LeBerry

Looking great! 

Very clean work and nicely done hairline design! 

4 Months post surgery update

Hello all, growth is starting to kick in nicely. After going for a short shaved hairstyle last month I did not cut it anymore this one, because I feel the density is already at a level where it is ok to start going back to a little longer hairstyle again. Now the hairs grow out I really start to appreciate the detail of the work done by Dr. Bisanga in making the incisions for the grafts to be in a natural direction. Looking forward to the coming months!

Amazing result so early in, this is 100% going to be a homerun. Happy growing!

10 hours ago, Curious25 said:

OP - for 3 months you look far better than most, you are another BHR early grower for sure. 

6 hours ago, Moe N said:

Thanks for sharing your 3 months post-op results. Great to see the early growth 😊

Thank you for the encouraging words gents 👍

10 hours ago, Gasthoerer said:

Interesting how far up and how far to the front the extractions go. Did the clinic mention why, especially the later? Looking for fine singles?

I did not really question their extraction pattern to be honest, because I know Bisanga is known for good donor management.
What the exact motivation has been would be interesting to find out from the clinic for sure!

Hello everyone, BHR has shared the pre- and post-op pictures which are of a much better quality than the ones I manage to make:

3 Months post surgery update

Good day to all. Just hit the 3 month mark and can see some growth starting already.

Front:

Sides:

Donor:

Next update will be in 2022. Wish everyone a nice Christmas with family and good start into the new year.

Congratulations man, absolutely fantastic. Enjoy!

Hello Marco,

Looking great so far!

We are almost recovering parallel from the same surgeon. I am only one month ahead.
Will be following your recovery.

Greetings from another Dutch. 

18 minutes ago, capillus incrementum said:

Looks really good! Did you already cut it on your last pictures? It seems you already got this length at month 1 (non transplanted hair).

I got my transplant 4 days ago and the itching is heavy. Did you experience this too? If yes, between which days and when did it go away/ease off?

Good luck!

Thank you! I recall you said you were getting yours in November. Happy that you took the step, exciting times ahead.
 

Yes, I have been to the barber at about 1,5 months after surgery. Buzzed the sides down to 0,5mm and had the top at around 1cm. Really liked that hairstyle and as the front is not dense at all it helps to look a little bit more normal. Now however, I just feel like buzzing it all down again. Mayor plus on seeing the sides at 0,5mm was that you could not recognize anything on the donor. I used to wear my hair very short on the sides and I am happy to be able to continue doing this post HT.

Concerning the itching it wasn't that bad that I wanted to scratch it that much, but when it did I used to spray the saline solution on it and that did the trick for me.
The itching on the recipient pretty much stopped completely around the 10 day mark when all the scabs were gone. Please do be carefull with getting the scabs off, they should be really soaked so they can come off nice and gently. I was not patient anymore with my final small scab and pulled out about 20 hairs with it. Now I am sure they will grow back but it will take longer for sure.

2 Months post surgery update

Hello gentlemen, tomorrow will be the 2 month mark officially as my day of treatment was the 16th.

I see more and more small hairs coming through, still it can be considered the ugly duckling stage.
As I will be on travel from Thursday onwards I have decided to buzz everything down to pre-op shortness again at the barbers as I have kind of liked that length!
After I will just wait and see how it grows back to decide on what length of hair to pass through the next stage with.

Currently this is my status:

Some donor/non-donor side shots:

As good as it gets, congratulations. And it will continue to mature from here. 

Great to see everything worked out so well.
We are actually fairly equal in terms of when we had our operation done at BHR, so I will be following you for sure!

Seems like a fairly good amount of hairs have stayed after the shedding (if it is done completely), which is a good sign that you will have nice growth in the months to come.

Great stuff, this gives hope to those waiting! Thank you for sharing

On 10/16/2021 at 11:59 PM, capillus incrementum said:

First of all, thanks for sharing your journey. I myself will undergo a FUE procedure with Dr. Bisanga in november and this gives me a great idea of how the first days/month will look like.

You mentioned no pain during the procedure. Did the numbing injections hurt a lot, or was it manageable? Can't wait to see your next update, looking great so far.

That is great. You will have a great experience I am sure.

First you will be sedated with some type of valium which makes you very relaxed. This must have played a part in not feeling the numbing injections, as well as a steady hand and experience of the one administering them.

1 Month post surgery update

Hello guys,

Everything is going pretty well. The shedding was hard and started about eight days ago.

I take finasteride (1mg) and minoxidil (5mg) like I have normally and I have been supplementing 1600mg MSM.
Since about 10 days I massage Emu oil on the recipient before bed, as this is supposed to help against the redness.
After I started applying I can confirm that the redness faded quicker than before, however I do not have a comparisson with previous procedures.

On the donor area on the side my skin is a little irritated which comes from touching it I guess.
Using some cream now which is making it better already. You can also notice some shockloss near my temple point where they took the fine singles, I do not find this alarming as it will grow back.

As for the pictures:

Donor:

Donor side with some minor shockloss and skin irritation (little bit wet because of cream):

Non-donor side:

Thats it for now, will return in 30 days again with more pictures. Feel free to ask any questions in the meantime!

Does someone have experience with going into a sauna after a HT? 

Online I read many different angles as to in which timeframe it is allowed again. Some say after healing for 14 days, some say after 30 days and some say to wait even as long as three months post operation.

The reason I am asking is because I am looking to do a Temazcal on the 17th of October (exactly 31 days post OP) and another one on the 22nd.
The Temazcals are connected to an important event I am participating in, so I am looking for some back up that supports the idea that I can resume visiting a ''sauna'' after 30 days.

Thank you in advance 🙏🏻

2 minutes ago, ffar said:

Thanks. In 2,5 years I will be 35. I guess by this time hair loss(the worst part) is rather over. So i will go after hairline fix. At the moment everything looks great except hairline thanks to minoxidil 5mg per day. 

That sounds like a solid plan based on your situation. 👍🏼 For me it was the goal to have a good situation before 30 and I already accepted the fact that I will probably need a second procedure in the future.

2 minutes ago, ffar said:

Hmm happy for you. I was told by people here that my hair are too good to get HT, and you have similar situation like me. I will wait for results from you.

Hi ffar, thank you. In the end I think you should do as you feel is best, it is a very personal decision. For me, I deem my forehead as relatively high and I was able to stabalize my hairloss over the last five years. The time was right I felt and the goal with this HT is to have me set for the coming 10 years at least.

How good your hair is, is mainly yours to judge. To check if a HT is advisable based on your current situation, I would suggest you go for a personal consultation with a renowed clinic.

10 Days post operation update

Happy Sunday everyone,

The goal was to be scab free after 10 days, which has been managed without any issue. Hilde from BHR offered superb guidance and the aftercare routine was easy to follow. Happy that I was able to wash my head and get rid of the scabs after 7 days and I think everything looks pretty good.

Was eating out yesterday and decided not to wear a hat inside the restaurant, one of the waiters asked me where I had my HT done. Showed to me the importance of sharing experiences here for everyone to be able to inform themselves as it still seems a sensitive topic. Anyhow, lets move on to the progress:

Donor:

The next update I will post around the 30 days post OP mark and after that I will keep them coming on a monthly basis.

 

11 hours ago, follically challenged said:

Good job man. Good choice of clinic. But i do wonder, won't this donor area look asymmetrical if only taking grafts from the back and just one side?

Thanks!

For this question I would refer to the post of Maa, who has a similar hairtype like I do and has also gotten this 2/3 Donor Area usage by Dr. Bisanga. If you check his final update you can see his donor looks pristine all the way around, and 600 more grafts were harvested:

Ofcourse this is no guarantee my donor will recover the same way, but it sure is promising.

P.S. The donor area after the cleanup this morning. Only hairs have been taken from the right- and backside of my head, so the left side is still virgin scalp, if I'd need any treatments in the future.

Hello guys,

As I am writing this I just came back from the BHR clinic for my post-operation consultation with Hilde, who is my patient advisor. Before we start I must say that the overall experience with BHR from the point where we first came into contact, has really been 10/10. They are very professional and really care about their patients a lot. Of course they might be more expensive than a clinic in Turkey, but therefore you have the feeling that they take care of everything and you see with their results everywhere online that by picking them you minimize your risk of a outcome which will not satisfy you. This peace of mind justified the costs for me.

The head is throbbing a little bit and I only had 3 hours of sleep last night (however I was able to lay relaxed without any issue for about 8 hours total), but I am absolutely thrilled that I took the step and that everything went without complications so far. Now I am moving into the most important process which is the healing process, but before this will be shared in the coming months I would like to share some background.

Today I am 28 and my balding has started around 18 years of age and I was using topical minoxidil shampoo the first time with 21 I would say. As this was very inconvenient I stopped doing so but ofcourse the balding process progressed. Then with 22 years I started taking finasteride, first 1,25mg a day and since the beginning of June this year I switched to capsules with 1mg a day. I am also using 5mg of oral minoxidil since 3 months (starting from 08 June 2021) to improve my donor area pre-operation.

Apart from that I try to live healthy by eating whole foods, having a lot of regular exercise, being social and try to laugh as much as possible (reduces stress they say  )

So upon first contacting the clinic I was looking like this (April 2020, only on my finasteride regime here):

As can be seen pretty clearly the frontal area is thinning but my crown area has good cover, which I pretty much thank to the religious finasteride intake (of which I have 0 side effects by the way, also not what my reproduction is concerned).

Now let us fast forward one year and a bit, to June 2021, as I was just about to start with the oral minoxidil.

Now let us fast forward another 3 months to nearly the time where I had the operation and after I had my first three months with the 5mg oral minoxidil added to my regimine:

What I have observed with the oral minoxidil: better hair thickness, increased body hair length (arms/legs) and more visible body hair in general. If we compare there two shots with the very first shot from April 2020, I feel that my overall hair quality and density has actually improved.

So now let us move to some pre operation foto's of the hairline and after shaving: 

And then the day after the pre-op consultation I arrived at the clinic at 07:30 to be done at 17:30 that same day. They gave me some valium and overall I did not have any pains, it was a lot less bad then I have expected.

Graft count: 2609

Graft breakdown: 

1 Follicular Unit: 424 grafts
2 Follicular Unit: 1011 grafts
3 Follicular Unit: 1077 grafts
4 Follicular Unit: 97 grafts

Donor density: 80/80

Now the immediately post-operation picture:

Looking forward to share my healing process here with you guys and would like to thank everyone here sharing past experiences for us all to learn, benefit and make an educated decision from.

Cheers