Lightmare

That makes sense Berba11, thank you for your reply! That would explain the shedding of some thick, mostly thin hair in the balder areas, and why I seem to have regressed by 1+ months in some areas. Hopefully those native hairs come back soon and possibly stronger than before with the help of the finasteride. It was disheartening to see the shedding at this late stage when most sources do not mention it, but learning that it is a common side effect of mixing transplanting and native hair puts me at ease, as I wasn't slick bald anywhere before the procedure. Here are some close ups of my hair immediately post op. The photo itself is slightly tilted, so the hairline is a bit more symmetric than it appears in this photo but not perfectly symmetric, which I kind of prefer, like you said it's a nice natural look

Thanks everyone for the replies! I really appreciate it, and I will for sure keep this updated! Melvin, thank you very much for your input. When I hear 'shock loss' I usually think about the initial shed between 2-6 weeks. Is that what you're referring to for my recent (5 month) shed, or is it something else? Is it normal at this stage? Oh, and most of the hairs that shed over the past couple weeks are between 1-3cm long and are miniaturized hairs. A few thicker hairs do fall but a vast majority are thin. The hairs on the side/back of my head do not appear to be shedding more than usual.

Thanks JC71, I am seeing more results on here and do agree with you that the number is on the small side for such a large area. The other clinic I visited offered 3000, but I didn't get good vibes from them. My doctor's reasoning for 2580 is as follows: I never used finasteride before the operation and I had apparently lots of baby hairs that didn't completely die (just advanced miniaturization) when viewed under the microscope. So it's possible the finasteride could strengthen some those miniaturized hairs back. Conserve donor hair for possible follow ups (but we hoped to avoid them if the finasteride works well). I was ok having some thinning evident in the crown but wanted the front to look good. Donor hair is very good with lots of 2s and 3s of large shaft diameters. However I didn't ask specifically the breakdown or measured hair caliber yet...I will ask at the 6mo checkup. So I am not sure how much of the growth is due to the HT versus the big 3 combo doing it's magic. I do wonder though, how is 50 FU/cm^2 in terms of density, assuming they thicken up? Through the same metrology, I estimated my donor region to be roughly 100+ FU/cm^2. The clinic I went to is Advanced Hair Restoration. I think I'll ask the surgeon at the 6 month checkup whether they are comfortable with me sharing at this stage

Hello everyone! 31 year old newcomer here. I am almost 6 months into my first hair transplant and recently found this site. I've been balding (frontal half and crown) since 2014 and finally decided to do something about it! My timeline is as such... 2014-2019: I did nothing about it. baldness was progressing slowly and I didn't think much about it. 2019-2021: I started trying 2x a day topical Minoxidil, and a photo diary to track progress. I had initial success but it oscillated after a while. Too scared to try fin at this point. I also noticed that at this 3 month mark I started getting massive (up to 4mm) dandruff flakes from the topical but witnessed reduced efficacy when switching to the foam... May 2021: I had enough and it was finally time to take the plunge. I visited several doctors and picked one with solid credentials, and got the transplantation to re-make my hairline and fill in my entire scalp and a bit of my crown. Also at the recommendation of my surgeon, I added 1mg of daily finasteride pills + 2x a week 2% Ketoconazole shampoo to help with massive flakes I get from topical minoxidil dandruff. I had my transplantation this May and, though am starting the sharing process late, wanted to share the timeline with you all. Interesting notes about my transplant: We focused most of the density on the hairline and frontal 3rd, with decreasing density gradually as you go up to the crown. I had soreness for much longer than most. Headaches into the 2nd week. My shedding period was very long, between 2 weeks and 2 months post transplant. The areas that were most bald pre-HT haven't yet witnessed much meaningful growth, but the areas with some native hairs have seen good growth. Variation is high. I started noticing real growth around 4 months, and 5 months was also decent growth. However over the past 2 weeks I witnessed a massive shed, so I look worse than month 5 at the moment. I do hope that is normal. I am seeing my doctor in 2 weeks. The last few weeks have been tough on my mid scalp due to all the shedding. The right side is also behind the left quite a bit but I hear this is ok at this stage. Here is the crown: I started wondering what's really going on with the balder patches at this point, and being a scientist by trade I wanted to document the rest of my HT journey (6-12+ months) under a handheld digital microscope. I realize this is incredibly hard to find the same patch of hair every month but I will do my best as it will help me find whether hairs are growing and thin, or not growing at all in some areas. I could not find any other microscope diaries... details of my microscope are Cheap, can find many of these on Amazon for ~$20-40 USD. Based on some rough metrology I took, the camera image area is approximately .11cm^2. So the # of hairs/grafts you see need to be multiplied by 9 to calculate density in units of cm^2. It looks like this first image has 8 FU, resulting in approximately 72FU /cm^2 total, and likely consists of combo transplant + native hairs. However, there are areas immediately adjacent to this that have fewer, so I'd have to peg a rough, conservative average at 50 FU/cm^2. I will be tracking one of my most bald areas, where I expect fewest and most miniaturized hairs. This is not the worst on my whole scalp but it is up there. Anyway thanks for tuning in, looking forward to tracking this with you all. Please let me know what you think of my progress so far, and whether the density looks all right. It is still quite see-through in real lighting, and there has been a regression in some areas over the past month due to the shedding, I am wondering whether anybody saw regressions like this in their experience that got better afterward.