jimcraig152

Let me give Dr. Diep credit where he is due some: He designs excellent places frontal hairlines well, taking into account facial proportions. He produces high yield in most cases When ever you have hair where once you were bald, you are going to look better. Now, no doubt I am going to look good at the end of this. But the devil is in the details. It is absolutely indefensible that in 2020 baby doll grafts are still being implanted in a patient's scalp (@rocknrollman's example here and @Tentpole91's example here). I may have dodged that bullet (remains to be seen as I catch up), but man I feel terrible for you guys. End of Week 14 Update: I see less and less scalp these days. The transplanted area is still sparse. But it is still very early (3 months and 1 week). I took some pics outdoors to demonstrate how things look: Outdoors under shade: Facing the mid-day Sun moments later: The typical shot I normally take from indoors: And now this high resolution shot focused on the hairline (cropped but not resized). The zig zags are starting to sprout (wipes sweat from brow, while expressing a longggggg sigh of relief) and that is good news because the hairline graft placement is very linear. Without those zags........ Also, at this point redness in the recipient area appears to be a thing of the past. Even after applying minoxidil, I don't see redness. My scalp is more pale than my forehead and that is how it should be. See the sparseness between the rows now that the hair is longer? You can see where those excisions went really high to the right of the vertex. More scalp shows there than it should. The band of over extracted hairs is still visble 2 weeks after I cut that area down to a zero guard.

Sometimes we forget that hair loss is a medical condition. A patient seeking surgical hair restoration is in need of medical care. Never should a patient feel like they are being put on an assembly line. Brings a tear to my eye to hear how well you were taken care. This should be the standard, not a serendipitous discovery by hair loss sufferers. Kudos to SMG and their staff. Well done 🙌. Been awaiting your results from your procedure and it is plain to see, you made an excellent choice. The frontal grafts are randomly placed. The hairline has the necessary micro irregularities and no tricks were employed to achieve a non-linear appearing hairline. That is, a straight line was not punched and zig zags were not dangled in front to break up an artificial looking linear hairline. Grafts also appear well packed and random throughout the recipient area. As for the temple points, not as dense which is also how temples should be and also randomly placed. Towards the back and edges of your recipient area, grafts are packed with less density so that grafts fade in with your natural hair. These subtleties can easily be skipped, and when they are, it shows in the results. We can't see angular or directional growth yet, but since you described that your surgeon took time to ensure angles were placed carefully, no doubt once they fully grow out and mature, you will have a nature-made result. Naturalness being the primary goal of any hair transplant is well checked in this regard. I remember you originally wanted FUT. That you went with FUE is looking to be a great decision. I see no linear excision patterns. I see no harvesting of too many grafts from too small of an area. Every square inch looks to have had the same amount of grafts pulled from them. Still looks like you have quite a bit of supply left too. Also, the punch used looks to be small. I am guessing .8mm or less. EDIT: And for 3332 grafts, Shapiro and Josephitis didn't even venture anywhere close to non-DHT resilient zones. This is why one would pay more for FUE. I am thinking in 2 weeks once the scabs are out and the shorn donor area grows back in a bit, your donor will look like this: Congrats man. And thanks for keeping us in the loop. #smgftw

Compared to mine where I had 1100 less units extracted, for 3400 units, your donor looks really good. At least your surgeon drew in the extraction area. Some don't bother at all with subtle nuances that make all the difference. Right, GA = General Anesthesia. You'll be surprised that there is at least one surgeon recommended on this forum that knocks their patients out with GA and doesn't even disclose that he will do so beforehand. I mean, if you get a shot to each bicep at the start of the procedure, unless you have really hairy arms and are doing BUT, that has to be GA, right? I am Asian, I don't have hair on my arms :). I'll check out your update. Thanks for the info!

I checked out your thread. When you mentioned extractions were done while you are on your side, I had in mind that you would come out looking like Harvey "Two-Face" Dent. But nope. Your donor management looks excellent for 3400 FUE grafts! No areas where too many grafts were taken from too small of an area and graft extraction is randomly dispersed. They must have turned you to the other side halfway through. So two questions for you: Did they graph and map out your donor area? I am thinking they must have because it looks very even on both sides Were you awake or under from GA? I am guessing you were awake being how you were able to describe the experience.

Hey best wishes @hybonix! Today was your big day. Can't wait to see and hear about your experience!

I concur. De You've come a long way in just a month's time too: Angles may be a bit different, but the mid frontal area definitely shows more hair and less scalp. Perhaps you are one of those cases of extreme slow regrowth and recovery and may need to give it 6 more months after your first year. Otherwise things look great. Very natural. Thanks for the update!

Interesting. Welp, that shows that your surgeon cared to ensure that your implants were inserted at the proper angles. The sacrifice they made was not getting home quite as early as those subtle nuances that allow for more naturally appearing results do take a bit of extra time. But at least the patient results were put first. Plenty of examples out there where these nuances are skipped and it shows. Can you comment however on the extraction? FUT or FUT, face down or up, awake or under?

It will get worse :). I shaved everything down to a 1/2 guard at the end of the 6th week. The hairs in the recipient are were growing so slowly that it looked really weird. It was the first time in my life I sported a buzz cut/shaved head and was a quite liberating. I descended through two more weeks of the ugly duckling stage, then started to rebound from it. I will say for me, the decision to shave the hair down at the 6th week worked out nicely. Once the transplanted hair started growing in, they were only 2 weeks behind in growth from my natural hair and now it looks like I just have a buzz cut. Had I left it alone, I think it would have looked goofy. A lot like how Tom Brady looked like when his hair transplant was growing back in:

Dr. Reddy is just the name of the manufacturer of the finasteride, or brand if you will. Some pics below, but I suspect the stampings on the pill are to ID the lot in case they have a bad run that they can trace it back. The color of the pills are always the same in the 5 months I've been on it. First time I've actually looked at the stampings actually.

^^This photo^^ is the definition of being given a new lease in life. As for the photo below, this exemplifies why one would pay extra $$$ for FUE in the first place. 6000 units. It's like the math can't possibly add up. Dr. Hasson did this man a solid. Well done sir!

^^This^^ But it is not just in Turkey where this happens.

I've been using Dr. Reddy Finasteride since May (through my Kaiser doctor). Had HT July 24th '20 with the same surgeon as yours. Hair loss slowed in the last weeks before HT. I halted treament for a week before surgery. Restarted Finasteride immediately after surgery. Hair loss stopped by the end of August. Now 3 months into HT recovery even with vigorous shampooing, I have no further hair loss. Haven't experienced/used any other brand of Finasteride but I will say the Dr. Reddy stuff works for me.

The agreement is signed seconds before anesthesia administration, not after. His command of English is fine, which means, there is nothing lost in translation. Which also means, everything done is with conscious disregard. Of course Dr. Diep reads these discussions or is passed the cliff notes by his office or members of this forum. As of yet, he doesn't care because it doesn't hurt his revenue stream.....yet. The important thing is the discussions aren't quelled. It is the only recourse to protect those to follow. If quelled though, Dr. Diep's revenue streams won't be the only one hurt. There have been a recent spate of concerned MHTA patients going suddenly quiet. I hope they haven't been settled and placed under NDA. @Tentpole91, hope you are ok out there bud. @Specific-violinist60 really hope you do come back and aren't under NDA.

I am an actual patient of Dr. Diep. Here is what I find interesting. Here is a quote from his website titled: "Seven Rules to Recreate a Natural and Dense Hair Line". Pay particular attention to the highlighted 7th rule. These are rules that were defined by Dr. Diep himself. But upon going through the procedure, the application of the rules results in this, this, this, over and over again. Obviously, the patient is lied to. Those rules don't mean a darn thing. Then the answer provided acknowledges that rows are intentionally implanted in and therefore violate the rules stated for density and naturalness: if being lied to isn't ethical, I don't know what is.

Sorry @rocknrollman. We got hoodwinked. You are yet another Dr. Diep survivor like I am and one of many before us. The only good we can do is to document this stuff so that those that follow don't befall the same fate. Prep your legal resources now as you wait for that year to pass. Have them ready for if and when you need to act. Those multi-hair grafts in your hairline won't resolve themselves no matter how long you wait.

The rows are on the left side too. But he tends to do a better job on the left side. The rows are packed closer together so they look less noticeable. Check out @Tentpole91's thread. His rows are very noticeable. And that point of view thing you are describing is just like the below farm crop. It is noticeable and once seen can't be unseen. Aren't you glad you didn't go with Diep? You sign away your right to sue and agree to abitration. I should have ran when I saw that.

I feel differently. Now that the hair is longer, the rows are more noticeable to me. Also, i am waiting for the zig zags to come in too. The hairline looks very linear IRL. The camera tends to not show these things. Will just have to wait it out and evalucept if I have to go in for a repair. The camera also doesn't pick up the complete story of the depletion in the lower area of my donor and near the right of the vertex. Looks worse in the mirror. Maybe I'll record a video so it is depicted better. But, I am lucky. Other patients really get jobbed by Dr. Diep's method of not planning/mapping out donor harvesting and/or not diffusing extractions. I feel his transection rate must be on average high. This patient's donor looks like he had as many FU's extracted as I did, but this patient only had 1300 grafts. Anyhow, I really do appreciate the remarks. Both the reassuring ones and especially the critical ones. The others to follow should know what they are up against.

At different angles it looks worse.

To experiment how it would might look, here is the donor in gray scale using GIMP:

I went a little crazy with the clippers last week. Faded from 3->2->1.5->1->0.5->0. Problem was, every time I stepped into the bathroom I kept grabbing the clippers and doing touch ups. Finally had to lock them away.

End of Week 13 Update: The selfie stick has proven to be an invaluable tool in the whole HT journey even in the short time since I've owned it. Since improvements are so slow in going, progress day-to-day, week-to-week, even-month-to-month is hard to see. But through milestones, if there is such a thing in HT, progress can be gauged and keeps you preserving. Taking lots of photos helps tons. Having such a cheap tool makes it easy so you don't fall off the wagon. And I am sure, it certainly does help the lurkers that are viewing this thread. So here is a shot from a few days after the procedure where the scabbing is still prevalent giving you an idea of how many grafts were placed in. The next photo is at the height of the honeymoon phase before the grafts start falling out. Then the 3rd shot shows when I was at the bottom depths of the ugly duckling phase before rebounding. The last shot is where I am today. Given I am one day shy of 3 months from my surgery date, this is effectively my 3 month update. Once I frame myself, set the distance of the selfie stick on the bathroom counter, set angle of the camera phone, all that is required to take the photos is a quick 45° shuffle of the feet, a glance over the shoulder to check if my shoulders (not head) are still in frame, then a push of a button. So now I am able to take good profile shots You can see where grafts were taken too high up near the vertex on the right side in the shot below. Where there was over harvesting of donor grafts is right where the skin folds on my neck. This shot illustrates that with my head tilted back a bit. Being that Dr. Diep's surgical room doesn't have a gurney where you are face down for extractions, you can see why there are over harvested grafts right at the bottom edge of the donor site. Must have been easier for him to pull grafts from there, so he took too many from too small of an area.

Sooner you start the downhill slide, the sooner you rebound from it. The important thing is the work is outstanding as it lays the foundation for your ultimate result. In that capacity, everything looks great! I just bought one of these selfie sticks. Look into getting one. Seems to be $2 off right now. I'll write about it in my next post.

With FUE, unless you have an infection, I would say it is academic medically and is done to address psychological, perhaps even procedural, concerns as a service to the patient.

I am closing in in my 3rd month post FUE recovery. So the pain is still fresh in my mind. When it comes to pain, best to keep it at bay with meds than trying to make it subside after onset. I know this from having dental work done in the past and injuries. As for how long it lasts, here is/was my experience: My surgeon gave me about a week's supply of pain meds and a prescription if I needed more. I didn't take the pain meds during the first week and dealt with the discomfort from FUE for the first week. During the 2nd week, the discomfort was moving towards crossing the threshold into the onset of pain. I jumped on the meds and kept it at bay. By the 3rd week, there was some serious discomfort and I ran out of pain meds but it did not cross into pain. Felt like being too close to a campfire that I couldn't move back and away from. I did lose some sleep from this. There were serious bouts of itching during this week however. By the 4th week, the discomfort was displaced by a feeling of numbness and the occasional piercing shard of intense pain. Felt like a worm burrowing under parts of my scalp. By the fifth week, my entire scalp was numb upon touch. Seems the recipient area had more atypical sensation than donor area. Shards of pain became less frequent but started to be felt in areas not touched by the surgery. After the 5th week, pain/discomfort/numbness was still prevalent to some degree, but didn't bother me any longer. Interestingly enough though, I watched a horror movie during this time. And during a shocking scene, I could feel the hair standing up on the back of my neck. What a jolt that was. It was also during the 5th week that I started to use the aloe vera gel 98% stuff. The first few times I applied it, I could feel stimulation of the touch nerves washing out the ringing of/from the pain nerves and it felt so good. During the 2nd month, the value of the aloe vera became less and less as I was healing rapidly. I still apply it everyday anyway. Now close to 3 months, I would say I am about 80% normal in scalp sensation. That remaining 20% is due to bouts of non-intense but persistent itching and shards no longer of pain, but striking brief bouts of discomfort. I've read others say that at 5 months, everything is back to 100%, though I am not there yet. Out of curiosity, what did your donor look like immediately after surgery?

I remember us discussing things a few weeks back. Looks like you were able to get work scheduled and done very quickly. Your FUE extraction scarring is minimal due to a small punch being used. Being that you are of African descent, a smaller punch might be a disadvantage. But then again your hair characteristics is more wavy than it is tight and curly. And very true, you have a ton of donor left. Very interested in how your procedure turns out. All the best man. As for the aloe vera gel, I bought a few real aloe plants and am cultivating them now :). It's yet another investment!