Trichotrophy

12 months A lot can change in a year. A lot does for better or worse in our personal lives, however gradually or dramatically; apropos to our hair-restoration journeys, everything that can change does so in that period of time, usually dramatically and almost always for the better. Whether we're starting hair-loss medications or recovering from a hair transplant, it's how long we're told to wait for our full outcome. I'm in a happier overall place now since that medical trip—both as a careerist and person—but the most pronounced change is on my pate. A year later, I look and feel like a new person. People now mistake me for a college kid, whereas a year ago my then-bald crown was hint enough I was a bit long in the tooth for those days. I get more likes and matches on dating apps. I now have an assortment of hair-styling products, most of which are stored in a drawer that—just as recent as last year—I stowed my hair fibers and electric razor (a holdover of the DIY-haircut days of 2020) in. That doesn't describe the psychomoral arc Hollywood wants from screenwriters, now does it? If anything, I feel smugger now, and that's not a flattering trait for heroes to have. But this is real life; and unlike Superman, we can preen and style our hair however we want to. But enough about the year-long self-reflection for now. You want to see how my hair looks after my last progress report three months ago. It doesn't look appreciably thicker; if anything, the volume might appear thinner because of my recent haircut and one of my seasonal sheds. But I promised one last update at the year-long mark, and my words alone wouldn't sate everyone's curiosity. To claim I'm satisfied with the results would make the understatement of the year for this board, but most of my celebration was done six months ago. The halfway point when I made my timeline grids, when my regrowth started plateauing. Not that I didn't have further regrowth, but none of it warranted further changes to that timeline. Further improvements looked more like touch-ups, not the makeover that evolved month-by-month during that first semester. No complaints on my part, however, as I've said on repeat; I just wanted to reiterate that if you were disappointed about this standstill. And what sane person could complain about this? Especially if you were in my shoes three years ago; that's when my overarching hair-restoration journey started. That was my pre-finasteride and -minoxidil baseline. In the first picture, I'm bordered on shaving territory; the second was my hideous attempt at growing that hair out, which wasn't even half the length I rock now. Fast forward three years later. If you were to tell me three years ago that I'd be in that photo, I'd assume it's either a forgotten high-school picture, a long-lost relative (most of whom on my mother's side are blessedly shaggy), or a masterful Photoshop job of myself. Maybe you could have even convinced me that I'd wear a hair system, though I probably never would've actually deigned to using one. Not every explanation would wash when I'm sober, but they all would've felt more believable than the current truth: that it's authentically me, and all that hair is natural. Three years ago, I debated whether to shave or continue making do with a military-short buzzcut. Two years ago, I recovered enough on my regimen to strictly debate how short to buzz my hair and when to use hair fibers. Now? I have a welter of different hair-styling options. A quiff or pompadour for special occasions, perhaps. I'll settle for an asymmetrical fringe hairdo when I'm feeling lazy, thank you very much. Maybe a slickback when it becomes long enough. A manbun isn't out of the question, either, if my new workplace allows it; an ivy-league cut will suffice if not. I should experiment with the French crop, too. I have all these options and more in real life now. In 2020, I only had them when customizing video-game characters. Back then, I truly underestimated the difference that hair-restoration options and styling can make, and that's why I took as long as I did simply to hop on finasteride. I knew I couldn't recover all my lost hair, and I once resigned myself to balding while underappreciating the illusion of unthinned hair I could achieve. I hope no one else stays in a similar limbo before. Not going to pretend everyone can get a second chance at full hair; some might've waited too late (as I almost did), less fortunate people might have extremely aggressive MPB genes, and there are other, rare but existent hair-loss anomalies that are simply incurable (i.e., alopecia universalis). Most of us can make the difference between movie-star hair and full-on balding depending on what treatments we seek, and it's better done sooner than later. I don't know what future treatments I might take. Maybe I'll get greedy and round it out a bit whenever hair-cloning is available to the general public. Part of me also wants to contemplate a beard transplant if I have enough donor grafts. All I know is I've restored enough hair on my dome, and that concludes this journey.

Yes, it did; see my signature if you want pictures. My hairline still looks a bit comparatively gappy here and there, but only when scrutinized and harshly lit; under moderate lighting, you can hardly tell it apart from my native hair. Realistically speaking, I'd expect a similar outcome for that area of your hairline, but only time will tell.

It's common to have such interstices around the transplanted regions; such was one of my postop concerns. They typically won't be 100% up to parity density-wise with the native hairs, which is why they might look gappy here and there. Most of the better surgeons will stint how many follicles they implant in any given area because it helps maximize the graft-survival rate. The more grafts that are transplanted in one area, the more they'll compete the blood supply; and the more they exhaust the local blood vessels, the likelier the graft failures. The hope is that once all the transplanted hairs grow in, those gaps won't be noticeable. Worst-case scenario, you might want another FUE for a dense-packing touch-up, but you should obviously wait at least a few more month for your results to unfold before even you even start to contemplate it. For the here and now, I'd just expect and accept some of these missing spots. More often than not, your hair will look naturally full when it's all said and done, especially depending on how you style it.

This looks intriguing, and it could revolutionize the hair-restoration industry. I'm skeptical about the scope of the hair it can recover, however: does it only revive non-harvested hairs physically lost due to FUT/FUE scarring, or can it generate new/replacement donor grafts? It's a crucial distinction for me. I don't know if that's been tested exhaustively yet (or the epistemological limitations of testing it), but I'm interested in even just a theoretical answer for now. Sorry if this is an already-answered FAQ; I've only skimmed through the OP and first page. I'll comb through the rest of the thread when I have more sitdown time, but I'd appreciate if anyone can clarify that in the meantime.

I'm glad you're getting promising results this time around. Even under harsh lighting, your transplanted hairline is markedly denser than it was after your previous FUE. I wouldn't call the original operation a failure insofar as graft-survival rate goes, but it certainly sounds like he initially miscalculated how many grafts you needed—possibly because you had disproportionately more single-follicle grafts than the average patient. With more multi-follicle grafts, the first FUE might have sufficed.

9 months We all hit our regrowth spurts at different times. Mine happened after 3-5 months, and I reported all my drastic monthly improvements during that timeframe. Not that I haven't improved further since (I have), and I wouldn't be discontent either way because it was already satisfactory enough. But I want to temper your expectations. My breakthrough period ended months ago; any additional developments have been too gradual to warrant monthly reports to me, hence my radio silence since the half-year mark. As I've told some of my followers (both here and on Reddit) via DMs, my hair hasn't dramatically changed since that juncture (other than that I've refined my hairstyle, which is a big change in an illusory sense)—and I explicitly expected that since my last post here. Yet your curiosity lingers on, and I know my words alone can't satisfy it. You'll want updated photos, no matter how infinitesimal the progress. I promised them after three months as well, and here are my slightly overdue deliverables. I included two stylistically different overhead shots this time. The first one I did for consistency's sake: it's the straight fringe hairstyle I've sported in most of my other progress pictures. It's guessably not my favorite anymore, but it provides a much more comparable point of reference than my sideswept hair would in the second photo (which embellishes the density). Not much noticeable improvement outside of, perhaps, my crown, and I know I'm not completely done regrowing there: I still feel shorter hairs spouting whenever I run my fingers through it. Sidenote: how punchable does my mouth look now without facial hair? I'm sure I'll get used to the clean-shaven appearance over time, though. Slightly more improvement density-wise around my hairline. Again, I'd be mostly content even at a standstill since my last report—for the most part. The center of my hairline is still gappy around the left side, but it's decreasingly noticeable—and unnoticeable depending on how I style my hair. Speaking of which, the head-on photo shows my new low-maintenance hairstyle: an asymmetrical sideswept fringe undercut, inspired by Charlie Cox. Not that I expect to ever capture his suavity, but I can at least try replicating his hair. It helps me blend in my right-lateral hairline cowlick, flaunt my now-juvenile-looking hairline while masking the above-described gap, and show a healthy-looking flow of hair on my left side—the gestalt of which is a distinguished look. Most likely not my best hairstyle overall, but it's probably the best one at this length without using any hair products. For special occasions, however, I'd coif it diferently; I fancy a sideswept quiff or ivy-league cut, for example. That's been my actual journey for these past-several months: learning how to arrange my hair. I've already arrived at my original destination insofar as hair restoration goes; since then, a new door has opened for a hair-optimization journey. That one may never definitively end, nor should I want it to: my possible destinations are abound (as I intended for them to be), and they'll only broaden further the longer I grow my hair. I'll never find an unequivocally ideal hairstyle since that's wildly subjective; however, my hair should always at least look better than it did with my once-default buzzcuts, if only by consensus. I'll post my next (and likely final) obligatory progress report three months from now, and none of us should expect any major transformation by then—other than refining my hairstyle further, perhaps. The latter is not what this thread is mainly about, but maybe it'll inspire others depending on how aesthetic it looks. That's the actual goal, at the end of the day, as I've said from the get-go—not just fuller hair, but better-looking hair.

That I am! It's the head of hair I've dreamed of since I first became conscious about my hair loss. I probably wouldn't even need a toupee anymore if I were to star in a movie.

Thanks, and I agree. I didn't mean to say all; I just said most. Whether that means almost all of them or barely the majority is debatable, but I think the truth falls somewhere in that semantic field. I also didn't mean to generalize since the rate indeed varies; I was just saying in my case—plausibly based on my personal experiences—though I understand I could've worded that more carefully. As I said, I feel most transplanted hairs have already regrown at least once, though I know it may take more shedding cycles before they thicken and strengthen. I'll be open-minded about it either way moving forward, but I'm already satisfied as it is. Also, if anyone wants a more followable version of this thread, I've posted a summary in the Results section. I'll still post updates here first, but that other thread is more advisable if you're strictly looking to appraise my results.

Some of you have already been following my progress-report thread in the HTE&SR section. I'm not posting any new information, rich backstories, my feelings, or detailed narration about my journey here; I'm simply distilling out a more objective and concise overview of those contents here. If you have any questions, the HTE&SR thread is your best resource; I'll address any unanswered ones here if you have them. I'm including all that thread's fact sheets and pictures in addition to pictorial timelines of my results. This obviates the need for you to navigate through the above-linked topic for all the nitty-gritty details. Procedure fact sheet This outlines all the graft units in addition to their respective follicle counts. Session 1 (7/12) UF 1: 144 UF 2: 701 UF 3: 928 UF 4: 143 Total grafts: 1,916 Session 2 (7/13) UF 1: 172 UF 2: 691 UF 3: 907 UF 4: 216 Total grafts: 1,986 Combined UF 1: 316 UF 2: 1,392 UF 3: 1,835 UF 4: 359 Total grafts: 3,902 Net price: $6,938 ($320 deducted for hotel and cab expenses). Hair-restoration goals and coverage 1. Crown My crown was once a veritable bald spot, hence this required the most grafts. Roughly 1,500-1,600 (nearly half!) were allotted to this region alone, and most of the 3- and 4-follicle grafts were earmarked for this area. 2. Mid scalp Being a diffuse thinner, I had appreciable hair loss there as well. Not full-blown baldness, but enough hair loss that the region was often see-through. Nader transplanted approximately 800-900 grafts around here. 3. Hairline While this wasn't my most pronounced area of hair loss, my hairline has mildly receded—certainly not my juvenile forehead. It didn't help that I had a congenital widow's peak. Nader used 1,300 grafts to lower it to slightly below the widow's peak. Preoperative photos Perioperative photos Day 1 (7/12/2023) Day 2 (7/13/2023) Postoperative photos I've made two timeline collages, lest I plaster this thread with literally over 50 photos. The first provides all-angled coverage juxtaposing each monthly progress report, whereas the second provides closeup shots of my hairline (starting 3 months postop).

6 months They call this the halfway point. Indeed, it takes around 12 months to realize the full results, but it's not a linear outcome by any means; most of it has already come to fruition before then, typically around this time. It's for that reason I won't be posting monthly updates from this point onwards. It's safe to conclude most of my transplanted hairs have regrown by now; further improvement mainly boils down to stabilizing and thickening them up, which'll take multimonth regrowth cycles. There's much more minutiae left to paint, but most of the broad strokes are already on the canvas. Not that I can complain. As I've previously opined, I'm already satisfied with the outcome, and further improvement (albeit, decreasingly noticeable) has reinforced that. Additional progress is just gravy on an already-wholesome plate of meat and potatoes: I'll savor it, but I can sate my appetite without it. Further improvement, yes, but no dramatic differences—other than my haircut and new hairstyle. For comparability's sake, however, my hair—outside of the forelocks, which I don't want plastered to my forehead anymore—is unstyled as it was in all my previous pictures. My mid-scalp area is textured unlike last month thanks to my haircut, hence the density might look comparatively uneven. \ Maybe it's just the lighting (I had to change a light bulb in this room), but I think my right-mid-temple region looks fuller than it did last month. I was concerned it was irrecoverably depleted; maybe it is for potential subsequent FUEs, but I'm even more self-assured it doesn't have to be an aesthetic issue at the end of the day. It's too easy to underappreciate how much my crown has improved. It seems impossible it was once a veritable bald spot, and now it's as if I never started balding there. Not that I actually feel that way—I've been self-conscious about it for too long—but I no longer dread turning my back on others since there's no more baldness to expose—just a bare patchlet around the rear downslope, which is plausibly attributable to my cowlick. For perspective, this my best preop crown picture. If you told me it could look this thick two years later, I'd assume I'd have to swallow my pride and get a hair toupee. All but completely blended density between the native and transplanted hairs. It's just still a bit too sparse on my left side—especially around the middle—and I suppose it'll remain as such, though it's nothing complainable. If I had to do another FUE, I'd get a dense-packing touch-up for that area, but I'm certainly not booking another procedure for that alone. Plus, it's easily unnoticeable beyond face-on lighting, and it's concealable even so. Speaking of which, I'd like to share some experimental hairstyles, the first of which is a potential solution to that minor blemish. The slickback. It covers whatever paucity of skin is otherwise visible around the forelock since it uses the hair strands to cover it. I had to angle it because of the cowlicks, and I'll hopefully coiffure it better next time now that I'm more familiar with my cowlicks. It definitely has potential. The short, textured quiff is currently my favorite. The cowlicks are definitely challenging, but I've learned that sidesweeping them helps illude a more natural patten. Neither are perfect, but they're a start. Hopefully they're better than the fringe hairstyles and buzzcuts I've defaulted to for over a decade. I have more bad-hair days ahead of myself before I perfect my hairdo, but I'll gladly take those over no-hair days. Barring unexpected breakthroughs, I'll post my next recovery update at the nine-month mark. For the reasons prefaced in this post, it'll probably take that long for more marked improvement.

We never stopped outside of routine stop signs (or alto signs apropos of Mexico) and traffic lights. There shouldn't be any legal grounds for you to get pulled over. You'll have a professional cabman at the wheel whose goal is to drive you to the clinic as seamlessly at manageable. Your only drawn-out stop will be the drive back to the hotel, where you have to go through the Customs port in Hidalgo. Screening doesn't take long provided that you remembered your passport—the agents just ask about your business purpose for visiting Mexico and any on-hand articles—but it's a time-consuming traffic jam to navigate through. No sane vagrant will target cars in that overcongested traffic—much less single out yours—but it can be an unpleasant wait given Mexico's humidity.

I felt completely safe during my experience there. As I detailed in my day-of-operation posts, my exposure to Reynosa was minimal. I hotelled in McAllen and received door-to-door transportation from Dr. Nader to his clinic. The streets en route looked as shady as reputed, granted, but I didn't have to set afoot in Mexico until we reached the hair-transplant centre. There weren't any pedestrians, much less would-be pickpockets, milling around there since it's not a populated street. I was leery about the crime-ridden city originally before I consulted and researched other patients as you're doing. None of them found the experience dangerous, and I can attest it wasn't any different for me. I even asked the doctor about it, who reassured me that none of his patients got assaulted around his premises.

Thanks! Thank you as well! High time to add him to the forum-recommended list? He's easily the best case for including Mexico on it.

5 months I just turned 31, yet I feel closer to 21 with my juvenescent hair. Even younger if judging strictly by my dome, because I gave up on styleably longer hair shortly after reaching legal drinking age. My once-bald spot is as good as inexistent now. A couple of months ago, I started worrying if the crown would be a black hole, yet those 1,500-1,800 grafts seem to be making a worthwhile difference. The little scalp visibility that remains there? It's so interstitial at this point that one might just chalk it up to the cowlick, not my hair loss. It's not done densifying, to boot; I can still feel many newly sprouted hairs there. No bald spots midscalp, either; just some diffusely thinned patches as far as anyone can see. Unfortunately, my right temple still looks a little depleted. It's unlikely due to delayed shock-loss recovery (which should be a done deal at this point), so I'll just have to cope with it. It's at least not noticeable head-on, and it's easily concealable at longer lengths. It's certainly off-limits for further FUE harvesting, however—not that it'll foreseeably matter since I won't need a touch-up anytime soon at this rate, looking at my current progress. My transplanted hairline's density has blended in further. It might never be fully indistinguishable from my native one without further touch-ups, but the deficit is negligible enough at this stage: who'll suspect my FUE from it (other than us)? At worst, I'll just need to volumize it a bit, though I doubt even that'll be necessary for fullness when it's all said and done; you look at the closeups and tell me. In any case, it's improved enough that I'm no longer too insecure about my forehead (at least when I ignore zit-like lesion on my right temple) to expose it. Whenever my hair was this long, I'd sport a fringe hairstyle like this. I did it back in middle school because I found it stylish (thanks to the once-idolized '90s Backstreet Boys); I did it in adulthood so my bangs would cover my mildly receded hairline. Except it no longer looks receded now, and I'm keeping it more by default than by choice. Speaking of which, I need to learn how to actually style my hair. No, seriously; I haven't had that done since sometime when LeBron was ringless. My hair looks too limp and disheveled as it is. I'm loving the improved density, but the end goal was always not just fuller but better-looking hair. I'm at a loss of how to arrange it, especially when factoring in all my cowlicks. I wish I internalized all these haircare nuances when I was younger. I'll get a consultation when I go in for my overdue haircut this week. No more vanilla buzzcuts for me; I know that much. But that's a great problem to have on a board like this, no? I'm hoping for—and realistically expecting—further progress in the months to come, and I'll most likely present it with a different hairstyle by then. If I'm being honest, though, I can't say I'd be dissatisfied if I mostly plateaued at this point. I wouldn't be happy about it, of course, but I wouldn't feel the need to get a touch-up. I've already mostly achieved the illusion of full hair, which is my holy grail; it's mainly just a matter of maintaining and polishing it from this point onwards.

Excellent results! Thanks for sharing. You probably won't need another transplant foreseeably as long as you remain on your current regimen. Your pre-op density was ideal on the crown and mid scalp, and you got ample coverage with your transplanted hairline. In short, you have perfect hair now. I was especially interested in your 5-month progress pictures since I'm just a couple of weeks away from that myself. My hairline is more or less where yours was in terms of blended density at that juncture; seeing your eventual results only reassures me further about my own progress.

Good luck with your outcome this time around! I'm sorry you didn't yield the results you should have had with the first operation. This is the first failed FUE I've seen from Nader, and I'm really curious as to what exactly sunk it. It doesn't seem that he's used any different methods or instruments than he has for most other patients, and they've all had consistently solid-to-great results. Part of it definitely seemed to be a miscalculation on his part. Most patients I've seen who needed that extent of coverage required well over 2,000 grafts. The real crux of the failure, however, seems to be a poor graft-survival rate. Your hairline shouldn't have been that see-through with that amount of grafts, unless they were all single-follicle grafts. Has Nader shared any theories as to why there was apparently so much graft loss? Anything that might have caused graft rejections? Most likely it was just anomaly and you'll get better results from this second FUE, but I don't feel as if the initial failure should go unexplained.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm most likely just overthinking it. I still think it looks a bit too gappy around my widow's peak, though it's impractical to judge the density of the transplanted hairs in relation to native ones at this point in time; clearly not all have regrown yet, and many of those that have are still comparatively short due to all the shock-loss cycles. Looking at some of my post-OP closeups, there seem to be enough grafts; it's just a matter of regrowth and stably achieving the same length as my native hairs, which I'm confident about. You're also right that I'm unnaturally accentuating the thinness with my fingerhold. Even if I were to end up with a density deficit, I could easily conceal it with, again, the appropriate hair length. And, of course, more regrowth is typically expectable after 4 months, especially amid my current progress. My transplanted hairline is no longer completely see-through as it was last month, which should be convincing improvement. Neither Nader nor I found my donor area remarkable; we just knew that it was plentiful enough for the recommended grafts. I knew I didn't have the donor capacity needed to exhaustively treat, say, a Norwood 6+, but I was sure I naturally had enough for my first procedure since my hair loss wasn't that advanced or unpatterned. Nader estimated that I had 3k-4k safely usable grafts left, which sounds normal in my situation. I'd imagine the lion's share of that supply comes from the back of my head, as my temporal region looks too scanty at the moment. I'm hoping it's just temporary shock loss that I haven't fully recovered from yet, which seems plausible enough. Obviously, I'm hoping I won't have to tap further into my donor supply any year soon—which seems unlikely at this rate. Whenever I do is hopefully long enough down the road that a magic-bullet solution, such as hair cloning, has come to fruition.

4 months At long last, I'm above baseline. I got a much-needed buzzcut shortly after the last update, yet my scalp is less visible now than it was with longer hair last month. Indeed, the vast majority of my shock-shed native hairs have recovered, and my transplanted hairs have slowly but noticeably continued to regrow. Most noticeably so on my crown, which looks the densest it's been since the Obama administration. It went from bald (pre-op) to balding (last month) to diffusely thin (now). When unlit, the hair loss there is hardly even appreciable anymore—and at this rate, it'll take lighting and keen scrutiny to register any thinning there from most angles. Declare me certifiably blind if it hasn't markedly improved in recent months. For the first-two post-op months—when my hair was so thin that I constantly itched to shave it off altogether—I was honestly apprehensive that much of the shock loss might have been permanent; now, like most of my hair-transplant fears, that's proving to be groundless. I'm confident that more improvement is in the offing, given the continued minimality of my shedding (yes, I roughly keep track of that in the shower every morning). The folliculitis has mostly recovered, much of which is attributable to a Neutrogena acne wash Dr. Nader recommended. I only have some vestigial scalp acne that's slowly fading away, and I haven't had any new outbreaks for nearly two weeks. I'm a bit concerned about how depleted my posterotemporal donor region looks, however, especially on my right side. Sure, the rest of my hair will conceal it once it grows in, but it does show how limited my donor grafts are—which'll be problematic if I want to get an FUE touch-up. Whether or I will or not hinges, it seems, on how well my lowered hairline recovers: will it be up to parity with the rest of that region when it's all said and done, or will it be comparatively sparse? My temporal corners seem to be recovering adequately, but the midpoint—where I once had a genetic widow's peak—leaves a bit too much to be desired. It looks obtrusively thinner than the rest of my hairline at the moment. Again, I'm questioning if 1,300 grafts were enough. Not that I blame Nader for being conservative—there's a diminishing-returns effect with how many grafts are used in one sitting, and my total of 3,900 was already pushing it—but the bottom line is that I might need more. That's literally my only misgiving about this operation at the moment, and a mild one at that. It's obviously still way too early to make any conclusive judgments, especially since it's unmistakably improving compared to last month's photos. I'm confident I'll at least be able to pull off the illusion of natural hairline density once I've realized my full results. Overall, I'd say (or hope) it's shaping up to be a Konior-esque result. If it continues to improve at this rate for just 2-3 more months, that'll foreseeably complete my hair-restoration journey.

We didn’t really discuss it at all; he just asked for my consent to shave my scalp pre-OP. It seemed like a no-brainer to me. It’s my understanding that partial shaving is typically only feasible if the sole hair-restoration goal is to lower the hairline. If the surgeon has to operate on diffusely thinned regions (such as the middle of my scalp), then they’ll all but invariably require full shaving so they don’t have to navigate through a thicket of hair to make precise implants. The obvious con of full shaving is that it’s a temporary aesthetic setback, but isn’t the operation itself always one on some level? The ugly-duckling phase is so-named because of that; I might as well embrace it completely. Nonetheless, he does seem to offer it for some advanced diffuse thinners like this patient. I would’ve declined either way, however, since I personally don’t mind temporarily shaving—especially if it facilitates the operation.

3 months I can't believe it's been that long. I'm still in the ugly-duckling phase; make no mistake about that. I am, however, hopefully out of the Ninth Circle by now. The shedding has finally stabilized for the most part. My native hair has slowly but noticeably recovered, and it shouldn't be much longer before it's back to pre-OP baseline at this rate. My donor bank looks as good as undepleted already. Yes, I know I'm overdue for a haircut; that's even more painfully obvious now that I've seen my nape again. I was hoping for my folliculitis to clear up by now, and no such luck (as you'll see in the closeup hairline shots below). I can and should still get it buzzed—just not as short as I'd like yet. My transplanted follicles are slowly emerging. Last month, my lowered hairline region only had an interspersion of hairs that never shed post-OP; now, they're visibly sprouting all over. Sparsely but unmistakably so. Obviously, it's harder to do clear closeups on my crown, but I know there's incipient regrowth there as well; every time I run my fingers through them, I can feel thick new strands peeking. Nowhere near satisfactory density overall yet, of course, but I can't reasonably be discouraged by the progress this early on. Anxious to see if I start breaking through during these oft-decisive months.

2 months The ugly-duckling phase is in full effect, as expected. My overall density is probably the sparsest it's ever been since the first dread shed on my regimen back in 2020; this I chalk up to continued shock loss coinciding with another one of my reshed cycles. I'm not panicking about my long-term results for obvious reasons: we all go through this fittingly named phase at this juncture of recovery. But for the here and now, I'm about as self-conscious about my hair as ever. I thankfully have abundant leftovers of Toppik hair fibers to temporize with, though I'd prefer to just buzz/shave it once the scalp acne clears up. On the flipside, the donor area seems to be recovering nicely overall, especially on the back. Could just be the ingrowth covering up the patches more so than the regrowth, though I'm happy in that respect either way; at worst, it already renders the illusion of full density (the most realistic hair-restoration goal), and much more regrowth is in the pipeline anyway. The redness has mostly faded as well. This is despite a first-degree sunburn two weeks ago; I got complacent and neglected to wear a hat out in the sun. I'm not worried about that compromising the graft-survival rate, though—only for how it might've stunted the skin-healing process, in addition to all the other, obvious sunburn concerns. It might take longer to get back to pre-OP baseline—much less outstep it—than usual because of my ongoing reshed, so I wouldn't be surprised if I'm a late bloomer. Still, I'm going to keep scrutinizing my hairline—my salient point of reference—for peeking regrowth, which I expect starting next month.

1 month For just a few weeks in my life, I had an aesthetic hairline. That was in the wake of my operation before my bout of shock loss. On the third post-OP week, the transplanted regions started shedding like a tree in autumn. There's only a sparsity of donor hair left on my dome, and now it's mainly only my scalp's redness that's demarcating my new, lowered hairline. I'm below baseline now because I've shed many native hairs in addition to the transplanted ones, both due to shock loss and because my periodic reshed, I believe, coincided with this operation. Diffuse thinners like myself are especially liable to native shock loss, though I know it's typically only temporary—especially since most of the follicles weren't advancedly miniaturized thanks to finasteride/dutasteride. The persistent redness isn't that concerning at the moment; I figured it'd last longer than usual because of my fair-complected scalp. Just some microlesions (e.g., the hairline pimple you might notice), but I understand those are also normal and short-lived. It'll take at least a few more months for my breakthrough to start, of course, but I'll still update this once-monthly—if only to show levels of the ugly-duckling phase. Hopefully this is the last time I'll foreseeably resort to hair fibers!

Correct. Below are the best extant preop crown photos I have. Both have suboptimal lighting and vantage points; however, they provide the best coverage I have. I don't expect my transplant results to completely fill in that vertex, but it should be transformative enough to change that from bald(ing) to diffusely thinned at worst. 🙏

If I'm remembering and reading Nader's postop report correctly, he did approximately 1,300 grafts for the hairline, 1,000 for the entire mid-scalp area, and the rest (roughly 1,500-1,600) for the crown. I'd have to ask Nader for clarification on the exact amounts (I only remember the hairline amount for certain), but those are assuredly dependable ballparks for the rest. The most were definitely used for the crown, and that includes many of the 3- and 4-follicle grafts. I realistically only want to restore my crown to 70% density, so that should be enough. I just hope the hairline and midscalp will be dense enough when it's all said and done.

Within a few days, I believe. I don't have a point of reference to know precisely how long it took since I don't remember (nor have a record of) when I submitted my consultation form; I just vaguely remember receiving it in a timely fashion, which I must have since I thanked them for it in my email response. 😆 I'm assuming you used the website's form yourself rather than directly emailing them. I've only had protracted response times for some of the follow-up emails. Typically for no longer than 3-5 days, but once taking as long as four weeks (because my email was filtered as spam, per Brenda). I wouldn't be discouraged if it's still responseless; their clinic gets a deluge of emails everyday, and many get unattended because they prioritize whichever patient is presently undergoing an appointment (which seems to be almost every day). If they still haven't emailed you after a few days, it might be worth calling them regardingly.