Curious25

Personally, I believe it is an industry unwritten rule to hold off crown restoration until mid 30's. Just keep the longer hair style if you are concerned about covering the crown? It barely looks noticeable when your hair is longer.

Congrats on now having a surgery date booked in, I will look forward to following your journey.

Good for you man, enjoy your new look.

Logically, then yes it should. Anecdotally, then it appears not so - according to the testimonies of hundreds of finasteride users I have read online. I have also seen differences in opinions from doctors on this topic over the years, so it really is quite a hard one to gauge. I think its probably dependent on the individual - eg. by how much his DHT levels are lowered, and whether this affects the threshold his body needs between his androgen sensitivity of the beard follicles, and levels of DHT required, for hair to grow. Trial and error perhaps? I also think that it comes down to the maths, between the ratio of scalp hair vs. body hair you have had transplanted. For instance, if you have had 10,000 grafts transplanted to your recipient, 4,000 of which are from the sweet spot of the scalp donor, and 6,000 of which are BHT - there is much less of an incentive to take any form of DHT blocking medication. On the flip side, if 9,000 of those grafts are from the scalp, some of which have been extracted outside of traditional NW6/7 zones, and 1,000 BHT - taking a DHT blocker, if able to do so, would probably be more advisory.

Looks excellent , and your donor remains looking very harvestable also. Are you strapped up to a cannula?

Lovely result, in particular the crown restoration. 84 FUcm2 in the donor is, I would have thought, above average density.

I think I overall prefer de freitas’s clinic posted results, however this could also be down to the superior marketing strategy he adopts , their videos and thread presentations are very good. However Bisanga has a lot more patient posted results that I have came across , so for me , unless I went out my way to scan through the Spanish forums for more patient posted results from de Freitas, I’d opt for Bisanga purely based off the larger volume of real reviews I had seen. The fact you have had an in person consult with Bisanga would also lean me more towards him, as he’s already had a good chance to look at what he’s got to work with - de Freitas could decide to go a different route on the day of surgery if it is the first time you have seen him.

So what does that mean your views are on this topic?

Will you be making a thread? I’ve always been interested to see what you look like after your long journey!

I’m not saying he’s a cut above the rest per say - and gatsby, I used dr Pradeep as an example of a dr who does seem to get more grafts than others. Supply and demand is obviously the limitation with every surgery - but how can you tell me that my proposal is wrong, when Zoomster goes to one recommended surgeon on here and is turned away for having a weak donor, yet a few years later, he’s shaping up to be a very well covered NW 1 after over 8000 grafts were extracted from that very same donor by a different doctor? Hugo’s donor was a fully established classic NW6 pattern, so it was impossible for Dr Zarev to have extracted from with outside that. I get the eagerness to remain politically correct, and I’m not insinuating these surgeons are better than the others, perhaps it would be nicer to say the other surgeons are more conservative? But I don’t understand why it’s acceptable to openly acknowledge doctors such as Konior and Reddy are able to restore recipient areas often using less than market average numbers of grafts, however you aren’t able to highlight some doctors being able to do the same in reverse, with patients donor areas.

I have been inspired to start this after reviewing @HugoX 's recent 2 transplants with Dr Zarev. Without having concrete stats on his pre surgery donor density - I'm going to go out on a limb here and still use this as an example as to why not all top tier surgeons are equal. has explained on numerous occasions how Dr Zarev's ability to extract upwards of 10,000 FUE grafts from patients, is purely down to his patients having excellent pre donor density, therefore having a higher selection to play with from the get go. Whilst this indeed logically makes sense, I find it very hard to believe that Eugenix and Dr Zarev are the two most fortunate surgeons in the world to be blessed with these types of patients on a regular basis - because these types of candidates aren't unicorns, and I very rarely see any other top surgeons we talk about on these boards, performing 2 or 3 step surgeries on patients extracting the same level of grafts via FUE. I propose that, just how some surgeons have reputations of having the capability of making lesser number of grafts go a longer way in the recipient area, such as Dr Reddy, Dr Konior etc. - I believe surgeons such as Dr Sethi and Dr Zarev, have the ability to execute advanced level extraction patterns in the donor areas, that they are in fact able to further deplete patients donor regions more so than their fellow peers, and leave it looking aesthetically no different. I'd be keen to hear peoples thoughts.

If this is a result he showcases on his website, then it literally says it all IMO. The inconvenience of travelling, and paying for flights and paying for accomodation is minuscule in comparison to walking around with a less than satisfactory result, I can promise you that. Just re-look at it as an opportunity to travel and visit a new city or part of the world, surely that will be nice considering you won't have been able to leave Oz for almost 2 years? If you are prepared to fly to Europe, and visit one of the top FUE surgeons here, then even after flights and accomodation costs, you will likely be surprised at how it doesn't work out to be all that much more. Remember, money always comes and goes over a course of your lifetime, and playing with a finite resource of donor hair, well this does not come back around.

Go off your own surgeons recommended guidelines, but most return to exercise 14 days post op.

Well surely this should answer your question . . it's the most important part! Why are you wanting to get a procedure, to get good results, or because it was convenient to travel to the clinic? I can tell you, that going through a procedure and waiting for the results to grow in, is a very anxious process for everyone, and this is going to be massively exacerbated if you have any sort of lingering pre doubts about your surgeon going into it.

More pictures would be beneficial, but going off this, I would say average. More aggressive doctors, such as Dr Sethi, should be able to retrieve more than 4000 grafts.

Hugo, are you on a medical regime, and are you privy to your donor stats pre surgery in terms of density per cm2 ? Thanks

Yes I think so too, but I also think he has definitely had some hairline restoration work also. Have a look at these two pics; The rounding of his new hairline just above his mole on his right temple is not only a give away of a standard temple closing found in hairline surgery, but it wasn’t like that beforehand. His hairline also looks denser, however admittedly that could be from fibres - however I think the rounding of the hairline:temple closures is confirmation he has had work done.

Yea he was actually mentioned earlier in the thread - I believe @Melvin- Moderator was intending to DM him,

The future of hair restoration is here

So are you not using topical DUT, just mesotherapy? And you’re doing this by derma rolling, as opposed to the clinic prp style method ?

For a doctor who has apparently been around since the 80's . . a lack of cases and patient posted results would deeply concern me.

Nice results. Do you have any results of long haired SMP for increasing density?

The points you make in relation to poor lifestyle habits, contribute to the decline in performance, largely from the effects they have on peoples hormone profiles. Sure, you can argue obesity and smoking affects blood circulation, which in turn can affect erection qualities etc and etc. - but the fact of the matter is, the altering and changes of mens hormone profiles due to ageing and these poor lifestyle choices, is largely what causes the issues. . . . . which ties into absolutely why people shouldn't be criticised for taking their time to consider taking a medication (for life) that will alter their natural hormone ranges.

This tells you all you need to know, she sounds like a keeper. Where are you going for your SMP out of interest?

From my personal experience, the more hair I have lost, the more I have cared. I do agree, to some extent, that the older one is, the more 'acceptable' balding appears. A good mark of this is crown balding. Crown balding in your 20's and early 30's is unusual, and dramatically ageing. A man in his 40's or 50's with pretty good hair, yet a thinner crown, is age appropriate, and can still be a very aesthetic look - Have a look at the latest De Freitas clinic posted case, patient in his late 40's, they heavily focus on his frontal third and mid scalp region, and leave his crown somewhat thinner, and he looks excellent.