ciaus

Surprised to see a new member hand on an account with over 300 replies. You started this account 11 days ago and you're already up to 318 posts. Pace yourself there buddy. While there's never been a shortage of questionable or incompetent doctors, there's also no way for this guy to collect or even reference enough patient results to make that statement. Just sensational speculation to keep his audience engaged and entertained. At best its a gross exaggeration that helps emphasize the importance of doing good research for the best doctor. At worst less optimistic guys will hear it and give up on trying to improve their hairloss at all. And suffer needlessly in silence without ever even trying.

The lesson is to stay vigilant my friends, because I'm out there in the crowd doing inspections! How many guys get that one and thinking-their-done while the sides of their heads keep marching backwards?

The ones where the temple points and closure angles on the sides continue to thin out and recede, while the top persists with the strong definition and density from the HT.

I watch MPMD too and link his videos sometimes as well. I don't know if Kevin has tried microneedling himself, but even if he did that would be just one more personal story. Most of the studies showing positive results are also giving the participants minoxidil. And like he says in the video makes sense when you consider the puncture holes from the needles are helping the minoxidil to penetrate deeper into the skin. And that probably explains most of your positive results as well. The real issue here is maximizing the absorption and utilization of the minoxidil. I think a topical cream like tretinoin or stronger minoxidil formulation are better options to try before cutting up your skin on a regular basis. Not just because the long term consequences haven't been studied, but because each day you do microneedle your making your body more accessible to things you don't want penetrating into your body. Now most days around the house or neighborhood that's going to be relatively harmless bacteria, etc. But increasingly with our ever more connected world we're in direct and indirect contact with more than most of us probably realize. With people regularly traveling to/from exotic or less well off places with questionable sanitation; all the things we buy online shipping from similar places; the problem of ever increasing strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria, etc.

I don't have experience to offer, just want to be sure your hairloss is well under control before adding SMP for just density among longer hairs. Like with a finasteride/minoxidil regimen you're responding well to, or at least some years of no detectable additional loss based on taking regular pictures for careful comparison. If you keep losing hair down the road you could find yourself in a bad situation where the SMP doesn't blend so well when you have a lot less hair.

Definitely get your scalp calmed down. If its just seborrheic dermatitis that can often be managed by medicated shampoos. Sometimes more serious conditions like scarring alopecias can present these same symptoms, and because those actually destroy hair follicles its very important to rule them out if you are particularly concerned about maintaining your hair. Thankfully the scarring apolecias are relatively rare compared to seborrheic dermatitis which is pretty common, don't want to cause you unnecessary worry at this point. But if you don't respond to any of the normal treatments for seborrheic dermatitis and your doctor isn't familiar with scarring alopecias you may want to get a second opinion from a doctor that is. I happen to have seborrheic dermatitis and a scarring alopecia called lichen planopilaris, ended up traveling quite a distance to get to an experienced doctor to get it managed and thankfully its been in remission for years now, hopefully gone for good. Back to the seborrheic dermatitis shampoos, that Nizoral is an over the counter shampoo brand with 1% ketoconazole you can get at any regular store in the USA. Your doctor can prescribe the stronger 2% version if that doesn't do much for you. And there are other shampoos in this category made by companies like Head&Shoulders and Selsun Blue with other effective ingredients you may also respond well to.

Kevin from haircafe just posted this yesterday, worth checking out. He's posted about microneedling before and this is a good 15 minute video summary that touches on that history and towards the end goes into the questionable aspects/risks of long term microneedling. Along with some alternatives to microneedling for optimizing minoxidil results.

I'm half way through reading the subject title, pacing myself.

The frontal area looks like a machine did it, or the doc was using a ruler to keep the lines straight. That's not possible right? I've only heard of of robotic machines being used for the extractions. Looking at that again would be curious to see if anything grows in the front. Could be like a scam operation that implants enough real hair so that something will grow, the rest of the incisions are made by some machine and hairs may not even be implanted in those. To sorta cover their butts somewhat and maybe sucker the guy into coming back and doing a 'repair' procedure.

I agree this is possible but its important to stress its for the smaller/smallest procedures. There's a tipping point where clinics charging by the graft will switch to charging by the case. To cover the basic clinic/staff operating costs and a minimum worthwhile profit margin. And if you divided that by the # grafts, say less than 300, it wouldn't surprise me to see the cost ratio come out to be something in the $20s or even $30s. But I would see this as a pretty rare scenario, like someone already had their larger procedure(s) done and now wants to go back and do their temple points, but can't or doesn't want to go back to the original surgeon for some reason.

I don't normally come into this section, but I saw the interesting topic title from the main page about facial masculinization filler. I'm about 10 yrs older than you and the only work I've had done are the hair transplants. And that will probably be about it. I only go under the knife for missing hair or body parts. LOL This got me thinking about the more masculine changes in Zac Efron's face. He hasn't admitted to getting any work done but I think its pretty obvious. You haven't reached the point where anything is obvious so that's good. And I know that's something you're very aware of and trying to maintain, but when I read this quote I took from one of your posts here: I have to say that's a bit worrying. Like others have indicated, you were a handsome guy before you had this done, and you still are. Admittedly more on the boyish side, but I think we can all agree being on the pretty boy spectrum is one of the better problems in life to have. I just hate to see people that are already attractive slide down the rabbit hole trying to improve, or even just hang on, and end up looking weird. So I hope you don't take offense when I say try to maintain a level perspective on this. You seem to have a very critical eye when it comes to honing in on imperfections. As you get further into your middle years and the aging processes accelerate its going to get alot more tempting to tinker even more. Try to get alot of feedback from other people in person and on the forum before you get the work done too. (Maybe you do that already, sorry don't check this section much.) We tend to be 1000 times harder and more judgmental on ourselves than others are, obsessing on things hardly noticed by the people that look at us every day.

Hi welcome to the forum, most shockloss is temporary and starts growing again within months. Without seeing pre-op or immediate post op pics for comparison no one is going to be able to comment on whether there was any areas that were overharvested. At this point in the process the best thing you can do is to not get over stressed to maximize your body's recovery and healing processes. Enjoy time with your hobbies, friends, fulfilling work. I know that's easier said than done, but it is what it is. And disregard what NikosHair commented above about avoiding shampoos and other products the first few months. You only need to be careful about shampoo and styling products the first few weeks after the procedure.

That's interesting and one of the few cosmetic advantages we can look forward to as we get older. Hopefully verteporfin or some other drug gets perfected enough soon to make the scarring variable no longer a consideration.

The only things anybody can know 100% going into any HT is afterwards you're going to have less hair in your donor area and some degree of scarring. You're always playing the probability odds with everything else. Plan for the worse. Research for the best. And keep your fingers crossed until 12-18 months later.

Just adding, looks like he may have had some smp added to his beard area to smooth out some of the patchiness.