HappyMan2021

testing for DHT might be irrelevant for hairloss purposes. Even if you have wolverine level low DHT sensitivity, you should still hope on DHT meds Current and past hairloss can somewhat predict future hairloss, there is no 100% certain way to accuratelty know future hairloss. It is unpredictable It is possible to have low/good DHT in your 20s and have no hairloss, to one year randomly in your 30s or 40s losing a crap ton. which is the reaoson you should go on DHT meds regardless of what or actual DHT sensitivity is The one exception I could see to this is if you experience unbearable sides on DHT meds, and you are willing to gamble on the risk/reward of meds vs future hairloss

if you are only 30, have significant balding, and the meds are starting to lose effectiveness, that is a dicey road ahead. You have ALOT of years ahead of you to still lose hair. If you have not even had your first HT yet and are contemplating just living with balding naturally, I highly suggest you at least try it out before committing to the HT journey Do keep in mind that even if you go to an elite doctor, whether it is Nader, Konior, Gabel, etc - 1 HT is not enough in 90% of the cases Often times, a single HT may make things look a tad bit worse for you aesthetically due to density issues. What is worse, having a bald but totally natural frontal scalp, or a 1st HT where you do have hair in the frontal scalp, but inadequate density Ironically, 1 HT alone can make it look like your hair is thinning, so it can have the opposite effect of removing 'baldness', if that makes sense. If you commit to HT journey, to have a prudent, realistic approach, I honestly think you should assume you need 2-3 HT's to reach your desired end state. Also keep in mind that each one of these surgeries must go smoothly too. Even if you go to a great surgeon, NOTHING is guaranteed and mishaps DO HAPPEN. I am in no way saying you shouldn't pursue HT's. But just keep in mind that you are likely looking at multiple-years, multiple-surgeries, and tens of thousands of dollars. Please keep all of these scenarios in mind as you weigh hair transplants vs natural baldness

Who did your repair? Are there any good grafts and/or natural hair interspersed with the bad transplant hair? Or is the bad hair transplant hair in its totally own section with no good hair at all? 1) Regardless of what you do, you should wait until your scalp is 100% recovered. Maybe 2 months or so 2) if this bad hair is totally absent of good hair, you can kill it as soon as your scalp is recovered But if you have good hair in this same section you dont accidentally want to kill off, it may be best to wait 3) how long ago was your surgery? You dont want to make a rash impulsive decision. For all you know you might hate how it looks now but be fine with it 6 mo ths from now Laser/electrolysis definitely has a good use case, but needs to be done with the same objectivity and thoughtfulness that should go into ht surgery.

hair fiber might be a good temporary bandaid until you get fixed. It is ill advised putting fiber directly on the hairline (super awkward if it falls down your forehead)....but in your case fiber may have a good use case in the areas behind the hairline

Everyone's hair thins when you get older so even if the donor hair is 'safe' and 100% not falling out, the donor hair will thin and be lose some of its vibrancy Even if you were a Nw0 wolverine, no one has the same hair strength in their 60s+ that they did in their 20s Regarding various doctors, I think you should consult with all you are interested and see what they say As you have already experienced with Nader - the more popular a doctor is, the more picky they can be. Im not sure if it will do you any good speculating what Doctor A will do vs Doctor B until you consult with them Even if you were to chat with literal Pitella, Sethi, etc. patients on this forum, every individual is unique and you really can't predict what the doctor will say

It is possible to go fron NW7 to a full head of hair, but all of these cases were multi procedure and multi year. And not only were they multiple procedure/multiple year journeys, but add on top of that that the results of these cases were moonshot outlier, exceptional cases You are unlikely to have the same surgical success as the very famous NW7 transformations celebrated on here So your full NW7 transformation is possible, but the odds are really against you And as of now I am just speaking very broadly/generally Do you know how many grafts you have left in your donor? Alot of NW7s simply dont have the donor availability for a total transformation

100% unequivocally no. I would be very dubious of any doctor who says they could significantly improve your scalp enough for it to be worth your time and money. Even with a homerun scalp HT, I think at most you could only be transformed into a Nw 5. So you will very much clearly look like you are still significantly balding, even with a great HT result. At most, I think it might make sense if you can get your past FUT donor scars filled in. But spending your time and money on your scalp is going to be a pretty bad investment. The only person who wins in this case is the doctor cashing in your hard earned money Ask Dr. Cooley is SMP is a viable option for you instead of a HT.

can you describe your HT history more? it looks like your 1st HT (have you only had 1???) was little to no yield It looks like you are a Nw 6 or 7 and it honestly may not make sense to continue with HTs. I wonder what the goal was in the 1st place with such advanced hairloss Especially if at most you are seeking a buzzcut look Perhaps you are a great use case for SMP, not sure

if this is your very 1st HT, you are only a Nw 2 or better, very to no chance of further loss, and have a very generous donor, I say these are the criteria to be aggressive Some of the most successful + aggressive HTs I have ever seen have come from guys who actually did not have MPB at all, but rather had large foreheads or just naturally high hairlines MPB is quite different than a large forehead, but essentially as long as your lifetime loss is predicted to be minimal to none, you have a generous donor, I think being aggressive as an option

Nader is insanely popular right now and therefore can be very picky in who he wants to take on as a patient. If you have already tried him multiple times and weeks/months have already passed, dont get your hopes up with him and keep on consulting with others Also please completely abandon (if you haven't already) the idea of getting a good surgery for 2 dollars/graft. Its just not going to happen. For what its worth I personally don't consider you botched, if it makes you feel better. Your surgery did have clear growth, its moreso that the growth yield was appallingly bad. But as long as all the hair that grew, grew in fine, I think you can consider this progress (although its somewhat small progress) Even if this 1st surgery went well, chances are youd still need a 2nd or even 3rd surgery just like most guys do. It is unfortunate the 1st surgery was so lackluster, but this is far from being a trainwreck

SMP fades so you likely have to get it redone every 4-5 years. You also should (in theory at least) protect it from the sun just like you would any other tattoo I dont think SMP is a dangerous procedure but its just like one more dependency, baggage item to focus on in your HT journey

A dirty little secret is doctors often will extract grafts outside of the formal/conservative/guaranteed safe donor area The reason is that the "safe area" informally varies depending on what level norwood you progress too For example, if your surgeon is pretty certain you will never progress past Norwood 3 in your life, he may be alot more aggressive and fast and loose with the safe area as opposed to if he thought you were destined to be a NW6, etc. No surgeon will ever admit this unless you press them on it though. Because it definitely is gambling on the surgeon part, but if you go to a good surgeon it will be a reasonably safe and logical gamble (if you can call gambling safe and reasonable lol)

if you are in such a rush to get SMP after your latest FUE, it sounds like your FUE did not use as many grafts as desired? or, before surgery, was it planned by your surgeon to combine FUE + SMP? If you can remain patient and disciplined enough, the wisest move is to wait for the FUE results to come through before acting on any SMP plans Be sure you are aware that SMP is not without its own cons, risks, baggage, etc.

coarse hair is pound for pound better for density. But...if density and donor availability are not concerns, I think medium thickness straight hair would be ideal. The reason is coarse hair can tend to be a bit unruly, curly, and not as 'orderly' looking as medium, straight hair. Ultimately it depends what hairstyles you like and the texture of the neighboring, existing native hair. Is your native frontal hair also coarse? If your frontal hair is thin and silky straight but your donor hair is coarse and curly, it could cause issues...

@RTC hey! Yes i had my first electrolysis session 1 month ago. It was fairly minor, only 50 so hairs removed I will say, in my case i had badly angled hair interspersed with good so there is a significant possiblity the electrologist may have non-intentionally killed some of the good grafts, but in the grand scheme of things it was worth it I think electrolysis/laser has a fantastic use case for anyone who has bad angles. The only thing i regret is not doing electrolysis at the start of my repair journey, because then it would have been much much easier to identify the bad grafts vs good and really mass zap everything Unfortunately i can only gamble on zapping the obviously bad grafts and will have to wait for my next repair surgery for the less obvious bad hairs to be removed For anyone who is solely looking to kill bad grafts and is not interested in future implant surgeries such as qui bono and potentially you @RTC, i think electrolysis is the way to go Yes you absolutely are killing grafts that could be put to good use elsewhere, but at the same time electrolysis is much quicker and all electrolysis sessions combined would still probably cost 10% of what a repair surgery is

Compared to Bosley's pricing, you could go to Turkey for an equal if not greater result If you have seriously been considering Bosley, i think you should actually be considering the good Turkish clinics

sounds like the grafts in question have bad angles.....hope I'm wrong though.

As long as you go to a good doctor, scar visibility is not the issue What really is the issue - even if you go to a great doctor- is it harder to grow hair on skin that already has scarring and scar tissue. Any subsequent surgery over the existing area will be harder for growth That is the issue at hand Of course, if you go to bad surgeon, i think an additional worry would indeed be the scar visibility aspect, potential cobblestoning, etc

I really doubt meds alone are going to halt your hairloss. Guys who significantly start losing hair in their teenage years have a very very strong genetic predisposition to balding. Get on the meds and wait until your late 20s for your 1st HT. In the meantime, learn to cope or better yet just try not to let baldness affect you (I know it is hard) The silver lining to this is 7-10 years is a long time from now and you will have a different personality and life outlook than you do now I am NOT saying you will feel definitely feel this way, but there is a chance you will get to your late 20s and not give a f*ck about baldness and you will save yourself a ton of time, money, and agony by not going down this road. I think that by living the next 5 years or so as a bald or receding dude, you may develop the life skills to not need a HT in order to feel happy. I do want to clarify that for all I know your late 20s will get here and your feelings may be unchanged or even worse 🤣. But what I am getting at is that hair transplants are always the last resort. Learning how to be happy and free and living naturally with MPB Is always the best option, but of course not every guy is able to truly be at peace being bald.

I think you should trust your gut and go forward with the repair journey. Don't listen to the naysayers whether it is from a doctor, community member, or anyone else. This is your hair you have to live with 24/7, ultimately the decision needs to come to you 2 things I hope you keep in mind: 1) I wager you are looking at 3 repair surgeries minimum. This is going to be a long and expensive investment 2) With any hair transplant, but especially for repairs, the goals should be progress and naturalness over perfection. Repair patients are unfortunately "ruined canvases" so to speak, and it is sadly much harder to repair a canvas that a 5 yr old scribbled over first, as opposed to starting from a completely blank canvas Even after 3 or more repair surgeries, you likely will not have a 10/10 result - but again that is not the goal. The goal is to get you looking good, dense, and thick enough that the HT illusion is there and that mentally speaking your hair no longer bothers you. Once a patient has been botched, it is extremely difficult to 100% reverse it. I am encouraging you to proceed with this, just make sure your goals are realistic

Id like to see a fellow botched/repair patient as moderator If a moderator has only had (and only needs) 1-2 HTs and they have both been homeruns, I think it will be hard for them to relate to repair patients. And vice versa, it will be hard for repair patients to relate to any moderator who has had a very easy journey compared to alot of ppl on here A pet peeve of mine is one and done community members who think they know everything just bc they got lucky

@patronovski im really confused. This was a repair surgery for you. Doesnt Bisanga require mandatory in person consults for repair patients? Was your consult in person or virtual? I thought the whole point of making a prospective patient travel to Brussels just for a consult was so that the doctor and patient could be on the same page and there wouldnt be any surprises... Yikes, so you had to pay for more work than was actually performed? Why should it be the patients responsibility if the doctor is the one who overquoted the estimate?

There is a 25% vat tax in brussels on top of the surgery costs. Maybe ask Mwamba if he will comp that as well. I am also curious, is your surgery price set in stone or is it more "play it by ear" once Mwamba sees you on surgery day? I ask because I imagine the atlanta price was in dollars but now its in euros I will be surprised if Mwamba is also comping the vat tax and keeping the dollar range If he does, i feel like he may have appx. A 50% loss in profit by having your surgery go from atlanta to Brussels I think its BS how I and many others are going on the same journey as you to Brussels, but you may save like 5k euros bc of Mwamba's scheduling changes Im not angry at any of mwamba's patients who he comps, my frustration is at the clinic that 2 patients could have an identical journey and surgery, but one of the patients gets to pay $5k or more less due to karmic luck and nothing more Its certainly not a meritocratic or objective pricing model...

I have had surgeries with Mwamba in both Atlanta and Brussels. The Atlanta surgery was uncomfortable because he is just renting a random doctor's office and the surgery chair was not ergonomical and there was no TV. Neither his rented clinic in Atlanta or New Jersey were designed for hair transplants, whereas Brussels is Brussels location is very comfortable, nice chair, and big tv Why the change of plans on Mwamba's part? Are you going to have to pay the 25% Brussels VAT Tax? Are you going to have to pay for the flight to Brussels or is he comping that? I myself am flying to Brussels this year for another surgery with Mwamba. (im also an American) I honestly will be a bit peeved if you and any other Atlanta people get comped flights and don't have to pay a VAT tax. I am only going to Brussels bc when I booked there were no Atlanta slots. But I am more or less having the same journey as you, so where is my free travel and no VAT Tax? I have noticed Mwamba's pricing is fairly subjective and patient-to-patient based (for the exact same type of work) which I am not a fan of. But yes...I am interested in knowing if Mwamba is comping you on those expenses Additionally, keep in mind that for Mwamba's US surgeries, he only operates on 1 patient a day due to lack of techs with him and other logisticial issues. Whereas in Brussels he is much more likely to have 2 patients a day because the Brussels clinic is designed for that. imagine America but the buildings are much much older, significantly more foot traffic as opposed to vehicles, less obese people, and everyone speaks French. I don't understand what being an American has to do with anything unless you show up in Brussels wearing a cowboy hat and bring a firearm with you or something 🤣 If Belgium feels "very foreign" to you, I can only imagine how you would handle Asia, Africa, South America, etc.

if she truly was very obese, I wonder if the UK's national healtchare system would have paid for a UK procedure. Going to a cheaper country for surgery is something Americans need to do because of our appalling healthcare, interesting that a European would do this. I also wonder if she tried Ozempic or other treatments before going to Turkey.