Berba11

43 minutes ago, Slickster76 said:

I too am a Norwood 6/7. Is Hattigen Hair a great clinic for advanced cases like that?

Has anyone on this forum had any experiences with them?

Hattingen is an excellent choice, and are known for doing large sessions in both FUE & FUT. Their wait times and prices are a lot less than Zarev as well.

Top class result.

1 minute ago, JackSparrow said:

Thank you for your valuable suggestion. I feel like getting a HT when my hair gets wet and the front looks bad and also when I get my hair short.

I am based in New Delhi, and got a evaluation of 1500-1700 from Eugenix(they saw same pics on WhatsApp), but they are lowering my hairline too much. 

What's your opinion on this? 

Don't lower the hairline. Find some old pictures where your hairline was still intact and use them as the basis for going forward. With Eugenix, insist on wanting a conservative hairline. Remember you can also lower it at a later date if at some point you decided you wanted to be a little more aggressive, but taking a hairline that is too low back up again is a real challenge that you wouldn't want to go through.

Like I say, you have a good head of hair. There's no need to do anything too drastic with the hairline - just reinforce the miniaturised forelock and you should have a really excellent result that will stand you in great stead into old age.

You don't need a HT, but if you wanted to get one then you look like you'd be an excellent candidate and with your curly hair, you wouldn't need a huge amount of grafts to get a really great result. A nice, conservative restoration of the central forelock would get you a great outcome I think.

Where are you based?

2 hours ago, jameslondon said:

Because they don’t mention anything beforehand and take all the information that they make no comment on.  For even a thorough consultation 900 euros is too much.  

It's normally 150EUR for Zarev, but these are the 'off-schedule' prices. I have a consultation with him next year at the normal price but I'd booked it over a year ago so got lucky in that respect.

26 minutes ago, GeneralNorwood said:

PS. I was in London from Friday

Damn, we should have grabbed a beer!

51 minutes ago, track_rat said:

Hi all, wanted to provide you with an update. You have been so supportive and encouraging, so thank you very much for that.

My procedure at Eugenix was clearly a very poor result. I don’t think there’s any other way to view it. I will never get the time I lost back, but here’s to hoping I continue to make progress and am at a point where I’m content soon.

Life stopped post surgery. I lived in a hat and was in a very bad place with low self esteem and an enormity of regret. After many tens of thousands of dollars and numerous visits to experts around the globe, I found a dynamic duo (Konior and Mwamba) that has yielded some success. We have plans to continue in the coming year.

Excuse some of the extra cropped photos. I value my anonymity very much but am sharing in hopes this helps somebody else.

Step 1: Konior  | ~450 beard graft removal and redistribution 

Before Konior surgery.

Day of Konior surgery. Focus was to remote the helmet head / birds nest of beard hair to yield a more natural blend, even if I looked more bald in the process. Goal was to look more natural and less people staring at me.

 

Step 2: Mwamba | 800 scalp grafts into outer ring, 500 beard grafts combination of filling in beard gaps and also lower horseshoe of head, 500 chest grafts into donor 

Mwamba had a tall order on this surgery. Objectives:

- Build around the island that Eugenix implanted on to try and merge the sections. You can see in prior photos there was nothing implanted in the outer ring and much of below, and things just looked awful.

- Implant into my neck/beard to restore the empty patches left by Eugenix.

- Implant into the top corners of my head where there was no work done prior.

- Remove the remaining Unger hairs from my temple that were not pulled in India. There were so many.

- Remove some hairs at the center of my hairline to lift it, as it was made to dip way too low.

- Do all of this with a no shave technique. 

 

The red rings here would be his focus for the second session we had about a year later. 

About 8 months later:

 

Step 3: Mwamba second session | 300 scalp grafts into various areas, some beard grafts into empty patches, some chest grafts into donor 

Objectives:

- Continue to rebuild back of head with empty areas. Mostly refilling the red rings shown above.

- Remove additional hairs from center of hairline to raise it. The prior session was less aggressive as a test to see how it would heal.

- More touch ups on gaps in beard 

I didn’t take as many photos here. I was comfortable with Mwamba, and it was a relatively minor session with only a few hundred grafts moving. 

After approximately one year, and current state:

 

The next session is with Konior coming up in a few months. We will be using scalp donor that I’ve been preciously saving to start giving me more volume on the top of my head. He has proposed a few sessions with a few hundred grafts a pop. It may seem nominal, but a few hundred in his hands can make a difference. I will also continue to see Mwamba to make use of body hair and targeting empty areas in the donor. 
 

Please let me know your thoughts.

Wow! What a journey so far. Everything is looking really, really good and it sounds as if you’re doing much better generally which is great. I’m really happy to see you very, very nearly out of the woods for good. How are you feeling about everything?

Would love to see some close ups of the hairline extractions to see the healing. Also keen to hear your thoughts on the “bird’s nest”. Any new extractions planned for those?

Great update mate. Really is good to know you’re on the up. 

1 hour ago, Melvin- Admin said:

Indeed, surgery should be tailored to the individual. I do believe your situation is different from @GeneralNorwood I would not consider you a repair. I wouldn’t recommend strip for general. I agree with Dr. Muresanus assessment. 

Yes definitely different situations (mine a lot better than GN’s), but interesting parallels in terms number of grafts extracted via FUE, overall pattern of loss (mine not yet as advanced as GN’s), going too aggressive on the first pass and surgeons wanting to refine/modify the hairlines. 

These high res photos show how impressive & precise the punch outs look. Very nice indeed and can’t wait to see this heals and the new hairline height starts to really work for you. 

On 3/28/2024 at 11:01 PM, GeneralNorwood said:

Dr Sever Muresanu said that FUT is not good idea for me, because i don't have virgin scalp and it is not worth the effort. He recommended FUE. 

I remember you said this and thought it was interesting. I met Dr Sever in person last week and despite having had 3,555 FUE grafts taken out already (just like you!), he said to me that he could "easily get 4,000 grafts" from a strip surgery in my case, plus I'd still be able to have FUE as well (and I'd be a good beard graft candidate as my head hair is naturally more coarse so matches beard better). In my case he doesn't want to do strip yet as it's not needed. He wants to do 1500 grafts to bolster the midscalp and reinforce the frontal third and also wants to extract around 150 or grafts from the hairline as he thinks it's a bit too linear and needs more irregularities. He said my donor was "great", which was a relief!

It's nice to get good hair news, but thought it was worth sharing to show how estimates and considerations can vary a lot between from the same doctor seeing different patients.

3 minutes ago, Tommy1991 said:

Sure, although my photos don’t do it justice due to resolution they do look seriously slick on the photos taken by Feriduni. They will send me the photos tomorrow aswel. 
 

Port surgery serum and a spray for the recipient areas. 
post surgery oil for extraction zone and a mousse shampoo. They send a link to download an app, which has a calendar , sends a notification for spraying or for example, shampooing every second day.

They also provide antibiotics, vitamins, neck pillow, pillow cover and a cool pack for the forehead.

Excellent info, cheers mate! How did you find the logistics of getting to Hasselt? And are you flying back to Ireland straight away, or sticking around for a few days? I hated navigating my way through airports with an attention-drawing surgical cap on my head!

8 minutes ago, keith c said:

That is my big concern aswell. Also, your correct the hairline has been lowered which is something i noticed from the start. I now know how dangerous/risky this is, which is something i wish never happened aswell. Here are some photos that might help l. 

Thanks for sharing.

So that last picture is interesting. You had a very strong forelock, a hairline height that was naturally very nice and a bit of natural, mature recession. I think you'd have been a great candidate for a much more subtle, conservative surgery to enhance where you'd lost ground. Clearly from your post op photos there's lowered your hairline in the center point by about 2cm's, and gone quite aggressive bring forward the temple corners.

Before committing to any further surgery, you might want to follow a repair case that @Tommy1991underwent today with Dr Feriduni (and also @Davyfor example). This will give you some other ideas about how to proceed. Ultimately what's done is done and rushing to try and fix things might make things worse. So definitely take you time and consult with several doctors who do a lot of repair work: Feriduni, Bisanga, Muresanu are all worth reaching out to.

1 minute ago, Melvin- Admin said:

Interested to know as well. That said, Dr. Zarev showed me a similar case where grafts were extracted and there was no visible scarring.

Yea I saw that one. Also Feriduni has about 3 or 4 other cases on this forum like this and there's not a single scar in sight on any of them. @RTChas no scarring from his Hattingen punch-outs either. My best guess is the forehead just heals far better than the donor area even without creams and so on, but I assume most surgeons will prescribe something to help things along.

43 minutes ago, Tommy1991 said:

Thanks man. Appreciate it. Already judging the level of work and care, I think this will be a real success for me. 
 

Feriduni expects just one more session to reach my expectation which I am delighted to hear.

 

Amazing if this can be turned around in two hits. You must feel relieved to be on the road to putting all of this behind you now! Work looks very precise and all of the extraction sites look nice and distinct from one another which should aid healing without visible scarring or blemishing.

What has Dr Feriduni recommended for the post-op care for the extraction sites? Anti-scarring cream maybe?

This is an interesting case for me. I met Dr Sever in London on Friday and he wants to do something very similar to my hairline. I don't have pluggy grafts like you did, but my hairline is a little too linear for Dr Sever's liking and he wants to do some strategic punchouts to create more irregularity and soft breakup, as well as 1,500-ish grafts into the midscalp and old forelock area to bolster and connect everything from front to back.

Would be great to see some more close ups of the hairline when you can!

Hey Keith,

You need to tread very carefully and slowly here and not rush into surgery. Your donor does look compromised, so needs to be handled with care. But the key thing here is the approach to the repair of the front. You could simple add a load more grafts to cover up the pluggy hairline and try to mask the sticky-up angles, whilst also improving density. Problem here is, you're going to be using more grafts than you might ideally want to.

You haven't provided any pre-op photos or immediate post-op photos so it's hard to know for sure, but did they lower the hairline? It looks as though they did, and maybe a bit too low. Another repair option you have is to have the hairline removed via FUE over two sessions, and then rebuilt more naturally, softly and more appropriately on a third session. This way the previously implanted 'bad' grafts can be reused further back. This obviously comes with the hassle of a multi-step approach, and tends to cost more, but it may help preserve the donor and will improve the hairline without having to throw too many more grafts into the mix.

As others have pointed out, something is amiss here. You had what looked like a pretty good result after 8 months from your surgery with Medispa, then it seemed to regress rapidly, which is quite curious. You've now had another surgery from a different clinic and with similar outcomes to what happened with your first surgery.

A scalp biopsy to try and determine whether there's a previously undetected underlying issue would be a worthwhile investment before any further surgeries.

12 minutes ago, Tommy1991 said:

Next round of extraction will be 10-Oct-2024. Purely based on feedback by Dr Feriduni, as he advised there is no need to wait longer than this. 
 

Ok cool. Good luck today mate!

You can already get a feel and sense of the difference this will make with the parts you want removed shaved down. Really pleased to hear you had such a thorough planning session - this is the level of attention and detail you deserved last time around. 
 

How long will you have to wait between this and the next round of extractions?

18 minutes ago, Stanley N. said:

@Berba11 May 1st will be 3 months from my surgery. How much longer should I wait to know the full results? 
 

The attached picture was 7 days after the surgery 

Ideally need immediate post op pictures, where we can actually see the extraction/punch sites. Did Asli Tarcan not take high resolution pictures?

Shock loss can take up to around 6 months to rebound in some cases, so I'd hope to see improvements over the next three months. You'll know a lot more by month 6 if this is shock loss or overharvesting.

35 minutes ago, GymStefani said:

Maybe I have an estimation and waiting on final price so I can the remaining price to the surgeon and was wanting a second opinion  

 

I just want opinions on how it looks without naming the clinic or who done it…yet! If I paid loads I don’t want that messing with opinions saying it’s great!

if I paid not much I also don’t want people beating on good work! 
 

All I will say is I got this done in England 

UK would have been my second guess. Lots of clinics in Turkey & the UK run an "all in" pricing model.

In terms of how it looks... It's usually very difficult to say with absolute certainty at this stage when everything is a bit bloody and scabs are forming. My own initial impression (for what it's worth) is that the density looks ok - maybe on the slightly less dense side, but within reasonable density boundaries - and that the hairline graft placement looks a little bit linear and lacking irregularities for a softer, more broken up hairline. However, I again have to caveat and say that it's hard to make those kind of technical assessments at this stage with real conviction. It's also virtually impossible to know if they've used nice, soft single graft hairs in the hairline and if the angles and directions of the grafts are optimal.

I do like that they've gone a little more conservative and not lowered your hairline, and it's almost always a nice touch to leave a few finer native hairs at the centre point of the hairline in front of the newly transplanted hairs to aid the naturalness (which it looks like they've done).

Lastly, the donor extractions are decently spread out though it looks like they didn't utilise the side of your head very much (but maybe that's the single upside down picture not telling the full story!). I'd have maybe liked to see the full donor used if that is indeed the case, but it doesn't look like you'll have any donor issues as far as I can tell.

Thanks for sharing. 🙂
 

I’m guessing this is around 2,000-2,500 grafts. I’m also guessing that you not knowing how many grafts this is means you didn’t pay per graft, which probably means you went to Turkey?

Who was your surgeon/which clinic?

Do you have any pictures of the extractions immediately post-op?

Shockloss - if that's all it is - can take a while to recover. However, Asli Tarcan's reputation is such that it's not unreasonable for you to be concerned. They have a history of butchering people I'm afraid to say.

Just some semantic hygiene... Any hair that was extracted will not "grow back". The hair didn't "grow back" after your first surgery either, it just sounds like they did a decent enough job with the extractions such that it didn't leave your beard looking patchy. If on this occasion they have indeed overharvested the area underneath your chin, then the only way to resolve this would be to have hairs transplanted back into that area.

For now all you can do is give things more time and hope the situation improves. You'll know more definitively where you stand in two or three months time, as frustrating as that is.

There's still loads of terrible practitioners in the UK I'm afraid, but running concurrent to that is some newer options that are exciting.

I don't know why Dr Ball isn't more widely discussed on here or reviewed though. He's been around for ages - all the way through the barren years - and is an excellent surgeon.

5 hours ago, Jack97 said:

It was UK Wimpole Clinic London Harley Street. The consultancy I had was in Brighton.

Avoid Wimpole.

In the UK we have Dr Ball, Dr Ted and Dr Mani who are all very, very good options. There's also Dr Reddy, Dr Farjo and Dr Arshad. Whilst I'm sure there's a few hidden gems on the brink of emerging in the UK that aren't yet known, these six are by far your best & safest bets in the UK. Personally I really like the former three (hence mentioning them first), but other posters may take a different view.

I would guess you need around 1500 grafts, give or take. Make sure you opt for a conservative approach to preserve your donor to meet the future needs of your hair loss.