asterix0

do you have any tips how to apply your styling product? Does it still hold your hair well on a windy day? @Melvin- Admin also chime in if you haven't made a video/tutorial on this already.

The pictures are unclear, I do not see much of a difference.

Interesting, I didn't know that was possible. Why would a surgeon prefer to do that, intuitively it would seem to compromise graft survivability?

Well, there can certainly be more than 1 follicle in a graft, that is the whole point of there being single, double, triple follicles in a graft. We are talking about grafts though, not hair follicles.

A graft is clearly identifiable, it doesn't matter if it's a single, double, or triple, all we have is a binary classification of graft or no graft. If we are talking about hairs then that is a different story.

Can anyone help me understand, with the pictures OP provided, using software to count the grafts since they were transplanted on bare scalp, how we cannot get the accurate number of grafts from that? Why speculate on strip width and all these things instead of just counting the grafts?

I strongly suspect it is due to just increased minoxidil absorption, oral minoxidil could achieve the same effects.

How old are you? I have seen this happen more frequently but it may just be coincidence with genetics, or the increased stress theory like people here have said.

Yes this is interesting, the problem is really how much is the juice worth the squeeze. The legal system is very drawn out and inefficient, a bit too coincidental isn't it that the mode of billing is billable hours. For OP's case, such an outcome is probably unlikely but if he has the fire in his belly to do so perhaps formulation of the case along with requisite paper trails with communication from the clinic, expressing his concern and dissatisfaction and how it is affecting his life, with their responses, would greatly aid such an endeavor.

Yes sadly this should be in the risk calculus for patients before they decide to take the plunge. Everybody thinks they can beat the odds. Truly there is nothing that can be done because even if everyone on these forums stood on their roofs and warned against hair mills and scams, you would still have people go and roll the dice, probably enough to keep business rolling for quite a long time.

Mental health is getting more sympathy in the courts. OP could claim bad psychological impairment which affected his work performance, well being, medical expenses for therapy, etc.

You came a long way, this was a tough repair case.

I don't know how it works generally, but when I had my FUE, the doctor was counting the grafts while the extractions were taking place, and I was awake during the whole procedure so I knew I was getting what was claimed. The same for when they were being implanted, they were counted and I was conscious to follow along.

Ok, I misunderstood I thought that meant for the 3 strips combined. Nevertheless it seems astounding to have taken 3 strips during 1 procedure. I suppose I "could" understand another one if the first one didn't yield enough grafts, but why induce even more scarring with a third and not take the necessary number in the second? Everything is perplexing in your case, I am sorry you are going through this. I will say though since you have fine hair, a second pass would probably have been necessary anyway to achieve the required density on your hairline. It is common for patients with finer hair transplanting on bald areas. Still though, the discrepancy in counted grafts vs what was claimed to have been implanted is worrisome.

"49.3 sq cm with a follicular unit density of 34 FU/cm²" OP that math indicates 1700 grafts, this is the report that Dr. Bloxham provided to you?

@Portugal did you by any chance measure DHT levels before and after you started TRT?

It is part of the tradeoff some of us unfortunately have to deal with. Try topical finasteride or dutasteride maybe that will help if you can't tolerate oral.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Perhaps a relatively short haircut with the beard grafts will look good. I don't know how old this patient is, nor what his motivation is to do this now. I am assuming he is pretty old. One would think at this point considering the quality of the donor area, it would be better just to accept the situation and move on.

If you try micro needling by itself you will see almost no hair regrowth. I have looked at many, many cases across the internet and it is only in conjunction with minoxidil that it does anything. The science may show that in theory it is supposed to do something, but we can say the same thing for saw palmetto or pumpkin seen oil as an alternative to finasteride, yet everyone knows that those treatments are pointless. I spoke to several hair transplant doctors prior to my transplant and asked about micro needling and they recommended that I discontinue it, but continue to use minoxidil and finasteride. Really what is just happening is greater permeability of the minoxidil through the wounds on your head. However, these wounds if not taken care of properly can also lead to infection, particularly if you don't sanitize the needle cartridge before and after each session. I would hope people are using new ones after each session. I tried micro needling myself 1x a week and did not see any significant improvements vs my prior just finasteride and minoxidil regimen. Also, consider the mere scientific fact that our cells cannot regenerate an infinite amount of times. The number of times is actually preprogrammed. Think if you were to continuously injure any other part of your body, it would not be conducive to making it strong and healthy as it would constantly be in a healing stage. I think that the whole micro needling effect is more useful science but not very useful for male pattern baldness, when you could probably get the same benefits by just taking a more potent oral minoxidil dosage rather than doing micro needling + topical minoxidil. It perhaps does have other applications though.

Drop the microneedling, if you decide to get a transplant in that area your existing tissue may be damaged and not have it suitable as a foundation for the grafts.

I used to wear a hat all the time, and would avoid indoor locations with bright lights. I would refuse to play sports without a hat because my hair looked terribly thin when sweaty. I wouldn't want to be photographed without a hat because I was the only young guy with a see through, wispy terrible hairline, that was receding at the same time. Truly was a dark, damaging time psychologically.

What is Dr. Mursenu's opinion on temple point restoration, is it something he does regularly? It seems that when it goes well it looks great, but due to how fine the hair is, how important the angles are, it is really tricky to do.

years of waiting and for some people understandably the price is high.

Why does he not consider a transplant, he has a decent donor as a high Norwood from what I can tell. I guess because then his whole "schtick" on YouTube would be ruined and he would be seen as a hypocrite.

I think it's progressing well, now you should see good improvements in the next few months. Slow and steady wins the race.