Fox243

What is contraction?

I agree -- I wore a hat for a year at work as a NW5 22 year old and people eventually began questioning why I wore it. One day, I said enough is enough, and I decided to shave my head and although I got some comments about people not recognizing me, generally, those who knew I was severely bald were impressed, and never brought it up again.

Have you thought about having a consult with pittella in the meantime? I know he’s decently far booked out, even for consults, so may be worth at least paying the small consultation fee to get a date on the books.

This is the hardest case I've ever seen restored. If he can pull this off, he is undoubtedly the king of NW7s HTs.

imo I think it's too early to say -- the pig study showed significant regeneration and so did Dr. Barghouthi's case. If we do this over and over, that basically means full regeneration.

@Killian What's ur take on the 3 patients that Dr. Bloxham tried on around 8 months ago? Would you say they are observing either better scarring or regrowth or is it inconclusive?

What are his views on FUT vs FUE in 2024, especially for NW6/NW7? Back in the day, the strategy was do as many FUTs, then FUEs once laxity is depleted. Now, we see the top hair restoration surgeons saying pure FUE is better.

@Melvin- Admin Has there been any update from Dr. Mohebi? If he can't do it, that's fine, but would appreciate it if he can let us know either way. A scar revision doctor I'm working with said it was very easy to order via this link: https://www.bauschretinarx.com/visudyne/ecp/additional-resources/ordering-patient-assitance/

I literally see no scars

I think to be fair, other tests used like 0.24-0.8 mg/cm^2, not 1 mg in total. 50 mg is quite a lot though and my only concern is the papers showing a worse effect at higher concentrations on pigs (2 mg/mL > 4 mg/mL), hypothesized by Mascharak to be because of Verteporfin’s off target effects because pure YAP inhibition through a sirna showed better effects the more YAP was in inhibited iirc. It could be different for humans though. It’s an extremely safe medicine though so worst case scar doesn’t heal as well as with a lower dosage.

lol I don't have anything against meds in particular -- in fact, I'm on several meds myself. I'm only against them being prescribed without considering risk reward. Don't appreciate you bringing comments from other threads here.

I think it's because the other options require potentially nasty tradeoffs (side effects of lifelong meds) i.e. people are always like you risk your dick with fin for a cosmetic issue.

ah unfortunate, but thanks for the heads up.

I don't understand what you mean by waiting tbh. Like you could probably go to Dr. Barghouthi or Dr. Bloxham or Dr. Saifi right now to get a verteporfin hair transplant. Personally, I'm in no rush which is why I'm fine waiting for the optimal technique, but if someone is in a rush, this is an option available to them.

Thank you for doing this man – it means the world to all of us.

Yeah, I think its too high but I'm sure he has a reason for it. Let's wait and see what he says.

Very interested to see how this turns out.

Yes, but a couple of things. 1) Tylenol doesn’t affect the hormonal system 2) Tylenol is not a lifelong medication, unlike fin or oral med, which is building up and affecting your body daily And I think I agree with your point that medication should be an informed decision. What I'm trying to say is I think the forum is way too pro med, especially when the risk reward doesn't justify it.

I agree that meds are useful, even for a NW7, but nobody has really talked about the trade offs here. Finasteride and oral minoxidil are not risk free drugs, far from it in fact. There’s simply not enough research into long term effects from using these daily.

I was wondering why hrn has recently turned so pro med. Regularly, I see posters telling NW7s to try finasteride and oral minoxidil, the former which has several labels describing potential permanent sexual side effects and the latter having a black box label for heart related sides. Just more generally, you are changing several hormonal and cardiac biomarkers for decades that isn’t a natural thing to do -- especially when these drugs weren't even intended to treat hair loss, that is just a side effect of which there could be countless negative ones as well. Granted, both of these are extremely rare and taking meds is all about trade offs, but a NW7 is very unlikely to grow much hair. In regards to the argument about “preserving the donor zone”, I think it’d be quite unethical for a doctor to rely on a patient taking meds for “a donor zone” that can be extracted. The safe donor zone is safe for a reason as studied by Oestrich and the true narrow safe strip doesn’t miniaturize for 99% of men. I’m all for meds if someone is a NW1-3 but once you get past, especially a NW6-7, you’re really trying to grow plants in a barren wasteland and potentially poisoning the entire soil. Just curious about people’s thoughts on this.

I know you were hoping to have one or two more sessions. When will you learn how many grafts you have left?

This is an amazing transformation for the number of grafts used, one of the best I’ve seen.

Does he use beard hair for patients who could get a good result with it? My scalp isn’t good but beard is quite good.

It’s been over a year since your last surgery so would love to see an updated pic of how the grafts finally grew in. I have very strong norwooding genes (NW6 by 23) and grandparent/uncle NW7, so am particularly invested in your case. Thanks!

Agreed, happy that OP seems to be happy with his result, but this doesn't look like 5500 grafts even if spread over a larger surface area. For most people at his stage, another 5000 grafts would be full coverage with decent density, but I don't foresee that happening unfortunately. Let's hope I'm wrong.