from one area and not take anything around it, it looks overharvested. Like, I said I hope Dr is right and it will come back in few month but I highly doubt from what I have read and seen.
Recipient area looks like on track and I like the hairline he designed. So there is a good news. There are some blood clots in recipient area but I assume it will disappear in few days.
Overall I'm having a mixed feelings right now. Obviously, I need to be more patient but I just wanted to share how I feel and hopefully will have some positive posts next time.
Cheers!
(Day of surgery and 6 days post surgery images)