Savemyhairline

After the first few nights, I transitioned to my side while using the neck pillow propped up on a couple regular pillows. I’m a side sleeper and cannot really sleep well at all on my back. My clinic said this was fine, and I’m sure I did not have anything touch the recipient area (pretty hard to so long as you are wearing the neck pillow). It probably isn’t great for your neck to do this, but it allowed me to get some sleep and I didn’t hurt my neck so it worked out fine.

GL man. Looks like your scalp redness really went down from day 44 to day 60. 

The more I’ve looked into this the more I’ve come to learn the answer is “no one really knows”. Genetics are very complicated and there is a ton of misinformation everywhere regarding MBP. A common misbelief is it only comes from the mothers side, for example. There are plenty of examples of men who lost a lot of hair at 40-50-60+. There are also examples of men who had high hairlines quite young but they progressed very, very slowly and kept most of their hair until old age (Marlon Brando and Paul Newman come to mind). And we know guys like that wouldn’t have been on medication due to it not being around at the time. Preventive treatment is pretty much necessary in all HT cases unless you want to roll the dice.

You do have a good head shape for the shaved head, plus your skin looks to be a bit on the darker side, which IMO is a big advantage for guys who shave their head. As someone who is fair skin, I  believe only guys with darker skin can get away with a bald head and actually not have their looks impacted too much from it, if they have the right head shape. The cousins from breaking bad, the Rock, etc. then of course many men of African descent can also get away with it, still need to have the right head shape though.
 

As mentioned, you are very young and need to try the meds, I’d say for at a minimum 2 years, and see where you are at age 24. Maybe you will respond well and ideally can wait until your late twenties or later for the HT.

One Month

By week 3 I hadn’t noticed much shedding, so I started thinking “hmm maybe I will be one of the 5% that doesn’t shed” and then right on cue, BOOM heavy shedding. I believe at this point it’s mostly just my native hairs. This morning I did notice what looked like dark stubble around various places in the frontal third, possibly transplanted hair starting to grow already? not entirely sure.

I have to say, I’ve asked the team at H&W a ton of questions, mostly just to alleviate anxiety, and they’ve been very responsive and helpful. For how much money I spent I would expect this, but still have to give credit where it’s due, my questions are always responded to very quickly and thoroughly. I’m an anxious person in general and as most of you know, this is a significant life event doing this procedure, so I’ve been trying to manage my anxiety and trust the process.

4 hours ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

Thanks for sharing, I like the widows peak, did you have a widows peak before?

Yep. I always had longer hair as a kid so hard to tell exactly when I developed the widows peak (not sure if it’s when my hairline receded or it was always like that) but I’ve had it my entire adult life at the minimum. I even have one on my nape at the back lol

I think you’re in a good position. While you may not have the density you want now, your hair does look quite natural imo and probably better than your average 46 year old who isn’t on fin/hasn’t had a HT if I had to guess. Rahal did a good job a decade ago. With some quality crown/midscalp work I think you’ll be set 👍

So basically Pitella’s strategy is to use a very high graft count relative to the persons hair loss and not recommend finasteride? Bold strategy. I haven’t seen 10-20 year post surgery results from Pitella but that would be very interesting to see how well that strategy holds up in practice. Anyway, good luck Op and happy growing.

I have had bad anxiety too bro. Nothing about the procedure itself or my decision, just ensuring everything turns out as it’s supposed to. I literally emailed my clinic yesterday because I was paranoid about the tiny ventilation holes in my hat not blocking sun, to give you an idea of how paranoid I have been (like all hats ever have these holes and they are too small to allow sunburn, per my Doctor).

Then I have seen a couple controversial reviews here recently from patients who went to the same clinic (H&W) and reading those is absolutely not helping my anxiety.

anyway the only advice I, as someone who is also anxious, can give is just  email the clinic on what you’ve done and have them tell you. I don’t think anything you did was bad/harmful, but having your clinic tell you that themselves will make you feel better.

send them a pic of your recipient area to assess, again just for you to get peace of mind. On the masturbation thing, I personally waited a week because, like you, anxious, but I don’t see how this could harm you realistically day 2 or 3. My clinic never even mentioned sexual activity being off limits for any amount of time, and they mentioned plenty of things to avoid the first couple weeks. 

3 hours ago, mister_25 said:

 

I keep hearing the “you did everything right and as a patient made a fully informed and correct decision” arguement here, but what does that mean for my case exactly? That no matter what and that even if I selected any other surgeon that my results were destined to be poor? Is that what is being implied here?

To be honest, this comment and many others like it just make me feel worse about myself.

1. A poster here implied that my tonsillitis could of had realistically a massive effect on my yield, which implies that Dr Hasson was negligent and lied to me saying it would have no impact on the surgery.

Everyone here meant that as in you are responsible and not impulsive, nobody meant that to make you feel bad about yourself, on the contrary.
 

on this other point, I would listen to a Doctor over a poster on a forum. 

Are you assuming that weightlifting = increased Testosterone which in turn = increased DHT? Huh, I haven’t heard anyone attribute accelerated hairloss to just weightlifting before. Of course you hear about steroids doing that. 

6 hours ago, Recession1 said:

It’s always hard to determine. I’m not always buying the age and nw 6 patterns while a lot of guys develop early there are lots of guys that develop late. My brother who is 38 is now showing NW6 pattern. He shaves his head and now it is is apparent. He shaved his head at 35 and 36 and he looked to be a NW 3. It didn’t hit him until 37. Even though I look fine now I’m confident I will develop NW 6 too… 

As someone who worries way too much myself, try not worry about it. You’re already on Dut, you’re basically doing the max you possibly can to prevent/delay balding. Not sure where you are in your journey but if you’re planning a first time HT just don’t go aggressive/too low with the hairline to save grafts. That’s probably a good idea for anyone honestly since MPB can be unpredictable for anyone.

I highly doubt anyone who isn’t well versed in HT would have any clue there’s even an abnormality. The worst I could maybe see is someone sitting behind you on a bus or something, looking at it from inches away, maybe thinking “huh look at those dots, I guess some people have dots on their head when they shave it down to skin and you look up close” or “this guy must have some minor skin irritation or something” 

1 hour ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

I guarantee that Billy Joels miniaturization would have been visible under high magnification by age 35.

I was gonna ask you if you thought he was on meds, but I guess given his current age of 74 and the timeline of your pics of him at 40 vs 55, I guess not. I am a diffuse nw6 that can be seen when buzzed down but not noticeable if my hair is a couple inches or longer, hoping meds keep it that way for many many years. I guess in his case though, at least he wasn’t noticeably bald till his 50s, presumably without meds at all.

I feel pretty darn safe with finasteride in the long term if I’m being honest. If a new breakthrough cure comes out, that would be great, but I’d want to see a similar level of testing/long term studies done with this new cure as finasteride. Fin has been used by literally millions of men and has been heavily studied for multiple decades. 
 

While FUE scars are not perfect, they are pretty tame if you do decide to shave it all off one day down the line, especially if you leave your hair not shaved down to skin. I hope it doesn’t come to that for me but if I’m like 60 and just don’t want to be bothered by it anymore, it’s an option. I know I know, men care about hair when they are older, believe me I know, my grandpa still cared about his hair when he was almost 90. But men have to accept, even those without MPB, hair will thin as you get older it happens to everyone. So expecting to maintain good density when you’re 75 is unrealistic, unless some new crazy cure comes along.

im gonna be 28 years old in 2 months. Im recently single so my hair is objectively important for me, women care about a man’s hair quite a bit, especially the ages that I’d want to date. Now if I’m happily married with kids in 20 years, I’m sure I still will care about my hair, but it won’t be as important assuming my wife actually loves me for me. I just got a densely packed HT for my frontal third, which is by far the most important as it frames your face. Nobody wants a thin crown or midscalp but they don’t frame your face as a hairline does. By the way you worded your question, I’m assuming you are also a younger guy. If you think it’s very likely you’ll want to shave your head down the line, you shouldn’t get a HT. If you think it’s possible you may want to shave your head down the line but you would STRONGLY prefer hair now and for the next couple decades, and are willing to take meds, I’d get an FUE procedure.

At the end of the day there’s no flawless course of action. You just gotta decide what is right for you and keep the long term in mind.

IMO topical minoxidil won’t do much at this point as you’re basically a clean NW6,  but you’re welcome to try it for 6 months and see if you think it does anything significant. I’d try and up the finasteride to 1mg/day if you can so you can hold off NW7. The good news is that your lateral humps appear strong from these pics and you might have a good donor area but hard to tell from these pics. I think if you got an appointment with Dr. Zarev the magician you could get full coverage, but iirc his wait list is 2 years currently. Dr Sethi may also be a good choice, especially being that you have beard hair to work with. I think with some patience you can get it done. As I mentioned Zarev is like a magician and somehow does high Norwoods in one session with great coverage, he’d be a top choice for your case if you can wait

I think what Melvin is saying makes sense and I genuinely hope he’s right, he very well may be. I still think Dr. Hasson is one of the best in the world for sure. Nothing to me about the actual work looks bad, just the strength of the hairs at this time. There’s another thread with a Dr. Konior (who’s also regarded as one of the best ) patient with people concerned due to the patient requiring a free touch up after 6 months. His case is of course not the same as yours, but my point is a top tier surgeon making an error shouldn’t remove all confidence in their ability. Actually in the Dr. K instance I think, while the work also is not bad, he made a judgement error in that he tried to cover a very large area with only 2k grafts. Dr. K does amazing work but math is still math and 2k for what he was trying to cover was unrealistic imo.

I think at this point 3 more months will give you a better understanding just based on you being a slow grower. At least you should be able to use fibers now, as you mentioned. 

3 hours ago, mister_25 said:

I did not say they are giving a refund, but a refund is on table if the areas do not have growth. Here is what they said word for word.

"Dr. Hasson stands behind his work so if after a year there is an area that has not regrown he would either replace those grafts for free or refund your money for those grafts."

The thing is, I did my research obsessively and followed specifically Melvin's and Gatsby's cases and advice to avoid the same pitfalls they had so that I can have my hair when I was young like I am now. However, it doesn't matter how much research I put in or if I did everything right because I still fell in those exact same pitfalls regardless.

It was implied by Doug from H&W in a previous email that a person of my retrograde alopecia severity probably/is estimated to have a total of 5500-6500 Grafts in their donor. Which would mean that my donor reserves equal out about 1628 at its lowest, to 2628 at its highest. Which is either half of the amount that Doug said I would need to restore my hair following this outcome, or mildly less than the requirement to restore my hair following this outcome. I believe that I probably have enough donor to meet my original expectations, but the issue arises on how well the yield will go the second time around.

When everyone tells me "I did nothing wrong and nobody can fault me or my methods" its puts me in a loop because it makes me feel like any other follow up choice I am going to make will merit the same results, which I am destined to be unhappy with.

Another thing that wasn't stated is not only can they not refund me the "emotion, time and energy" that I had to go through but they can't refund the potential grafts that were burned through the procedure, which equates to the final long term result for both your donor preservation and your hair on your head. that's is what is really bothering me.

I really don't want to come across as someone begging for pity, But I do want to show that for just as much as a good result can change your life for the better with restored confidence, a result your unhappy with has the opposite effect and makes you have doubt in yourself and reinforces the insecurity to some degree. 

Can they speak to any possible reasons why your yield seems low? I think before doing any additional surgery you should have an in-person consult with a Dr. Closely examining your scalp with a microscope.

Density looks great man, incredible for 4 months. This should be awesome to see what the final result is with you already looking like this 

So essentially H&W will give you a 100% refund? I am a big fan of Dr. Hasson’s work but I understand where you’re coming from on choosing a different doc after all this. Especially if you’re getting refunded. If they were to not refund you and you had to start over financially, I’d maybe have a different opinion.  I’d say at 9 months that is disappointing and you are right to not be happy. 
 

My advice emotionally would be to try and look at guys like Melvin and Gatsby who did not have a successful first go around but with perseverance and patience, look great today. You’re a very young guy and you have a great beard, so you should have options as far as grafts down the line. It seems you did all your research beforehand and you did choose a world class clinic, so nobody can fault you, you did nothing wrong, try to remind yourself of that.

Any doctor can and has had less than satisfactory results. Them refunding you fully is nice, though of course you can’t be refunded on all the time, energy, and emotion you’ve inevitably put into this. Try to keep your head held high man, don’t quit. I think Bisanga and Rahal could both do you well, I feel like I’ve seen multiple impressive repair cases from Bisanga.

10 minutes ago, Bucky O Hair said:

The shed will happen and your hair will look worse than it did pre-transplant.

2 month mark is the ugliest period. 

Based on your pre-op photos, you will look better than you did pre-op by the 4 month mark.  Just keep the hair growing and don't shave your head, just trim the sides and back to keep it clean.

 

 

Yeah, I’m leaning towards not going and making up some excuse. I don’t see why I should be uncomfortable the entire weekend, it’s a 10 hour drive too it’s not like it’s 5 minutes away. Plus emotions aside, it is outdoor and I am supposed to avoid sun exposure for 6 months. If this were 1925 sure a hat would look great with a suit but today that’ll just draw even more attention and questioning.

I’m US based and decided Canada has the best doctors for me. Canada is similar enough to the US to where I think you’d feel more at ease getting your procedure there, between H&W and Rahal. Neither are cheap but not as expensive as Konior. 
 

I’m thinking all the top end USA based surgeons aren’t really available to the public and only do celebrities, high profile people, etc but that’s just speculation. A lot of people, even who have money, have the mindset of go to Turkey it’s cheaper. Find a handful of surgeons you like and then do more due diligence on their particular countries if you are concerned about health regulations or anything else like that. That was another reason I felt comfortable with Canada.

8 minutes ago, Berba11 said:

 

If your hair still looks like this come the wedding then you'll pull the buzz cut look off no problem.

Honestly though? Just tell people and get it out in the open. I don't know why people torture themselves trying to hide it from everyone. Personally if it was me and by the time of the wedding things were looking ropey due to shedding and redness I'd either wear a suit-appropriate hat and tell people why I'm wearing the hat or just buzz down so everything is tidy and own it hatless (and tell people). In fact, I'd tell people in advance of the event so there's no surprises.

That's just my two cents...

Normally I’d agree with you but you’ve never met these people lol. They’re gonna bring it up at every turn and ask me all these condescending questions and just be annoying about it. I’m assuming the shed is gonna happen before the wedding but I guess only one way to find out 

4 hours ago, Bucky O Hair said:

 

I hear ya.

For this same reason, I ended up scheduling my HT to occur AFTER a big family wedding that I was invited to (otherwise I would have scheduled my HT a couple months earlier).

Like you, I am fine with some people knowing, but I don't want the world to know (especially those nosey ones who love to talk about others) so I get where you're coming from.  I never want to give them more things to talk about.

The bad news for you is that the 2-month mark is easily the worst point in the HT journey.  You will have gone through the shed, will unlikely have any new regrowth yet, and your scalp will likely still be a bit pink.  I don't think "concealing" it is an option...unless you had a very small HT and a lot of native hairs that you didn't shave off.

 

Your options are either to...

1. Not go to the wedding (and play off the recent COVID spike and claim that you're feeling sick, ha ha)

2. Go to the wedding and say that you have been diagnosed with psoriasis on your scalp (and that you shaved your head so you can apply betaderm cream on it) which is why your scalp is a little pink

 

The good news is at 6 months, you should be more than fine as your native hairs will have grown back, along with many of the newly transplanted hairs.  If anyone asks why your hair looks different, just play dumb and say you got a new haircut.  

"I am a new tie wearing"   

 

 

I’m actually just getting over covid, that I probably caught while traveling internationally for my HT. I might just make something up for work and say my company needs me at our office that’s 20+ hours away from the wedding venue.

1 hour ago, Rahal Hair Transplant said:

@Savemyhairline,

A lot of people struggle with the very same thing and it’s especially more difficult when you’re only a couple months out from your hair transplant.  Around this time, patients often look their worst because not only did all of the transplanted hair shed temporarily, but mini experience shock loss of natural hair in and around the transplanted area.  On top of that, some patients are still experiencing postoperative redness and inflammation and even possibly pimples in and around the transplanted area.

so as I’m sure you’re already aware, trying to look natural and inconspicuous is a bit on the difficult side in and around this time period, often called the doldrums and/or the ugly duckling face.

Weddings and/or other formal events in particular are difficult because you can’t just hide your hair transplant under a hat.

now, it’s a little difficult to give you specific advice without seeing photos of  what your hair looks like before surgery, immediately postop and today.   Some of what you may or may not be able to do will depend on where the transfer that area is, the length of your hair, the amount of area that you feel looks like somethings different that your family and friends might notice, etc.

So without knowing this information, I can only give you some general advice.

You could always try some kind of topical concealer like Toppik, DermMatch, Couvre, etc.   You can also try coming and styling your hair differently to cover any areas that you are concerned about, etc.  

Now, if you don’t have that much shark loss, you might even look just like you did prior to surgery by the time you go to the wedding. In that case, nobody should notice or say anything.

so if you want to post some photos of what your head and hair looks like before surgery, right after surgery and now, we can give you some more specific feedback.

I hope this helps.

Rahal Hair Transplant 

 

 

Thanks all. 
 

here’s where I was pre surgery:

and here’s where I am a little under 2 weeks out 

as you can see I essentially had my entire frontal third rebuilt. Pre HT I could’ve hidden my thinning fairly easily just with styling and maybe fibers but I have no clue how much shock loss I’ll have if any, plus my hair will be shorter at the 2 month mark than in that before picture, I believe my hair grows at around an average rate.

honestly thinking if just not going to the wedding, my parents/cousins will be disappointed but this is kind of seeming like too much