Berba11

I desperately hope this turns out at least passable for you. NW6/7 needs to be carefully considered, carefully planned and carefully executed. It hurts my soul a little bit that you flew all the way from the US to Pakistan when one of the world's top NW6/7 specialists were just the next country along from the place you ended up at (twice!). Going to a clinic because of a friend of a friend is simply not any kind of research at all. You put your head at irreparable risk with that kind of approach my friend! I'll be following with my fingers firmly crossed for you!

To be hones the back looks fine and will hopefully thicken up a bit more over time. I'd never have noticed without it being pointed out and neither will anyone else. The side profile is a little more sparse but not unnaturally so. I wouldn't consider it anything to worry about but if it is a bit of shock loss and it recovers over time then happy days! Some creative barber work would probably leave it completely undetectable to 99% of people as it is.

I don't know that there's any particular advantage or disadvantage growth-wise for shedding vs non-shedding. Less shedding has in your case somewhat meant you've skipped over much of the ugly duckling phase though! Things look good at this stage. Do you have any photos of the donor area?

I'm sure most clinics will offer a pickup & drop off service to and from the airport. But even if they didn't, why wouldn't you just find a way using public transport/taxi's to your chosen clinic? You're surely not going to limit yourself to clinics based on proximity to a particular airport!? Also, is obtaining a medical visa from the US to India (seeing as you mentioned it), really unobtainable? India are granting medical e-visa's to US citizens as far as I know, and the US is listed on the Indian e-visa website as being open to applications.

I wouldn't have a clue that this was a transplant to be honest. So I'd say that's a pretty damn good result!

Awesome!

Hi @Ahmedtushar, Have you asked your Doctor this question first? You should be sticking to your immediate post-operative care regimen as proscribed by your surgeon. Most suggest very minimal disruption to the recipient area within the first week. I would guess that not being able to properly get the conditioner off (presumably because you were being very gentle and just rinsing the hair lightly?) isn't going to cause any problems.

How do you know which technicians will be performing on you? And can you name any other surgeries in which you'd be happy for the lead surgeon to NOT do any of the actual surgery on you? And shouldn't the very best & most experienced person be that surgeon themselves? You're right that experience trumps titles, but Dr's are the more experienced members of the HT team. And what do you know about this clinic? For example, what happens if they are only able to extract a couple hundred single graft hairs when in reality they need three or fours times that amount to create a soft hairline? Do they have the skill & expertise to cut multigraft hairs into single hairs? Do they use microscopes? Do you even know that these are questions that need to be understood in advance of choosing a clinic? I suppose what I'm really getting at here is... Have you really (and I mean really) done your research & taken the time to fully understand what a good HT requires? Because if you haven't, how are you going to know what to look for and what questions to ask of a prospective clinic that is going to perform surgery on your head? You shouldn't be thinking about clinics yet - never mind booking in for surgery - unless you've done the essential research first.

I'm delighted to read that you've cancelled - the absolute correct decision. But I wanted to respond directly to what you've said here: "I know at least 3 guys that are quite happy with their results". Honestly, I've watched so many videos on YouTube where some guy is showing off his results, and his HT looks terrible. But guess what? He's DELIGHTED! Absolutely delighted. Why? Because he simply doesn't know any better. All he sees is hair where there wasn't hair before, but with absolutely no knowledge of the nuances of hairline restoration. So there's blokes walking around with a linear band of multigraft hairs in their hairline, looking like a weird Ken doll, completely oblivious (but over the moon nevertheless). It's because they've done no real research or diligence on what a natural hairline looks like. Don't risk being that guy. I know nothing about Ronaldo's clinic. It could be awesome, but it very probably isn't. Why Ronaldo would get involved in such a gig I'll never know. He can't be short of cash. If you're in Portugal, you have excellent options such as Dr Bruno.

I'd put money on the former. I've no doubt they're quite happy to post pics on their website & social media channels of selected good results (with no recourse to "GDPR" in sight)! Seems to me more likely they want to control where photos of their work turn up in case that work isn't as good as the ones they're happy to broadcast & shout about. If that's the case, that's a blatant lack of transparency & ethics. It's straight up dodgy.

They're photos of you. I'm not sure GDPR comes into it in such circumstances. You may want to swat up on such info prior to asking so that you're armed with that knowledge. I've never heard of a clinic refusing to release photos they've taken of a patient to that actual patient!

In fairness your donor looks pretty clean and the pic you posted of your hair grown out at the back shows absolutely no indication of any work being done. That's going to stand you in good stead moving forward. Also, given that you've had a least some growth, you can probably easily manage the cosmetic deficiency with some fibers/topik to get you by. I know that's not what you wanted 7/8 months post-op, but it could have been so much worse! My best advice assuming things don't improve; 1. Get any high res photos the clinic took pre & post op from them. 2. Painstakingly count the grafts & mark them on the photos. 3. Seek advice from other reputable clinics (such as those listed on this website) for a) their assessment of the number of grafts transplanted and b) advice on a top-up procedure to bring things in line with your initial expectations. Lastly; don't get any remedial work done by the original clinic. Take your custom elsewhere. Secondly, if you are going to end up in dispute with them, make sure you've been through the steps I've mentioned above so that you have some evidence. At the end of the day, you've paid for 2,961 grafts but quite likely haven't had that many (or even close to) transplanted. What you do with the info going forward is up to you, but I'd certainly be raising the issue once I'd done my diligence and gathered my evidence.

Ah, my mistake! I misread that. In which, that definitely doesn't look like what I'd expect to see from the 3K grafts. That's in line with what I'm expecting to have in a couple of months. If my post op photos looked like this, I'd be concerned. @Hairsome- your donor area looks ok, and actually gives the impression of a decent amount of grafts (I couldn't & won't put a number on it). But there seems to be a discrepancy between what the donor/extractions (could probably pass for 2.5K grafts give or take) looks like and what the recipient site looks like (looks no more than 2K tops).

My initial reaction to your photos was that it didn't quite look to me as though 2,700 grafts had been placed in that area. It looked less. The only real way to tell would be to get the immediate post-op pics that the clinic took (please say they took some?), and open up those photos and count the dots (incisions) using the edit tool (select a few different colours and click a dot on every single graft and keep a tally of how many times you click, basically. Tedious, but probably worthwhile). You won't get it 100% correct, but it'll give you a ball park of the reality. Also, as already mentioned, clinics that do all manner of cosmetic surgeries are a bit of a no-go HT transplant-wise, and if the techs are doing the heavy lifting, it's always going to be a lottery. The good news... You haven't been butchered up front and assuming your donor has been left in decent condition (which, if less that 2,700 grafts were extracted, may well be the case) it should be a fairly straightforward case for an actual reputable clinic to increase the density in those lagging areas. Fingers cross you see some more growth though.

Christ, he's also considering getting his repair done at a clinic that is local as well? @nikoladjs- I hope you get this mess fixed but please don't pick some place in Serbia. You've already had one terrible HT, don't make the same mistake twice.

Oh man What made you choose this clinic?

There's literally nothing to see here is there! Brilliant stuff.

Your hairline doesn't look as though it would require too many grafts provided your expectations about lowering the hairline are sensible. 2000 grafts across the areas required doesn't look or sound out of place to my eye, but you should probably have already had contact & assessment with at least one other clinic before committing. Have you done so? Impossible to say regarding your donor unless there's an obvious issue. You'd need an in person assessment from a reputable clinic to say for sure. Nothing in your photos looks out of the ordinary though. Transplanting into diffuse areas is indeed trickier. You'll get more bang for your buck by trying to slow down/stop the thinning via finasteride and other interventions first before blasting the area with new grafts and risking shockloss, graft damage or further losses to the native hairs and then needing more work sooner than expected. There's a couple of patches that you can clearly have filled in as it stands but you'll need a game plan to maintain the surrounding native hair. Also, as John has said, the UK isn't exactly brimming with top quality options. There are four good options (as listed by John), and beyond that the quality really does nosedive. I'd be a little wary - particular with hair line work (which requires particular refinements) - if you're going to somewhere else. Who are you booked in with?

P.s. I know you didn't show us your beard extractions but again, from the pics you posted, no one on earth is going to tell you've had 1000's of grafts taken from there!

Looking super clean and almost untouched. The salt n' pepper really helps to mask a lot of the donor extractions - it doesn't really look like you've had anything done there at all. It just looks like a bit of natural thinning and that's at day 11 with very short hair and further healing to go! Very impressive stuff. It's going to be an absolutely knock out result. Though you seem to be doing your level best to knock yourself out with all this head bumping! 😆

Oh brilliant! I know different surgeons recommend different amounts of time for buzzing the recipient post-op so I'm pleased to hear Eugenix think about a month with a guard (gently!) should be fine. I'd be intending to buzz my way through the ugly duckling phase so to be able to do so ASAP is a bit of a relief!

Great update @MazAB- all starting to look very clean and the donor looks untouched. Did Eugenix give you any advice one when you could buzz cut the recipient area?

Hey @Zoomster, how are things looking at this stage?

Would you be travelling from the UK by any chance? If so... The e-medical visa is not an option (or any e-visa), meaning you have to do it the old school way and fill out a form, get it printed, book an appointment at your nearest consular services (for me that means an annoying trip to London), hand in your forms, any relevant paperwork (such as a letter from the clinic confirming your surgery), your passport, your visa fee (give or take £100 I think) and... wait to see if there's a visa in your passport when it arrives in the post. I'll be going through this exact process in two weeks when I trot off to London. Fingers crossed the visa is granted. There are flights to India from the UK including direct flights. There's also a 72-hour Covid test that needs to be taken before travel to India, so that's an extra cost & hassle. So there's some hurdles to jump through but nothing much different to travelling to any other country that has certain visa requirements.

Highly unlikely it's anything to do with the HT after 5 months.