Berba11

Looks great! Are you able to share which package this patient chose for their surgery, @Abhinay Singh? Thanks

It's a great result - incredible actually. But such results are extremely rare and are as much to do with that individual patient as they are the clinic. You should never expect to get a result just like someone else; there's simply too many variables. I would also suggest not picking your potential surgery/clinic based on one excellent result. There's lots of other factors to consider and many, many excellent clinics to consider. Erdogan's clinic certainly used to be considered among the best in Turkey, but there's some doubts about that now. I've personally seen some very mixed results and some poor post-op aftercare for results that haven't turned out so well. Every top clinic on earth has a few mixed results, but what they do after the fact is what sets them apart. It seems that the clinic is maybe a bit more technician led with less involvement in surgeries from Erdogan. If you do go there, you'll want to pay whatever extra it is to have Erdogan himself involved as much as possible. If you do that, I'm sure you'd be fine.

So by my maths, that's an average of one graft fully transplanted (anaesthetic, extraction, sorting, incisions and implantation) every 4.8 seconds. 5 seconds per graft seems to me to be very, very fast. I don't want to say it's impossible (it may or may not be), but at best it seems very rushed. More probably it wasn't really 5K grafts at all. You'd need to speak with a few of the endorsed surgeons on this site about the speed per graft and see what they think is possible and likely. I'm not a surgeon, so I can't say for sure, but I'd well imagine that any top doctor will say that 5 seconds per fully transplanted graft is very, very fast - maybe even impossible. Again, this may well work in your favour; if 5K grafts weren't extracted, then luckily you'll have more left to play with for HT #2. If 5K grafts were indeed extracted, that's more concerning, because it doesn't look as though 5K grafts have been implanted, so something has happened to those grafts.

Not not necessarily, you're still in the phase before most people start to see changes. You should hope to see some noticeable development from roughly 4 months onwards, but as a general rule of thumb, 6 months is going to be a better indicator - so don't worry just yet! Also, if you are a bit worried or you think something hasn't worked, the best thing to do at this stage is seek some advice from the clinic and see what they have to say. I'm pretty sure though that they'll tell you to give it a few more months given that you're still in the early stages. If the transplanted hairs was around the existing hairs then it's certainly possible that some of those native hairs have undergone some shock loss, which might make it look a bit worse than before the HT. Don't worry - that's quite common and normal - the native hairs will grow back as well as the transplanted ones with time. Just hang in there!

Hi @Sbiza, John has given some rock solid advice there. I agree it doesn't look like 5K grafts, and the hairline looks a little pluggy BUT... Four pieces of potentially good news: 1. Regardless of the result so far, there is a positive cosmetic difference now with the framing of the face 2. If 5K grafts haven't been extracted, hopefully your donor isn't too depleted 3. Looks like you've got a decent beard so you'll have some extra resources from which to draw 4. You've done the right thing by seeking additional opinions If I were you I'd wouldn't be looking much beyond Eugenix. Yes, restrictions currently make it hard (I'm myself waiting for India to be removed from the UK's red list - so I fully understand!), but it's vitally important not to rush this - your next move is critical. Take your time! How long did you surgery take from start to finish? We should be able to roughly calculate the grafts per second transplant speed and deduce how likely it was that 5K was actually transplanted.

Bear in mind that you'll not necessarily know if finasteride is/has worked for quite some time - years even! Although you should certainly know whether you can stomach it in that time side effects-wise. I'd personally suggest getting the buzz cut done early doors. If the meds definitely aren't working then remember that a HT becomes two or three HT's in all likelihood, hence probably best to do the buzz stage of your research nice and early rather than go through the rigmarole of hair meds only to discover they haven't done anything and then realise you liked the buzzed look all along. From what I understand, PRP isn't going to do much or anything for the already bald bits, so you might be better off simplifying things down to just finasteride for now, then minoxidil down the line. Seems an unnecessary cost and hassle to me but I'm happy to admit I'm not the most well informed on PRP.

You'll ideally need to post photos for anyone - surgeon or otherwise - to offer more definitive answers to your specific case. What I will add though is that in your mid 20's, your hair loss will be in its more aggressive phase. How aggressive yours is compared to another 25 year old is another question entirely, but that does mean that yes, there is at least some hope it'll stabilise or slow down, but everyone is different. I've been a Norwood 3 since my mid 20's and am now 32. I'm still a Norwood 3, but showing some signs of diffusion on top, but nothing too critical. More of a Norwood 3+! So my own hair loss is gradual. Yours may be more aggressive or a little more gentle - it's really very hard to say what pace your hair will decline at, but your family history is a reasonable indicator of where you'll end up. Also, if you're not seeing any negative sides from the finasteride, stick with it - it may help you further down the line, or it may well have helped slow down the losses you've been getting already. For all you know, your could have shed even more hair without the finasteride.

Definitely what John says above. You aren't going to magically regain the hair that's already gone (you'll need a HT for that), but at least by being on finasteride you can firstly assess whether or not you tolerate it without issue. With more time you'll be able to assess whether it's helping with the hair loss stabilisation. You may want to consider just using finasteride on its own and introduce minoxidil later on, as it's harder to work out what's working and what isn't if you do multiple things at the same time rather than a stagnated approach. It's probably easier to be consistent as well if you just focus on one thing for now and then introduce something else down the line. But with that said, if you can be super consistent and persistent on both for the long haul then I suppose I won't matter, other than the time & financial commitments of being on both (which is another reason you may want to first monitor one on its own rather than both simultaneously). My other personal recommendation is to use the time between now and whenever you potentially get a HT to not only learn & research as John says, but buzz that mop off! If you've done this already in the past then fair enough, but I'm a big advocate of making it an essential step in your research; if you like it, great - you've saved yourself a right load of hassle, worry & cost. If you don't, then you can at least say you gave it a fair crack (3-6 months minimum I would say). Absolute worst case scenario is that for the duration of your buzz (play with different guard lengths) you'll look far better than with patchy balding hair. It'll also make the initial post-HT phase easier if you've gotten used to having short hair seeing as you'll be getting it buzzed anyway. Check out Baldcafe on YouTube and treat it as part of the research and journey. I think most guys skip over this step, but so many blokes look instantly better when they go from balding/covering up to deliberate short buzzed look. So be smart, don't rush and treat surgery as an absolute last resort and if you then decided based on a good body of research and experimenting that you still want a HT... well, you've done it exactly the way it should be done!

Ok so we can at least see where the things were implanted. Sort of looks like you had grafts placed in amongst native hair to reinforce what was already there? Hard to say without better pre & immediate post op photos. But at 3.5 months things look roughly where you'd expect. You could have had a little shock loss to native hairs if you've had hairs transplanted among them which might give the false impression that things aren't progressing but if that's the case, the shock loss will recover with a little more time. I wouldn't worry too much yet!

There's virtually no hair loss here. I'm pretty surprised that a clinic would accept you as a patient at your age and with such incredibly minor loss. I'm also not sure why you thought you needed a HT at all? You said you had 2,300 grafts? Are you sure that's the right number? Would need to see your immediate post-op photos but you don't have 2,300 grafts worth of hair loss so I'm struggling to see where on earth so many grafts could even be placed. You need to provide the full range of photos including the ones the clinic would have taken before and after the op. Cheers

Definitely wise I think!

As above. If you're concerned about the thinning, firstly try finasteride, minoxidil, fibres, buzzed down short (not all at once of course!)... Basically absolutely do all the essential basics first and treat a HT as a total last resort some way far down the line. You've got the luxury of a good head of hair that doesn't remotely require surgery and, with a little early intervention, may not ever require surgery, let alone surgery in the next few years!

Looking good and also looking forward to following your progress. Thanks for posting!

Do you have any photos of your 1st & 2nd surgeries that you can share so that it's easier to see exactly what work was done on each occasion?

Great results! Patient looked pretty good buzzed down though, I have to say.

Hi @Abhinay Singh, Are you able to say which package the client chose for this surgery? Thanks Berba

You've either got to give it more time (because of your age and to see what finasteride can do longer term), or you'll want to start speaking with clinics that can utilise beard grafts across the midscalp so as best to preserve your donor area in case you have any future loss when you're older. If you've had two surgeries already and you're only 26 then I'm guessing you must have been around 23/24 when you had your first surgery? The benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing but this sort of situation really is why it's important to be patient and not get a HT too young. If you're not using Minoxidil, you probably want to start and give it some real legs. Finasteride & Minoxidil as a combo is a good bet, and if you give it enough time to see if they are working, you'll be much better placed to make a decision about a future HT. Can your donor area support another significant HT *with* a super short buzz like in the photo? Probably not (without being visible), but that's not a good indicator. Many people get 5-6000 grafts out of their donor regions and with a little bit of growth, it's covered completely. I'm sure yours would be fine, especially if you can tap into beard grafts as well.

I'd have to take slight issue with this. I joined a few weeks ago (mainly because I discovered that Zoomster actively posts and I was sent his video by Eugenix - and that's the other reason; I'd finally started getting touch with clinics after all this time), but have been independently researching HT's for probably 9 or 10 years, on and off. I've never been banned here, or been a previous poster, or worked for a clinic. But I do feel as though I've put in enough hours to offer thoughts and advice, without ever claiming to be an expert. Let's be honest... it's not rocket science! As far as I can tell (being a UK citizen), there's been a bit of an emergence around HT's and clinics in the UK over the last couple of years. I'm regularly getting Facebook ads for UK clinics that I'd never previously heard of. I've been getting ads for a new clinic in Cardiff recently - I think it's run by or founded by a former pro Rugby player as I remember. There's also a few "clinics" that aren't clinics at all - they consult and then pack you off to Turkey for the actual surgery, always to some terrible clinic. There's one called Clinic Centre that is producing horrendous results for clients, seemingly targeting UK patients predominantly. I'm sure this is all standard practice elsewhere too, but it seems to be booming in the UK just now. I think there's definitely good options in the UK (Ball & Reddy being the most obvious, though I don't doubt there's probably one or two more also), but it's also a developing market that needs to be tread very carefully. Put it this way... Until recently I've always been extremely quiet about my own research into HT's. I'd never heard anyone talk about it openly, never mind heard of anyone or knew anyone who'd gone and gotten one. And as I write this, there's TWO players in my football team that have both had HT's (one has had two even!) and there's another player who is thinking about one. Include myself and that's four from one team. Unthinkable just a couple of years ago. Part of that is due to de-stigmatisation of the issue - people are more happy to be open about it, especially maybe within footballing/sporting circles (think Wayne Rooney!) - but with that has come an emergence of 2nd rate options for blokes in the UK and it's a concern, for sure. And often UK clinics (whether they're any good or not!) are charging premium rates, in line with some of the better known Belgium clinics. Given the proximity of Belgium to the UK, I think it's the better option on paper if budget allows for it, given its higher number of distinguished clinics. I think the UK HT market is risky terrain at the moment and the OP has done himself a great favour by seeking additional advice first - especially if KSL were on his list!

As far as the UK goes, I don't think it's wise to look beyond Dr Reddy or Dr Ball of the Maitland Clinic (Portsmouth). If it's really a matter of a distance if you need to return, then you should definitely be looking at Belgium. It it were me and I could afford Reddy/Ball or any of the top Belgian clinics, I'd go for Belgium - probably Lupanzula but there's others like Feriduni, Mwamba, Basinga. You'd be in good hands with any of those, frankly. Absolutely avoid KSL like the plague though!

Fantastic result from one of the top surgeons in Europe. Pleased for you!

Following keenly! Can't wait to see some photos.

Looks great - very natural and there looks to be a nice 'softening' of the hair. I wouldn't worry about any lighter/less dense patches at all. If anything, it adds to the naturalness of the look. I do see what you mean about graft direction at shorter lengths, although now that more time has pass and the hair has softened and settled that may be less of an issue. Overall, the before and after pics show an excellent transformation.

I think that's very wise. Have a great wedding day and congratulations! In the meantime, maybe you'll want to get in touch with a few clinics of interest and see what they have to say about your situation. All the best!

Hi mate, I totally understand that these sorts of things do indeed impact on people's confidence. The problem is that these insecurities are an emotional thing, so often rational words don't tend to translate - I or anyone else can say all the right things but your most likely inclination is to ignore or resist that information. The reality is that no one cares about my hair or yours other than me and you. It's literally of no interest - nobody is taking any notice! Objectively, it's just not important and people have their own insecurities to worry about before looking at other people's hair. Also... blokes lose their hair (to varying degrees). It's a totally normal and mundane thing that every human on earth understands. I know it might be difficult but firstly I'd really try to see the funny side. I'm lucky that i have a bunch of down to earth mates and occasionally we'll banter about my hair (just as we'll laugh and joke about others things). I personally joke about it freely... I mean, what better option is there? I'd really try to find some sense of perspective about it and work on not allowing it to dictate your mood or confidence. How you go about that I don't truly know - to me it comes quite naturally but I get that for others this might be harder. But I really think that anyone suffering any kind of debilitating insecurity, confidence or poor mental health regarding their hair should first work on resolving those issues before sorting the hair. The likelihood is that once they "fix" the hair, some other insecurity will raise its head, or they'll find something else they don't like about themselves. On the other hand, if you find some peaceful level of acceptance about how you look, then you'd be going into any surgery with a much healthier frame of mind. Have you tried just buzzing it all off and rocking that look for a few months? If you haven't, you really should. It's quite liberating, buzzing it off yourself I find to be quite pleasurable and I've never had anything less than 100% compliments. If it's really bothering you that much, what you might find is that by taking things into your own hands and thus regaining some control of your hair actually lifts a weight from your shoulders. Certainly don't go getting a HT without first buzzing it all off - that would be genuine madness (for anyone!). Also, if you're concerned about finasteride sides (with usually go away once you stop taking it), then I'd once again stress the buzz cut as option number 1. That's an option that you *must* explore before committing to drugs, surgery, surgery plus drugs or no drugs but then potentially two or even three surgeries.

Best of luck. Look forward to following your progress