WonkyHair

So 1.5 years have passed since my transplant and I could write an essay about all the things wrong with it, however today I wanted to ask for advice on a specific issue with my transplant, what's the best option when it comes to dealing with bad graft angles? I've attached a few pics below where you can see the comparison between my natural hair and the transplanted hair which sticks straight up at 90 degrees. Is the only option to punch all of this out (which would be 100s of grafts) or would it be better to just add some correctly-angled grafts to try and camouflage the previous work?

On 8/14/2021 at 1:59 PM, MachoVato said:

From what I can see in the photos, the left side is coming in a little weak... so far. But everything else looks perfectly fine.

The zigzag is totally fine. I think you're drawing a zigzag line in your mind that no one (including us hair nerds) would see until you point it out. I'm also partial to the rounded off temples. You're shaving it, but I think it's because you're so used to having deep temples. You're not used to a more youthful temple... in your head, you're still used to your receded look. My suggestion is to grow it out for a few months. Live with it for while. I'll wager you'll not want to punch them out.

A final observation. I think you're doing yourself a huge disservice by this post-procedure academic comparison. There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all for hair. I feel you're sabotaging your own transplant.

You have 6 months to go. Maras is a legit (albeit not perfect) surgeon. Trust the process and let your hair grow. Stay optimistic.

Hi @MachoVato,

It's the right side that's weak, might be a mirror image on a couple of my pics if it looks the other way round. I agree that of my issues the zig-zags are the most minor.
It's not just that the temples are rounded off, the whole thing is slightly off axis by a few degrees which throws out all the angles. I could see this right from the start and would agree that this has probably made me analyse things more closely than perhaps I'd have otherwise done. Whilst the next few months may bring more growth, they won't fix that issue. I'd love to be more optimistic about future growth but when I have some areas with very little hair and no sign of any new hair coming through it's hard to imagine that it's going to suddenly start filling in... 

3 minutes ago, Helios said:

Hi wonkyair,
 

To be honest I’m not sure who posted that but I will say yours and unbald eagle’s are the first unsuccessful result I’ve ever seen from HDC, and I researched the internet for months when I was choosing a clinic

 My advice would be to stay in contact with the clinic and see what they offer you. They do actually care about the patients, at least that’s been my experience. 

Hi @Helios, only just realized you were an HDC patient. I'm glad things have worked out well for you 🙂. 
I also thought I'd done my research before going to HDC (I even read the Spanish and Greek forums).

I had my concerns about the "wonkyness" of my HT even when I was still at the clinic (which was put down to swelling). As the swelling down it was obvious to myself and my friends/family that there was an issue, to be honest it's been all downhill from there. Unfortunately, in my opinion, there's just too many issues with my HT for me to trust HDC with a repair. I'll be seeking an independent opinion from other clinics on the best option for me. 

Thanks to all those that have replied @Melvin- Moderator, @Egy, @JohnAC71, @Gasthoerer 🙂.

Agree that it would be wise to wait a few 12 months, I do continue to see some slight improvement but I think this is more down to the hair maturing and becoming less wirey. However I haven't see any new hairs for at least the last couple of months and there are some areas where there are big gaps. As per my pics above you can see that the density is really poor at the moment, particularly on the right hand side. Density is far from my only issue, the unnatural shape of the hairline and cobblestoning aren't going to go away in the next few months.

@Gasthoerer - you mentioned that  "I think the clinic followed the remaining, receded natural hairline and lowered it", I don't feel that's the case. if you look at my original hairline I had a real widows peak:
 

Following the initial shape would've been something like this:

However if you look at my pic post op (where a good chunk of my natural hair had been shaved close to the recipient area), you can just make out the lowest point of my existing hairline was about a cm below where the HT starts:

I do think I will need punch outs, particularly on my left temple, I've been shaving this area to try and make it look more natural:

In regards to @George_HDCcomments about the zig-zags, of my list of issues this is definitely the most minor one (and should be an easy fix scattering in a few grafts).  around them). When my hair isn't pulled back they're not as obvious.

I really have to question the logic behind this zig-zag method. I get that you don't want a dead straight hairline so micro-irregularities should be part of the design as depicted here:

 However 3 identically spaced and sized triangles of hair at the front of the hairline isn't a micro-irregularity. I'd describe it more as a symmetrical micro-regularity, a good HT should mimic nature, and I don't think you don't see that pattern in natural hairlines.

2 hours ago, Helios said:

Thank you for clarifying the dates were a few days separate. yes of course. They should get the results they were hoping for. Unfortunately no surgeon has a 100% success rate. I’ve seen complaints again top surgeons like Rahal, hasson and Wong Etc and the list goes on.
 

The reason for that is because it’s still a surgery and there are never guarantees with any surgery unfortunately. However, I do believe the clinic will do right by them and assist them. I’m hoping unbald eagle will upload a picture or two. 

Hi @Helios, I agree no surgeon has a 100% success rate, would it be wise to avoid clinics that make such claims? 😉

31 minutes ago, UnbaldEagle said:

TL;DR: Posted the last update at 5 months with pics and I have the same amount of hair now at 8 months and 1 week. I had no growth whatsoever and quite frankly I have no idea how is that even possible. No recovery from shock loss either so at present time I have much less hair than before the procedure. Some bare patches here and there and a completely destroyed left temple region. On top of this there are severe scarring issues: redness, cobblestoning, fibrosis. 

I know it's fairly rare to see no growth from a HT so for a while I thought I'm deceiving myself and I must have had some growth despite not seeing any hairs popping out, and despite actually having less hair now than pre-HT. After all it's hard to tell because I had hair implanted between natives. So the only place where it would be more revealing are the zigzags or whatever they are called, which were created in front of my existing hairline. And I look at them and all I see are the little poke holes created by the incisions but no hair. None. Seriously, it just baffles me and I can't find any explanation for it. I knew it can be quite risky to have hair implanted between existing hair but I trusted Dr. Maras has great experience in such cases.

I still have the redness and cobblestoning and it's quite depressing to look at it. Of course if I had a great result and I'd have the right amount of hair to mask all of that it probably wouldn't bother me so much. 
Like @WonkyHair, I spend a ridiculously long time trying to fix my hair whenever going out in order to hide this mess on top of my head. My hair is longish again, but it's mostly a combforward of sorts and it just looks pathetic. I've become a social recluse since my HT, only venturing out of the house for work. I can work from home, but every now and then I do have to go in to the office and my colleagues are looking at me totally bewildered. I'm not sure if they can tell if I had a HT, after all they've known me before the procedure so if anyone suspects that they'd think I should have more hair, right? But I'm certain they can tell that something very unhealthy happened to my scalp. And it really, really sucks.

I must confess I've sunk into depression and hopelessness and I have no idea how could I have a normal life again. There's not a single day when I don't wake up regretting all the damage this surgeon has caused me.

I'm sorry if I've let anyone down. I'm well aware some people like Doron had a great result at HDC so I'm truly sorry my own post is so negative. 

@UnbaldEagle, I'm sincerely sorry to hear this. For those that haven't been through it I think it's impossible to overstate the impact that a bad hair transplant has on one's mental health! If people think hairloss is bad, a bad transplant is 100 times worse! It's hard not to become depressed or to  stop the anger at the surgeon that has caused you such turmoil from becoming all consuming! 

Will PM you 🙂

2 hours ago, Egy said:

is a case two wrong procedures on the same day ? Why? @Doron Harati, @Giuseppe-HDC, @George_HDC

Just for clarity, UnbaldEagle's procedure was a few days before mine, we were both staying in the HDC apartments opposite the clinic.

Hey @UnbaldEagle, hope you're doing ok? I was at HDC at the same time as you (I was in the room next door, got you coffee ☕ and bananas 🍌 😁). How are things looking? Really hope you've had some progress 🤞

11 hours ago, pkipling said:

I'm glad to see that you're getting pointed in the right direction, and also that your concerns are being validated. I agree with your assessment that the work doesn't seem to be up to par with what we've come to expect from high quality surgeons, and I think you're well within reason to be unsatisfied. I'm glad you seem to have a positive outlook on all of this, as that's going to make navigating a repair way easier on yourself. It's not ideal, but the work isn't so bad that it couldn't be properly addressed by a different surgeon. High hopes! 

It also may be worth reaching out to the original clinic and discussing this with them. I'm not familiar with the surgeon, but even the best surgeons in the world can miss the mark - and there could be any number of factors at play, particularly when it comes to how the patient's body heals. Perhaps they'll acknowledge that the work isn't up to par and can provide some sort of explanation or compensation. It wouldn't hurt to ask. 

Thanks @pkipling, I've been doing my best to have a positive but realistic outlook when it comes to repair options. I have to admit that the last few months have been a horrible struggle for me!  I find myself hating my reflection every time I glance at a mirror and spending ages trying to hide this mess before going out.  It would be a big understatement to say that it really isn't good for my self-esteem!

I think every clinic has patients whose results don't match their expectations, but in my opinion, there's just too many mistakes here that are really basic. There always seems to be the odd patient that has poor growth but a wonky hairline and cobblestoning just shouldn't happen at a respectable clinic. I've been trying to focus on moving forward but will go back to HDC to see what they say about my case......

11 hours ago, Doron Harati said:

Hi @WonkyHair, we're never been introduced, but as international coordinator of HDC I'll be happy to assist you, I myself had a repair by Dr.Maras and guided members of this forum with the clinic, you're more than welcome to pm or even better contact my WhatsApp +972526542654

 

Thanks Doran, I will PM you

2 minutes ago, Egy said:

I advise you to wait a few more months to see if the situation improves, in the meantime I would hear the clinic (and here @Doron Haraticould intervene to let us know what the clinic would do for you), then you could actually start taking a look to other high-level surgeons such as Bisanga, Feriduni or De Freitas.  I sincerely wish you that the situation improves.  🤞

Thanks @Egy for the good advice and kind words 🙂. There's a part of me that wants to get something done to fix this mess ASAP but I know that I could end up making a bad situation worse! I plan to give it another month or two before I start contacting places, I know most of the top clinics have waiting lists a few months long so realistically it's probably going to be next year before I undergo a repair.

10 minutes ago, JohnAC71 said:

Have you got someone in mind for your next procedure? Someone like Dr Bisanga could be a really good choice. 

Hi @JohnAC71, I haven't really started investigating yet. Most ethical clinics wouldn't see me until the full result of my last procedure could be evaluated so I've had to bide my time.  Also travel has only just started to open up again so that could still limit my options.
This experience has left my very cautious so I'd want to have a face-to-face consultation with any potential Doctors before making any decisions. I'm in the UK so would be looking at places that aren't too far away (i.e. not the US). Dr Bisanga and another very well known Belgium doc would be on my list.   I think I might need to have 2 procedures, the first one to remove some of the grafts in the wonky section of the hairline, wait for that to heal, then go back for a 2nd transplant to make the hairline a natural shape, add some density and hopefully camouflage the cobblestoning.  

1 hour ago, Egy said:

@WonkyHairCan I ask you if you don't pull your hair back (also because when you go around, you don't go with your hand on your head to pull your hair back) how does your hairline look?

Hi @Egy, just took this pic of the same part of the hairline without me pulling my hair back:

1 hour ago, Parasol said:

Have you been in contact with HDC at all regarding your concerns? 

I was in the first few months but have had no contact since about the 4 month mark. Before it even started to grow I was obviously concerned that the hairline looked wonky and had an unnatural shape. The responses I got were carefully worded to avoid mentioning the "wonkyness". I felt they were just trying to avoid saying anything that would admit any fault on their side.  To be honest I'm astounded at just how bad my result is:
-       Wonky unnatural hairline, punch outs will be needed at temples
-       Really poor density (as I'm only at 8 months this could still improve a little but it would have to double to even look passable)
-        Cobblestoning/tenting
-        Un-natural zigzags
There's just too many really basic mistakes, it's been a really shitty 8 months and I'd never trust HDC to get me out of the mess they've got me into!
 

So it's now 8 months since I made the terrible decision to trust Dr. Maras at HDC with my HT 😢. I'm just praying there's an ethical doctor out there who can do something to repair this mess! I don't think there's much that can be done about the cobblestoning but I'm hoping that they can at least improve the density and make the hairline look something close to natural. 🙏

It’s now been more than 6 months since my transplant by Dr Maras at HDC, here’s an update on how things have progressed.

If you saw my last post and didn’t think it looked wonky hopefully this video (taken at the 2-month mark) better shows the issue:

I’m really unhappy with the slope of the hairline on the left-hand side and the way the temples have been rounded off. I think you only see rounded temples on very juvenile hairlines. In the Bisanga case, mentioned in the post above, the patient’s hairline has been brought right back to a Norwood 1. Mine is still a Norwood 2, but with rounded off temples. You just won’t find a natural hairline that does that. This is another good video where Eugenix talk about the importance of not doing this - https://youtu.be/Sf9xwD3h2PM?t=201.

By the four month mark my native hair had regrown. On the left side, where my hairloss wasn’t as bad, the transplant had only covered a few mm below my hairline, then chopped off the temple angle in a completely unnatural way, the red skin you can see in this pic:

On the right side I had a bit of wispy new growth at the 4-month mark:

At the 6-month mark on the left-side I’ve resorted to shaving the rounded off temple, the redness has mostly faded so I can make this look more natural:

On the right side the wispy hairs have grown and thickened up a bit. The density is about half what it needs to be to give that “illusion of density”:

All the hairs are now a couple of inches long and I haven’t seen any new growth in weeks. I’m still holding out in hope of another batch of hairs bursting through but not optimistic.  I reckon the density is less than 20 grafts per square cm.

There’s a couple of areas where I don’t appear to have any growth:

The grafts, particularly on the right side, haven’t been implanted flush with my scalp so I’ve got some ugly tenting/cobblestoning. It looks worse on the hairline, coupled with the lack of density it’s not a good look:

Going back to the rounded off temples, I’m having to shave these to avoid an unnatural look, the red lines on the pics below show the actual hairline, the hairs I’ve shaved down will need punching out ☹

One last issue to add to the list, the zig-zags Dr Maras does on the hairline are too defined and don’t look very natural:

So, to sum up my feeling on how things are looking at 6.5 months:

-        Wonky unnatural hairline, punch outs will be needed at temples

-        Really poor density, hoping for more growth but I can’t see any new hairs coming through, some completely bare patches

-        Cobblestoning/tenting – think the best option will be to add some more grafts to camouflage it, not sure what else can be done

-        Un-natural zigzags - grafts will need to be scattered around them to make them look less defined.

I’m still a few months away from being able to get any ethical clinic to look at this so for now all I can do is adopt this Hollywood hairstyle and try not to let it get me down 😊

After reading many positive reviews I took the plunge and had a HT by Dr Maras at HDC back in early December. As you might have guessed based on the title of this post, I’m really unhappy with how it’s gone!   I’ve tried to write the below without too much bias and focus on the facts that are visible from the photos so you can draw your own conclusion!

It’s only been 4 months and we all know that you need to wait longer than that to see the end result, but what you can see right from the outset is the shape of the new hairline.

Before the HT I was a very stable NW3 and just looking to subtly bring it back towards a NW2:

Dr Maras came up with a hairline design, I asked for it to be slightly higher as I only wanted a subtle improvement. I was a simple case, only needing 1800 grafts, and I trusted him to design a natural looking hairline.  

After the design, I went through to the operating room and lay face down for the extractions. After a short break it was time for the incisions to be made. I sat back in the chair, slightly uncomfortable as it’s a bit weird when you can’t feel the back of your head against the chair due to the anesthetic. Dr Maras stood behind me to start the incisions, he said that the hairline that had been drawn had smudged where I had been lying face down. Standing behind me he redrew the outline, he didn’t check it from any other angles before starting the incisions.

When the HT was complete, we went through to the other room for pictures to be taken. I vividly remember Dr Maras commenting that the anesthetic can cause things to look uneven and saying, “don’t worry we haven’t given you a wonky hairline!”

Here’s some pics from immediately after:

When I look at the picture taken from the front it’s immediately apparent that the right side is higher than the left. You might be tricked into thinking that my head is leaning/turned to the left however this is because the hairline has been skewed off-axis.  Whilst the picture is taken ever so slightly from my right side, if you line up other features such as my eyebrows and ears you can see that they are reasonably level:

The left side is what I’m most unhappy with, here’s how it looked at 2 months:

This is at 3 months, note the difference in symmetry between the right and left, the left slopes downwards at an unnatural angle:

I’m no expert when it comes to hairline design, but Dr Ron Shapiro has some pretty good material on the subject like this paper - https://shapiromedical.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/article_hairline-design.pdf

One thing he talks about in that paper is frontal-temporal angles:

·        Key points – “Do not flatten or totally fill in the frontal temporal angle”

·        “Slight temporal recession or weakness of the FTA is normal in the white male hairline. Therefore, flattening or densely filling in this recession is a mistake and would make the hairline look artificial”

Comparing his example of a bad hairline design with the hairline Dr Maras has created for me!

Now I’ve got 6 months of waiting for this to grow before I can get other doctors to review and decide what can be done to fix it. In my opinion the slope on the left side is unnatural and the temples will need to be punched out to try and create a natural look (which will result in scarring). This is really depressing situation to find myself in!