Speoj

Very nice work, those temporal peaks especially!

Month 12 🥳🥳🥳 I was on holiday in Egypt for the 1 year anniversary of my hair transplant so I thought it only fitting to do a beach side photo update. Basically all of my updates on this thread have been taken inside, showing my progress under test like conditions, different angles, wet, dry etc. To mix it up for my 12 month update I wanted to use photos from real life, to show it in different lighting conditions, which I like to think of as my hair transplant in the wild. You've seen enough close ups of it by now lol. Throughout the trip everytime I'd get out the water I'd pull my hair back. Water and wind used to be my worst nightmare before the HT, terrified that you could see the recession. That and hat hair. Basically anything that would make me aware that my hair was out of place. I'm happy to report it's no longer a concern. Finally, the ultimate question. Am I glad I got a hair transplant? A resounding abso-f*****g-lutely. Would I change anything if I did it all over again? Not really. Going partially shaven was the right way to go, the pros out weighed the cons in my case. I could have pushed for a lower hairline, sure, but Mani probably would have been against it. And all my talk of wanting it to look natural, in line with my age and reflect the fact I have always had a mature hairline, I still feel like the hairline design we came up with was the right choice, and that going with Dr Manish Mittal was the right choice for me. Am I going to have more work done? Not right now. If down the line I lose some midsection or crown, I might consider it, and would be speaking to Mani first about it, but that feels a long way off. Am I glad I stayed in the UK? I am actually yeah, it made leaving the clinic to get home so much easier, literally a cab ride. And meant I could ride out the recovery right away without dragging myself on a flight whilst still feeling it from the surgery. I had the choice to go abroad, I could have saved money by going to Turkey or whereever but I didn't feel like it was worth the risk. I was speaking to reps for Bisanga in Belgium and Maras in Cyprus, both fantastic surgeons, in the months leading up to deciding to get work done. But the examples of Mani's work that I saw, I liked. I liked the designs, I like that he had examples similar to my case, hairline only work, that made good use of minimal grafts, whilst towing the line between giving a vast improvement but still a conservative apporach to hairline design. The fact that he just happened to be in London was a bonus, and when I weighed up all the pros and cons, it tipped in Mani's favour. And I don't think it could have gone better. But that's just my opinion. Thanks everyone for the support over this last year, it meant a lot getting messages of encourgement from you guys along the way. I still plan on updating this thread beyond the 12 month mark, as and when. As a bonus round here is some 'in the wild' before and after the HT pictures. Starting with the befores. I used to delete photos that drove my anxiety about my hair through the roof, and would wear baseball caps a lot of the time but here's some that I thought I looked alright enough at the time in to not to delete, and show how my hair before the HT in different lighting situations. And here are some 'in the wild' one year after the HT photos. These photos were taken of me on holiday last week, so I had little control in terms of angle, lighting etc. It shows how my hair looks everyday now. Even a crop of an underwater diving pic where I was so busy thinking about not dying that I wasn't even thinking about how I was being perceived or how my hair looked. Plus a boat side windswept selfie for good measure.

Month 11 Dry, slicked back and close up. This was when I noticed the midsection start to thicken up that Mani clocked at the 8 month review. I started applying Minixodil in the morning not just evening, I'd done evening only for years, and adding in mornings seemed to help. I went to a Christmas party where you had to dress up like a character from a Christmas movie. I went as Bruce Willis' John McClane from Die Hard and slicked my hair back. It felt wild to go to a party with it all slicked back, something I wouldn't in a million years do before the HT. But I'm proud of myself for doing it, and had lots of comments on the night that it looked good and that I should slick it back more often. I literally had my hairline on full display in public, which pre-HT would have been the stuff of actual nightmares. It's not something I've ever done but with enough wet look hair gel and hairspray my curly locks stayed in place. Glad I did it. Felt like another milestone on this journey. And it's just nice to have more options in terms of styling my hair.

Month 10 Wet and slicked back

Hey all! Sorry it's been a while. I've been meaning to update for a while but with work/general life etc haven't as much as I would have liked, so there's a lot to catch up on. I can't work out a neat way to post the back log of updates into one reply so I'll seperate them out for ease Here's month 9 This was after I went for my first hair cut in 12 years. When my hairline started to recceed at 16 I started to dread going to the barbors/hair dressers. I'd always leave feeling like my hair was worse than it was before gettting it cut. I tried a bunch of different places, even trying £40 hair cuts at Toni & Guy but still would leave with my hood up. They learn to cut hair on doll heads, and would cut my hair like it was A) not recceding and B) like it straight. So I stopped going. I bought a pair of clippers when I was 18 and taught myself how to do short back and sides, keeping it longer on top to cover my hairline. Roll forwards to this year, with the HT fully grown out I felt it time to go for a proper haircut. My gf reccomended a place called Laundry in Finsbury Park, not cheap, but I didn't want cheap, why skimp on a haircut after paying thousands for a HT. When I was in the chair I told the hairdresser how long it had been, that I'd been cutting it myself this whole time and she was suprised lol. I was in two minds whether to tell her I had had a Hair Transplant 9 months prior. I wanted to see if she'd notice; someone who looks at hair up close every day etc etc. So I didn't mention it, just that it had been 12 years since I let someone else cut it. To my surprise she had no idea, she did the consultation, washed and cut my hair. I spoke a bit about my scalp being dry, and she looked at my donor area closely but didn't clock the scarring, just reccomended that I continue using Nizoral twice a week, which I think I was already doing. And over the hour that I was there, I felt I built up enough repour that it would have come up if she did notice I'd had work done. She cut out all the sun damaged hair that I'd grown out to cover my hairline, and underneath my hair looked a lot darker, and way curlier. My hair is naturally curlier at the back of my head that it is at the front. So since the HT, I now have curly hair at the front, which I've just had to embrace and now quite like. So again, similar to the GF moment I wrote about a few posts ago, if someone who looks at hair every day up close thought it looks natural, then happy days. Sure she could have just been polite but I prefer to think she just didn't notice lol.

Here's my month 8 update. I had my in person check up with Mani last week for him to take a look at my progress (Still need to ask for the photos he took, will make another post when I get them). He was very pleased with how it's looking so far, he said it has already surpassed his expectations which was nice to hear. Said I still had some months of improvements to go, and that the new hairs still look like hairs that haven't matured yet, still looking a bit spindly, but over the coming months they'll mature and look like those behind the transplanted area. We chatted for over an hour, beyond the allotted appointment time, like mates at the pub, his passion for his craft always puts a smile on my face. It was really cathartic to chat about the initial consultation last summer, the reasons he took me on as a patient (hair quality, good donor, knowledge of the procedure from lurking these forums lol), reflecting on life before the op, the op itself and the recovery process. I've chatted to people about it, sure, but it's always been from a place of me talking about something they have no knowledge of. So having the space to chat it out was really great. Reflecting on it all, it has completely surpassed my own expectations as well. But it's something we talked about at the original consultation - having realistic expectations for what surgery like this can offer. And now the results are here I'm stoked. He did say that my midsection and crown have thinned out since the op though. And to be honest with work recently I had fallen a little out of sync with fin and min at times. Still very much taking both but missed days here and there. To combat it I am increasing minoxidil to include every morning as well as evenings - mornings were less an option before the op because it took so much longer to style my hair but its a lot more feasible now, so adjusted my routine accordingly. I am also going to be slowly upping my finasteride dose. I've been on 0.25mg daily for 2 and a half years now or something, and slowly going to be increasing the dosage. He also wanted to bring up how I'd been styling my hair. For the last 10 years at least, every day, whether going out in public or not, I would always put matt clay type styling products in my hair. It helped to add volume and thicken it up and I just preferred how it looked to the point where I'd just do it every day regardless of if I was heading out or not. Probably a confidence thing from MPB from and early age. He said it's probably not great for my hair in the long run to use heavy products daily. Since the check up I've stopped using it during the week when I'm going to work, the min in the morning adds texture anyway, and I'll just be saving it for the weekends now etc. So here's the update photos, all with dry hair. And the last one is just how I style it at the minute, ditching the hair product and letting it dry naturally.

Thanks mate, for sure, even if growth plateaued tomorrow I'd still be stoked with the result. Though I've been saying that since month 5 lol. Still some time to go before final results

Thanks Melvin! It's coming along. Exciting few months still to come. That'd be great thanks mate, I've done so

Thanks mate! Birds eye views are tricky because I've got no one to take it for me, but here it is. I dug through the archive of pre op pics and found a before picture from that same angle. Then I thought whilst I'm at it I also have a pre op wet and slicked back photo. So here's a before and after, birds eye view followed by wet and slicked back. The before pictures were taken in May 2021 when I would have been 27, and the after are my current progress, month 7.

Hey guys, here's my month 7 update. I realised that the last post was in June which was actually month 5 not 6, sorry for the confusion, I have tried to edit the last post to reflect this but I'm not able to. @Melvin- Moderator is that something you are able to help with? And looking through the photos on my phone it doesn't look like I remembered to take any progress pictures in month 6, which is a shame and sorry to skip that month but it was a crazy month work/lifewise. Anyway, month 7. I'm at a point now where I have forgotten what it was like to not be confident about my hair. My worst hair days now are better than my best pre op hair days . I've forgotten about how long it used to style my hair in the morning. I work in film, my job means I'm often up and out at sunrise, I don't really have to do much to my hair for it to look the way I want to, whereas before I'd either wear hats or spend ages making it look half decent. I overheard a guy at work talking about him going to get PRP, I didn't join in on the conversation there and then, but spoke to him after one on one after work. I told him about my hair loss journey, talked about fin and min, talked about my HT experience, showed him my hairline and talked through where it used to be etc. He said he didn't think for a minute that I'd had work done, that even after me telling him he said he couldn't tell, and said at work he just thought I naturally just had good hair. Hate to disappoint but nope I said 😂 But that's to an innocent civilian's eyes, I feel like us HT community lot have a keener eye for what to look for. Because of my pre op insecurities with my hair I haven't stepped foot in a barbers/hair dressers in a decade after some bad experiences with them giving me terrible cuts that accentuated my receding hairline. I just bought some clippers and taught myself and it's been short back and sides since. Now I'm growing my hair out a bit my GF has gently said it's probably time to let a pro do it as some point but we'll see lol. The hairline has continued to thicken up and has gotten as long as the native hair around it, over the next few months I'm hoping it'll continue to blend in. When I look closely I can see a difference been the thick slightly curlier transplanted hair and the slightly lighter coloured thinner hair behind it but it's not a noticeable difference. Still on fin and min to keep the native in the midsection and crown going strong. Still a way off from final results but hoping for more blending to happen and for it to continue to thicken up. Here's this months photos. Wet and slicked back, combed back whilst dry and a mullet I mean donor update.

Here's my 6 month update! Sorry it's been a while, work has been crazy and to be honest I haven't really been thinking about the HT as much the last few weeks / months. Which I suppose is a positive. I couldn't be happier with my progress at this point. I'd be quite content if this is the extent of the growth but there is a full 6 months+ to go before final results which is proper exciting. The first few images here are me with wet hair and slicked back, then dry hair held back and then finally how I usually have my hair at the minute and the donor area (the return of the mullet lol) I turned 30 last week. When I was originally planning the HT I wanted to do it early in the year because it fit in with a gap at work but also so that I gave enough time for regrowth before my birthday. And I've been glad to see some early progress. In the days after my birthday on separate occasions two girls at work thought I was turning 25. So that's a bit of a result lol. My confidence in how I look and feel hasn't been this good in years, maybe ever. I'm still with the person I mentioned in the previous post, after we gained some trust I did end up telling her all about the HT, and even showed her this post, she found it all interesting and was supportive. I haven't told any of my friends yet but I'm telling myself that if I'm asked directly about my hairline improving then I would talk about it, until then I don't feel the need. On my birthday weekend I went swimming in a river with a bunch of mates and for the first time I wasn't embarrassed about getting my hair wet, instead after I plunged my head under the water I then slicked my hair back. No one batted an eyelid but it felt like a significant moment in my HT journey and worth documenting.

Thanks mate! Thats proper encouraging Thanks Gatsby! Ha yeah I found it too funny to not mention it, goes to show that outside of the HT community no one really has a clue lol

Thats cool that you've already booked with Mani. Bet you're looking forward to it! I've already written a fair bit about reasons for going partial shave, the pros and cons and Mani's perspective etc on this post and have a previous post dedicated to it on my profile, have a read if it's still of interest.

Here's my 3.5 month update. My donor has fully grown out now to it's pre-translant state and is as thick as ever. The ugly duckling stage is finally over! Here's progress so far with wet hair and slicked back (other than the first two which are pics of how the donor is currently) The redness has gone and each week the regrowth is improving. Confidence has bounced right back. I've never tried to rock a slick back before but I've started to around the house, it'll be a little while before I feel like I can go out and about with it but after the transplant I'm a lot less bothered about have to keep pushing my hair forwards to cover my hairline. I still do though, the transplanted area is still growing through and doesn't blend with my native yet because it's early days. But it's been nice to get through the shed and already I've started to feel good about it. No one who I haven't told has guessed yet that I've had work done. Case in point; I was in bed with a new person I've been seeing and she slicked my hair back with her hand and said "aw you've got a second mini fringe, that's cute" and I smiled and just said "yeah that's just the way it grows" and shrugged it off. That "mini fringe" is the native hair at the front that was shaved back during the op which is still growing out and not as long as the native hair behind it that wasn't shaved back 😂 She was none the wiser. And I will tell her, at some point, but when I want to and not from her noticing that it looks off. So if someone couldn't tell in as close proximity as you can get whilst looking directly at my hairline that I had work done, then well that's good enough for me. @londonboy9030 Thanks mate! Hang in there dude it takes time. Regime: 5% Kirkland liquid Minoxidil, every evening and the occasional morning when I remember. 0.25mg generic Finasteride daily. Nizoral twice a week. Daily Biotin, Vitamin D and a Multi-Vitamin. (sorry some of these photos are showing up sideways, can't work out how to correct it, might need admin assist @Melvin- Moderator)

Here's my 3 month update, those emptier patches have started to fill in now and the redness is fading