Rui

Such a brilliant result mate. And so good how it's changed your life and given your confidence back. Thanks for sharing mate - your write ups have been so helpful

This is such a great result. Fantastic to see it maintain such great density after so long! I ended up having a small procedure done in Australia given the border restrictions and lockdown but will consider Dr Path for sure if I have to get a top up. Curious as to when you started to see the growth come through...such a dramatic difference between the week 7 mark and the 7 month mark! I'm currently at the 7 week mark with most of my grafts now shed and also some loss to my existing native hair due to the shock of the HT I believe - so hoping will see the pick up come through like yours post 7 week mark haha

And post surgery...

Pre-surgery photos. As you can see, my right temporal side was a lot more progressed than my left - although left was starting to also. And a bit of diffused thinning throughout..

Thanks @Melvin-Moderator for the video. Curious as to what day you think we should do the conditioner treatment to remove the scabs? I'm on Day 11 and have started to assist the removal of the scabs for the last couple days by gently rubbing and dislodging where it's comfortable. So just want to know when you think it's appropriate to do the conditioner treatment to remove all the scabs?

Hi lads, I had my HT around 10 days ago where I got both temporal areas done. However, I've noticed that I seem to be losing more of my existing hair (i.e. the middle front) since the HT which is concerning me a bit. I believe this may be due to a combination of the below: - Stress of the HT - Increase in dandruff build up given I'm only allowed to use baby shampoo at this state - Potentially impact of stopping minoxidil? Note that I only stopped this the day before the procedure and have been asked to recommence 3 weeks post surgery. Just wondering if anyone else experienced this same issue and has any recommendatons/solutions to mitigate this? Cheers

Lets see how it goes lads, I won't jump to any conclusions until I see the results. I'm hoping it does come through as I want and if not, as you mention there's always a recourse - so not the end of the world. Will try post an update every month and track the progress.

@Melvin-Moderator - no I only got 550-600 grafts in total. I did want more but the Dr advised against due to the limited space and wanting to ensure the planted grafts had best chance of survival with blood circulation. Fingers crossed it provides enought density!

@Gatsby I've been on Finasteride and Minoxodil for a many years prior to the HT. He recommended I stop Minoxodil the day before the procedure and recommence 3 weeks after. For Finasteride, he suggested I continue having this daily as per normal.

Hey lads, Have been following this forum for a while and it has helped me a lot so just want to return the favour. I just had my hair transplant done at Elite Hair Clinic in Sydney – so it’s time to pay it forward to this forum and jot down my experience and hope it helps anyone - especially those based in Australia. I’m from Melbourne and have been thinking about a HT for a few years now. I’m 36 years old and of South East Asian origin, and have been having hair loss issues since my early 20’s. I’ve been using finasteride and minoxidil which has helped me maintain a decent level of hair density and mitigate further hair loss. However, my temporal arches have recessed quite significantly (in particular the right hand side) and there is some diffused thinning all throughout my hair. I’m based in Melbourne so had consults with a couple clinics here. I also had a consult with Dr Arika Bansal of Eugenix Clinic in India which I was very keen to go to. Unfortunately given the pandemic and the current situation in India, as well as Australia’s conservative border restrictions and lax vaccine rollout program – it wasn’t going to be anytime soon before I could go to India. Giv I then came across Elite Hair Clinic in Sydney via a facebook forum. They focused on FUE and were priced significantly cheaper other clinics in Australia. They quoted me $5k for 700-1,000 grafts. I ended up having a video consult with Dr Freedman who runs the clinic. I found him quite honest and reassuring. He didn’t guarantee the results and actually admitted he recently had a patient who didn’t have the results he wanted. However, he said they’ve been doing FUE for over 5 years and have honed their skills over that time and the significant majority of their clients have strong results. Also, their Google reviews – although limited – are very good. In fact I reached out to a couple people on the Google Reviews who gave strong praise. In the end, I decided to go with Elite Hair Clinic in Sydney. Despite the limited reviews, I appreciated their honesty and the fact they specialised in FUE. Also, with the situation of currently working from home the majority of the week and coming into winter – I thought this was an ideal window of opportunity for me to get it. I guess I also felt I was in a way putting my life on hold with waiting for this procedure….which was frustrating me. Finally, my thoughts are if the procedure doesn’t work as well as I hope, given the price and the fact I’m only using limited number of grafts and have a strong donor area – I can always go to Eugenix later when the world reopens. And if it does work well – brilliant. So with all that – I decided to just go for it. So I ended up flying to Sydney last Tuesday and arrived at the clinic on the morning of Thursday 20th May for the procedure. I was introduced to the hair transplant technicians – Thelma, Diana and Emma. They were all kind, lovely and reassuring which helped me to feel very comfortable on the day. I then had my consult with Dr Freedman who drew out the triangles on my temporal arches where I’d be getting the hair transplant – the right triangle being larger than the left. He suggested I’d only need around 600 grafts which I was surprised by. I did ask if there was a possibility for more but he said that they would pack the space as much as they could – but given the limited space it was hard to put more in. Also, he said he wanted to ensure the best chance of blood circulation to ensure the grafts are successful and grow. Elite do have a base price I believe, so it will be $5k whether I have 600 or 1,000 grafts. I wanted more, but yeah – ended up trusting his advice. Prior to the procedure, I was given 2 codeine tablets to help with the pain. It was decided that given the low number of grafts, they would make the incisions to my temporal arches first. Dr Freedman then injected me with the anaesthetic to my arches – with the pain not being as bad as I was expecting. Thelma then came in and performed the incisions to the arches with Dr Freedman overseeing. With the anaesthetic kicking in, I couldn’t feel any sharp pain but could hear it happening. This part probably took about 45 mins. After which, I turned around on my stomach in the chair and they got to work on extracting the grafts from my donor area. Dr Freedman came in and inserted the anaesthetic to the back of my head. I found these injections to be much more painful than the ones in the temporal arches – but I survived Thelma and Diana then got to work on extracting my donor follicles which was done by an automated pen. Dr Freedman would come in and see the current situation and see how I was going or if there was any issues. After this was done we then took a break for a quick lunch which was provided by the clinic. After lunch, Diana and Emma got to work on inserting the follicles onto my temporal arches. They mentioned that the follicles they extracted were quite thick and were generally ranging from 2 up to even 4 hairs per graft which should hopefully hold me in good stead. It felt they were inserting the follicles for about 1.5-2 hours. Because of the codeine, I was often quite drowsy so the time passed quick. All in all, the procedure started about 10:30 and was finished up by about 15:30 – and around 550-600 grafts in total were inserted. I thought the hair technicians were great. They were professional, courteous and very concentrated in their work. I must admit, I thought the Doc would be more involved in doing the procedure – but he was there more to oversee the operation and I was still very happy with the work done by the technicians. I was a bit nervous to look into the mirror the first time post op – but I was very happy with what I saw. I think it looks quite clean and if the hair line comes through like that I’ll be delighted. I’m not aiming for massive density, but a good coverage where it’s not noticeable I have hair loss – and I’m confident I’ll get that. After the procedure, I had a sit down with the Doc who gave me a goody bag and a quick run down of what to expect and what to do post procedure. I was given a large loose fitting baseball cap to cover the work and then caught an uber back to the hotel. At the hotel, I sprayed the provided saline every 20 mins and then took a couple codeine tablets before bed as advised – and I did feel the head throbbing before bed so was needed. But I managed to sleep through the night with no issues. I actually didn’t even bleed through the dressing which was a surprise. The following morning I removed the dressing at the back of the head which resulted in some bleeding from about 4 or 5 points in the donor area, but this stopped after about 20-30 mins with some cleaning. The back of the head was quite tender when I was cleaning the blood. My head was swollen – but luckily….avoided Frankenstein level swelling. Soon afterwards, I caught an uber to the airport for my flight back to Melbourne – in my newly acquired loose fitting baseball cap. At security, the officer did ask me to remove my cap which I didn’t really think about beforehand - so brought about a sudden onset of major self-consciousness. But I removed it and quickly went through – no-one appeared to notice anything….then again, I kept my eyes on the floor in shame so wouldn’t of noticed anyway haha. I was a bit concerned that my head would swell up further on the flight or the fact of wearing the baseball cap for a couple hours wouldn’t be great for the hair – but was no issue. I didn’t have any discomfort on the flight despite having the operation the day before. So that was yesterday, and today I’ve started Day 2 post procedure back home in Melbourne as I write this post. Now, I’ m just trying to be really careful with my head at the moment, knowing that the first 7 days post procedure are the most crucial to ensure the grafts lock in place. Tomorrow is Day 3 so I’ll wash the grafts for the first time then. All in all, I’m very happy I got it done and with the work performed. In all honestly I was just getting tired of waiting and putting my life on hold for it. Although I’ve got the ugly duckling phase to go through, it feels nice to finally be moving forward with my hair…and in a way with life again. Hope that helps lads, any questions let me know. Wish me luck . I'll try to post an update once a month to track progress. P.S. - Apologies I’m using an old i-phone so not the best quality photos. I’ll add in the photos from the clinic from directly post procedure when I get them.

Wow mate - that looks unreal. Such a great result and so quick also. The lack of that insecure feeling must be wonderful. Congrats again mate - looking forward to seeing the full year result

Looks unreal mate! Such a massive difference. And brilliant to hear it's been a life changing experience for you. I can only imagine the positive impact it has had on your confidence, and that's definitely worth much more than what you paid...

Wow - looks awesome mate! Cannot tell a thing.

How are you going now mate?

Ah nice to hear! Just noticed that you'd be coming from UK so that is a big credit to Eugenix given your proximity to Turkey. We may be getting it around the same time then if I go to Eugenix. Saying that, Australia (where I'm coming from) will be more conservative in terms of opening up so may be get further delayed which is annoying . For that reason, I've also started recently thinking about Dr Path in Bangkok given Thailand seems to be handling COVID better than India so likely to be able to travel there earlier...however, still leaning towards Eugenix...can only wait and see....and hope...