JDEE0

Yeah, obviously it is young... I never said it wasn't. I said stay medicated, wait to see that your hair loss hasn't progressed for another 5 years or so on top of the time he said he hasn't lost anything in (which is four years and would bring him to a place where he has documented, factual knowledge that his hair loss hasn't progressed to any noticeable degree for a total of eight or nine years). And told me what? I didn't make any factual claim about this '10-20 years'; I merely said that it's more likely to be a case of him not progressing to a point where another procedure will be needed for perhaps 10, 15 or 20 years at this point (if he does as I suggested). The many studies on finasteride, including those which show improvements in the majority of participants in direct comparison to their baseline at the ten year mark, told me this, considering my whole point was predicated on him sticking to fin in the long term...

Hahah, my bad, I think you used to have that same avatar not too long ago maybe, or I'm just losing it. Probably the latter haha

Looks completely normal to me; you look to have some grafts that didn't shed and have grown and also some just starting to sprout hairs which is as expected for nearly 3 months

I agree with John, best to be cautious for a bit. Your hair situation is similar enough to mine, but I'm five years older and waited purposely until I was approaching 30, had been on meds for a number of years and hadn't really noticed any discernible progression for a handful of years before just now biting the bullet. The main thing would just be to stay on fin for a good few years to make sure you're happy to commit to it in the long run and then if nothing changes, which I would be very confident it won't, start planning for a HT once you're on the other side of 25. You'll know at that point that as long as you stick to what you've been doing, you're very likely to be set for quite some time and overwhelmingly likely won't need to chase your hair loss with transplants (it's inevitable you will need more over the course of your life of course, but it's more likely to be a case of one 10, 15, 20 years down the line rather than every few years until you run out). Keep on with the meds, hold on another 3 to 4 years, and then go ahead with confidence would be my advice in a nutshell.

Cheers John/Gatsby. It's no biggie either way, I don't notice unless I touch it, just a weird sensation.

Thanks - seems to be the consensus from a bit of digging I've done!

Cheers for the reply! Yeah, I know it's normal, was just wondering what different timelines people experienced in relation to this

One for those who have had a HT: How long did it take for the numbness to go away after your HT? I'm 4 days out and, whilst it's not something I notice at all unless I actively touch my head and thus not really a problem, I can't really feel much when I tap/touch the top of my head and it's a very strange feeling.

2000-ish grafts give or take should achieve something like this:

Update of the donor area on day 4: I'll probably just wait until the scabs come off/something more interesting happens to update again

Around about 2000 grafts will be fine as long as you only bring your hairline down by a little bit. Maybe 1-1.5cm down at the forelock and then rounding off into the corners (i.e. not having it flat across. I just had 2000, well 2025, grafts myself. You could do a bit more if you wanted it a bit straighter across/lower, but I don't think there would be any need to.

Well, if you can't budge on price at all, then I would recommend someone like Bicer who will generally fit your current limits. However, I really would recommend doctors like Ximena Vila, Bruno Pinto and Bruno Ferreira (2.5, 2.6 and 3 EUR per graft, respectively) instead as they are a league above to be honest. They're some of the best surgeons around, period, even in comparison to the greats like Bisanga. Eugenix could also be a good choice for you.

No probs. To be honest, reddit/Tressless is extremely poor for hair loss and especially hair transplant related advice most of the time, they don't know about good clinics and Turkey is often touted as the solution to your problems there. As John says, all of the clinics you've named are in also definitely fact hair mills apart from Drs Turan and Gur, and even then Fuecapilar is the lowest choice you should ever pick whilst still maintaining quality. Aim a bit higher in my opinion. HOI are the textbook hair mill clinic. You need to take your time and find out more before even thinking about locking anything in. What's your budget per graft?

Yeah, you can definitely have a HT if you want to. As far as will it be worth it, well that depends on your goals, you're not going to be able to restore your hair '100%' like it was when you were 18 as promised by these Turkish clinics, but you can have a good result if you go to the right doctor. And that's the key point; the right doctor. Which clinics have you consulted? At this point, I'm going to assume you have a lot to learn and need to take a good 6 months to a year to learn about HT's and what makes a good hair transplant, which clinics are good, which clinics are bad, and why. If you stay on the fin in the long run to protect from further loss, then I think 2 surgeries a year or so apart at a total of 5-6000 grafts will give you a really good head of hair for a long time. Maybe 3500 in the frontal third/half for round one, and 2-2500 in the crown for round two. Like I say, you're not going to have the head of hair of an 18 year old and your hairline height will need to be somewhat, but not extremely, conservatively placed.

To be honest my friend, there is very little that can be done in your case, unfortunately. It's obviously not what you want to hear after reading about HT's and getting your hopes up in your mind that you can have your hair back, but it's the truth. As others have pointed out, you're heading/pretty much already at a NW7 with a poor donor supply that looks like it could provide a few thousand grafts maximum (and you easily need over 10,000 realistically imo), and even then, I wouldn't be surprised at all if these thinned out in the very near future. The key thing, however, is that you're 26, and I don't mean that you're young and it's going to get worse (although this is very important and very true). My point is that, yeah ok you could have 'something' done as medispa have suggested, but whatever the result will be isn't going to be complimentary to the aesthetic look of a 26 year old, or even a 36 year old for that matter. On the contrary, it's going to make you look way older and draw way more attention to the fact that you're severely balding than just shaving ever would. I think that's the option for you, shaving, or a hair system if that's something you would consider.

Thanks a lot man

No problem, and yeah he is. He's highly regarded on the Spanish forums, but until recently has been relatively unknown over here. It's a similar story to De Freitas etc - maybe even just a year or so ago, most people didn't really know too much about him over here. Hopefully we get some more reviews on here for Pinto!

I'm beginning to scab up now, hopefully mine go as quick as yours!

I went for my first wash this morning and got some more detailed post op instructions from the doctor; interestingly, he told me that the commonly touted rub the scabs off after 10 days if they're not gone advice is wrong, and that I must not follow this (I asked do I rub them off at this point). Instead, he asks you to pretty much constantly send him pictures directly in the first few weeks and he monitors your progress and decides when you should begin working them off based on what he sees. Everyone is different was basically his point I guess, and every person needs tailored instructions. He also just rounded the number of grafts he implanted down to 2000 and refunded me for the full 400 which he did not have to do at all and was very nice of him. From what I've read on the Spanish forums, he seems to always do this. If you end up needing a few hundred more than anticipated, the cost is likely to be waived, and if you need a bit less, don't be surprised if you get refunded a little more than you actually paid for. He actually did say he usually does this as a sort of gift to his patients (in a joking but evidently still factual way). Here is my post surgery report with the number of grafts and detail of hair counts etc:

They are good friends with each other; Pinto was telling me how they used to work together for years and that they even used to (or perhaps still do sometimes, not sure) share nurses with one another when needed! I think you probably get a very similar experience with both doctors, and they're both great. Thanks a lot, same goes for you, I've briefly seen your thread I think, but I'll check it out properly.

Sure, no problem. He's about as involved as is humanly possible as he is one of the few doctors that performs both extractions and implantation. As a note though, this is not the norm in the industry and doesn't take away from the clinics who delegate to techs/assistants, as there are many great ones out there where the doctor isn't anywhere near as involved... We actually had a quick chat about the topic somewhere during the day where Pinto said this himself, which I already agreed with, but he made the point that it doesn't necessarily make him or any other doc who is as involved as him automatically better and was telling me how he is a bit OCD and stuff, so he uses surgery as a therapy of sorts for himself as all of the meticulous detail and constant processing/adjusting mid surgery helps to keep him balanced and whatnot. He seemed to really enjoy being as hands on as he is for this reason and said he hates taking more than a few weeks holiday as he starts to miss the discipline. Anyway, back to the question, from when I arrived at 8.30AM to when I left at nearly 8PM, I was probably out of the docs hands for a total of 1 hour and that whilst whilst I was eating breakfast and lunch. He's the only pair of hands that touched me all day and no one else is involved in your surgery; he extracts, the nurses clean and sort the grafts under some very fancy microscopes at the same time, you go have lunch, come back and he then implants for the rest of the day. He doesn't use pre made slits, he uses an implanter pen (Lion for what its worth) and so the grafts are just loaded in as he goes along. He implants whilst the nurses sit beside him and load grafts into the pens simultaneously. He clicks one into your recipient, puts the pen down, the nurse then fills it back up whilst he is at the same time using a different implanter for the next graft and so on. But to answer your question in some way regardless, yes he does all of the implantation. He only ever does 1 patient per day, no exceptions. You're the only one there and you have his full attention for 12 hours, he doesn't go off anywhere at any point, like I say, you're only apart during lunch really. He told me that he gave himself a rule a long time ago when he opened his clinic that he only will do 100 patients or so per year, which he sticks to and has no plans of changing. So, he only does a few surgeries a week on average. I paid 2.6 EUR per graft, prices are currently the same as this still now as far as I know. Thanks for the kind words, appreciated!

Donor area right now, around about 6 hours since extractions were finished:

Cheers! I wasn't too pleased when we had to shave half of my existing hairlines hair though haha, my recession is now looking like double what it was this morning! Maybe I'll end up shaving it all off in a few weeks, I'll see

Thanks Melvin. Added some photos, all I have for now, my forehead is swollen and adds about a cm onto the height from my eyebrows to hairline probably, but I think it's a fair, conservative enough design for my loss. Also just for anyone interested who may be reading, total area was 38 cm/2.

Cheers John - haha, hopefully I won't need to use them any time soon