Berba11

1. As an emerging surgeon, I'd be interested to know what his thoughts are on the giga-session work we're seeing from the likes or Pittella and Zarev. 2. I'm noticing a lot more younger guys - 20, 21, 22 years old - passing through the forum somewhat desperate to get a HT. Be interesting to ask any of the surgeons you'll be speaking with on upcoming podcasts, including Dr Miln, what their/his position on this is. Do they feel the boom and accessibility of HT's (which naturally includes cheap options abroad) is starting to put younger guys at risk, who traditionally might not have been able to afford a HT or the stigma of getting one would have been enough of a deterrent until they were older? How are they handling enquiries from young guys? 3. Related I suppose to Q2, is Dr Miln doing repair work, and if so, of what nature? (hairline extractions, cover ups, donor/strip scar repairs etc).

It is an unusual hairline shape that isn't natural for men. Those sloping down bits on each side is indeed more of a female hairline shape. I can see from your original photo that those hairs are not only in the wrong place (because you're not a woman), but they've used thicker multi-graft hairs instead of soft single hairs to match your temple points, and the direction of those hairs is all wrong. Nothing will "expand" - that's total bollocks. Grafts will grow wherever they've been placed. Gaps will remain as gaps until otherwise filled in. In terms of a more immediate fix, you could look to have these bizarrely placed grafts removed and reimplanted into some of the more gappy areas. At the very least you'd have a natural male hairline shape and a bit extra density. If the rest of the transplanted hair continues to soften a bit it might be enough to get by on a small second pass for more density but this is where I would start personally.

The wiry, kinky hairs are normal for a while and to an extent. However, yours does look especially wiry. This can happen if the bulb of the graft has been damaged during extraction, or the incision sites are too deep, the grafts haven't been handled well in general etc. In short, this can happen when the work hasn't been carried out very well. Looking at the density issues and the angulation issues, I think it's fair to say that this simply wasn't a very well executed HT. The fact they took you on as a 19 year old is, to be frank, disgraceful. It would be useful to have more photos: pre-op, so we can see your starting point, immediate post op (so we can see the work), and a better range of angles and profiles of your current situation so we can better see the results and advise on how you might go about correcting things. In terms of getting it fixed (as far as one blurry photo goes)... Right now there's nothing you can do other than seek consultations with more reputable clinics. The issue you'll have is that if your HT has indeed been a botch job, then filling in the density and hoping to simply cover the existing HT might not work very well (and you'll be ploughing through more precious donor hair at a very, very young age). The other option is to look to have a load of grafts punched back out again to try and create more of a blank canvass. The problem here is that this usually requires two or three surgeries to resolve, and there's only a handful of surgeons who are expert at this - none of them come cheaply and that "crazy price" of £7-9K will likely be the very minimum. With love and respect, this kind of blasé attitude got you into a muddle to begin with, and throwing yet more grafts into an area with a load of bad grafts could backfire quite spectacularly. Firstly, you've already burnt 2,600 grafts away - that's a significant number of grafts by any measure, but especially at 19, and you've used those grafts in an attempt to reduce your forehead size rather to address any major hair loss it seems (from what you've said). Assuming you have the same issue on both temples as shown in your picture, you could easily be faced with throwing another 2,000 grafts at that whole area, leaving you almost 5,000 grafts out of pocket at 19/20 years old and without having actually addressed any hair loss. In 10 years time that could be a major issue. Secondly, if those grafts you've had placed already are beyond the pale and unlikely to improve due to poor work, then putting a load of good grafts in amongst them will still cause you issues in terms of managing the hair. The bad hairs might be blended in a bit more, but without some de-bulking of the bad grafts then you're probably going to have the same or similar issues to what you're facing now.

He updated literally last week!

That's a hell of a lot of grafts for the frontal third, let alone for a 25 year patient. What estimate/calculation did Dr Pittella provide with regards to your donor area from this point onwards? How many more grafts to do you available between scalp and beard hair?

Multiple issues. First of all, part of growing up is dealing with the challenges and curveballs life will throw at you. For you (and me), one of those things is hair loss. Your first port of call should never be to reach for the big red surgical button, but to try and deal with it in a way that doesn't involve surgery, medication or anything that requires any risk of any kind. So what you should be doing is buzzing it off and trying to move on with your life as step number one (if for no other reason than your hair has degraded to the point that a buzz would just look better anyway). Young guys pass through the forum saying stuff like this all the time: Your happiness should not reside in how much hair you have. Losing your hair is, ultimately, not a big deal (unless you make it one). The reason you should bear this in mind is that surgery is not a guaranteed cure. Even in the best hands, things can and do go wrong. If you've made your hair loss a big deal now, consider how you'll feel with a bad outcome from surgery... Point being, you should at least attempt to challenge how you feel and think about your hair loss. No one should get a HT feeling as though they need one, but rather they've decided they want one having done all the necessary first steps. As above, losing more hair isn't "the worst case". The worst case would be a bad result, or putting yourself in potential financial hardship to fund a HT (good surgeons aren't cheap, and cheap surgeons are often cheap for a reason...) at such a young age (I'm working on the assumption that you're not minted at 22 of course!). It's good that you're trying finasteride but it's no guarantee, especially at your age. There's also no guarantees you'll be able to take it forever - things can change. You could suddenly get sides for instance. I'm willing to bet that not single single top surgeon is among the ones who have quoted you for a graft count, because 99.9% of the time top surgeons would refuse a 22 year old patient. That means you're fishing in the hair mill market (as you concede yourself), and will be putting yourself in a vulnerable position. My honest best advice to do just what I did: buzz it off, move on and enjoy your life and then review it again in the future from a place of want not need. I had similar hair loss levels at 22 and had my first HT at 32. I didn't take finasteride but probably would have benefitted from doing so at your age, but also not having to bother taking medication every day is no bad thing either. But to be getting quotes from clinics before ever truly rocking the buzz cut over a long period of time and working on your mindset and thinking over your hair loss is absolute madness at any age, let alone at 22.

I'm not sure I understand the criteria "blown away by". None of them are Dr Pittella, if that's what you're getting at. But they all produce very natural looking results, with nice refinement of hairlines and good graft survival. The OP's hairline design looks absolutely spot on, and will likely have a stellar result that will still look good and appropriate in later life for just 2380 grafts used.

To be fair, the UK probably now has just as many very good options as any other country in the world. You've got Dr Ball, Dr Mani, Dr Reddy, Dr Miln & Dr Farjo. That's five pretty solid options, and two or three of those are doing work as good as anyone's anywhere really (with a few very notable exceptions). I'm struggling to think of any countries other than the US and Belgium that have that many genuinely decent options.

Embrace the grey. Look, it works for George Clooney. In all seriousness grey hair is nothing to worry about and in my opinion looks pretty cool. Check out @Zoomster & @Stewie’s epic results. If anything, the salt n pepper enhances the naturalness of the results. At the end of the day you’ve got your hairline back and you’ve got a pretty full looking head of hair. If it goes grey it goes grey. Who cares? It’s not a big deal and not worth worrying about.

Loving the irregularities in the hairline - will really help to make it look soft a natural. Coverage looks great. 👍🏻

It’s perfectly doable, but it leaves little room for the unexpected. For example, it’s not uncommon for patients to ooze quite a lot during surgery, which can slow things down. My first surgery was only 2762 grafts but took two days as I oozed a lot on day one. If I’d had needed 6,000 grafts, it’s possible that it could have ran into a third day. You might be better off giving yourself more leeway by looking at different dates or by going to Delhi instead. Of course, you could well be totally fine with two days but these things are worth considering in advance regardless.

Going to be one of the most interesting cases to have passed through the forum in the last few years imo Tommy. I’m excited for you!

You should name the clinic. In any case, work looks a lot like Eugenix. Everything looks great. Hairlines are not supposed to be perfectly symmetrical and temple points are essentially an extension of the hairline. The design looks nice and if everything grows in well, it looks like you'll have a really nice result.

You also wanted the hairline of a black dude when you yourself are not black... So, maybe!

Everything looks normal. You need to do two things; 1. Just relax and wait. There's nothing you can do now and things will play out as they will whether you worry about it constantly or not. 2. Stick to one journey thread that people can follow rather than make new threads every time a questions pops up. It's easier for people to follow your journey that way.

A hell of a lot of grafts and a tiny amount of brain cells. No sane person wants a 15 year old's hairline!

I think what I would be doing if I were you is getting some consultations from 4 or 5 top surgeons and get a written assessment of the work as they see it to you via email. Having an assessment from multiple experts in writing would be a useful tool, even if it's only to help enforce a refund. If you decided to take matters further (such as them refusing a refund), then you'll want expert testimony in your favour going forward. Deducing how many grafts are needed for an area is a straightforward combination of maths and "best practice". Hairline work will most typically start to look naturally dense at around 45 grafts per cm2, so if you were trying to make a legal argument, your position would be: total area to be covered in cm2 x [approx] 45 grafts = total amount of hair needed for the intended area. Your HT was doomed to fail from the start at only 600 grafts in total, not to mention the butchery of the work itself in terms of being nothing close to "best practice" (angles, directions, graft selection, and so on). Be wary that if you manage to secure a refund, you might struggle to escalate further for compensation as legally you might be considered to have beeb "made good" by the clinic and the matter settled. I'm not a legal expert, so just thinking out loud on that.

I would choose neither of them. Appreciate that's not what you want to hear, but you put yourself at serious risk of a poor result by choosing clinics like this. And as a NW7 it's non-negotiable that you avoid these clinics. NW7 hairloss requires a surgeon who is an expert at dealing with such cases. Unfortunately you don't really get to penny-pinch as a NW7. Can you share some pictures of your donor and overall hair loss? Not all NW7's are the same after all.

I don’t know if you’re being deluded, but you’re certainly being difficult if you actually want some help. You need to post some pictures where we can actually see what’s going on. The two you’ve posted don’t really help at all. This second picture doesn’t immediately scream “aggressive” hairline by any means, but we lack context. Can you please post a proper range of photos: pre-op & pre/shave so we can see your hair grown out, and post op pics including a proper frontal picture so we can see the height of the hairline within the context of the rest of your facial features?

As a general rule, clinic pricing is largely determined by location. Countries like Thailand, Turkey, Cyrpus and India are essentially where you'll find the bulk of the lower cost clinics. The trick is to find the good ones from those countries. In western Europe, the US, Canada and Brazil you're going to be paying quite similar sorts of prices.

Proper research requires time and at the end of the day, the worst thing that can happen with the situation you've outlined is you end up getting some very high level consultations from surgeons you maybe cannot afford to employ. Ending up getting consultations with top surgeons is always a good thing even if you eventually end up going somewhere else for the surgery. One interpretation is to view that as a waste of time... I don't think that's the smart interpretation though. I do agree that transparency in pricing is overall a good thing however, and if there are straightforward ways to mitigate some of the issues I outlined in the previous post then I don't see the harm. But like I said previously, it's not as straightforward as you'd imagine.

There's several issues with putting a doctor's pricing in the recommended section: 1. Prices change often so it would be difficult to always keep on top of that. 2. Whilst most doctors have a standard price, certain work such as repairs or complicated cases may require a custom price and to list standard prices may be misleading and cause more problems than it solves for both the clinic and prospective patient. 3. Realistically, clinics don't want to be shoehorned in the "budget" category as it has - or can have - (albeit unfairly) implications on people's perception of the quality of their work. 4. The clinics who have been accepted for recommendation pay a subscription, so you can imagine from a business perspective that some clinics will be less open to putting their prices directly alongside other clinics in the same space. With all of that said, there was a handy infographic/chart floating around with a decent approximation of various clinic's pricing.

D'ya know what? Like @Tommy1991says, I'd be straight in to see this guy and give him both barrels over this (stopping just shy of swinging for him!) and I wouldn't leave until I had the money refunded into my bank account on the spot or security/the police had to drag me out kicking and screaming. If he stands by the work, insist he posts the results on his own social media channels and website. +1 for Dr Ball as well by the way. Waiting times will be shorter and no need to navigate flights post-op.

That’s legit some of the worst work I’ve seen in a long time. Pure cowboy stuff. The good news is that it’s an easy fix. There’s enough space between each implanted graft to punch them all out in one session I imagine without causes any scarring or trauma (if it were more densely packed it would take two or three sessions). Feriduni, Bisanga or Hattingen would nail this.

That’s around £5 or €6 per graft assuming you do in fact only need around 1,500 grafts which opens you up to most of the best surgeons around. Everybody will have their own favourites from the top guys for hairline work. Dr Munib in Holland is unquestionably excellent but his pricing is dubiously vague and often ridiculously & prohibitively expensive (imo). I also really like Dr Feriduni’s hairlines. Seborrheic dermatitis is usually not something that will prevent you from getting a HT. It’s probably advisable to try and keep it in check with special shampoos and the occasional use of steroidal treatment like Betacap solution during flare ups but I’m sure you’re doing that already.