NARMAK

Agree with others, you should allow 6 months or so to pass which is roughly what most say is the time required for temporary shock loss to resolve. 

I personally think you need to allow up to 9 months for the recipient area before you start planning a repair of any sort. 

7 minutes ago, SeanToman said:

Hi, I had some side effects before I even knew they existed.
Lower libido was the primary one.  But it's nothing life changing.  I can still 'perform' when need be.

This is one of those really subjective sides imo. Mainly because there's other things that can affect you such as stress, anxiety, lifestyle etc. that people don't always seem to account for. 

Personally i'm like yourself where i understand that's a side affect but within a range i'm willing to tolerate because it isn't giving me ED. Much like yourself, i believe i'd perform in the moment and i'm also having to acknowledge like many, many other men who are getting older. Things decline in that area as we age. 

Still, i always tell people be fully informed of the possible sides, do your bloodwork to rule out other underlying things and then make your informed decision and what to do if it doesn't work for you. Above all, we have to as with any and all medication we ever take accept that out if billions of people, there's a possibility we react badly and end up with those sides that are a low chance. Personally i think for myself i was willing to play the odds after diligent research. My only regret as i"ve mentioned many times before is not having started 10 years earlier at 21.

36 minutes ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

Been a bit MIA this week. My son was born on the first. Glad to see he had a decent head of hair, I was born completely bald on top. I have a theory that those who are born bald, will go bald. This is pure speculation and conjecture, but that’s my suspicion. 
 

I’ve received a lot of pms. Sorry about not answering guys, will do soon!

Congratulations Man! 

That's a beautiful moment captured perfectly. Hope mum and son are both doing fantastic and in the best of health. 

Personally i would allocate a week or two off work. Especially 7 days post-op to let the hair grafts anchor, any residual swelling abate and then allow you to sleep normally again without worry for the grafts. 

2 weeks just to get back into a groove of normality but i would personally recommend a week. FUE post-op recovery for me was quite easy but i worked remote for months. 

1 hour ago, jakos said:

30 y.o. diffuse thinning all over scalp, with hairline still intact. I started Fin 5 months ago, haven´t seen improvement visually. I don´t use any other medication.

Do you think i should go with this regimen, do see what "only Fin" can achieve? Or do you think Fin only is not likely to provide satisfactory regrowth and I should start Min + dermarolling ASAP?

I can also get a HT, but my hairloss pattern doesnt really favor a HT afaik. Maybe I can have one after some more time on Fin to avoid shock loss

But the main question for me now is: Add Minoxidil or stay on Fin until 1 year is over

What do you guys recommend?

At only 5 months, you're at nothing more than a baby step to helping your existing hair. The question i think personally is more about how much patience you have or how aggressive you are willing to be with keeping your hair. 

Finasteride actually works for many years more for those that respond positively to it and a 10 year Japanese study showed how regrowth is possible but most will tell you to realistically expect little to none. That's what they'll say Minoxodil is for. 

OP, if you want my honest opinion, and this is probably going to go a little against others. I would take 1mg Oral Finasteride everyday and start Oral Minoxodil or Topical Minoxodil if you feel like you are able to commit to taking it 2x a day like that. Personally i think a pill is easier for adherence. You also should Microneedle 1mm to 1.5mm once a week and use Nizoral as a little extra small boost. 

The "problem" with this approach will be that you will not know exactly how much effect comes from Finasteride, how much from Minoxodil and Microneedling. However, you're a diffuse thinner and imo, the longer you wait, its an even bigger uphill battle for you. Attacking it aggressively and indefinitely if you're truly willing to fight tooth and nail to keep your hair looking good is going to require the kitchen sink approach. 

Waiting another 7+months to see what ground Finasteride helps you with is fine, but in that 7 months there could have been hair Minoxodil might have helped save that due to delay were lost. At least that's how i felt when i started Dutasteride at 31 and felt like i'd already been losing enough ground and probably thinning out in ways that was visually hidden amongst the healthier surrounding hair. 

Of course, i have no evidence for this, but given examples like yours of diffuse thinning, we 100% know its possible to lose hair amongst the healthy all over the scalp and only when it gets visually sparse enough do we realise. I looked at my shaved head pictures post op and i still noticed what i feel are miniaturised hairs and hope Dutasteride can help me recover ground there. 

I went there for my HT in May and the day before the procedure, they had a look at mt hair but almost visually only. Dr Pradeep was kind enough to take a physical look but with his expert hands, there wasn't a use of say measurement tools like Dr Bisanga for example at BHR that you see in videos. 

2 hours ago, GoliGoliGoli said:

Just based on the last set of pictures you posted I think your result is going to be just fine. Most people are never going to notice the temple points looking anything other than completely normal. 

Like i said, 100% not hitting a panic button and i think i definitely did better than what a hair mill would have done to me, but based on the reputation and standard the clinic themselves set, i think it's only fair to point these things out to other people looking to potentially use the clinic. 

I'm not berating their skills at all, but they are definitely points of concern to me in person and some of those issues are perhaps down to the way the techs operated without some oversight. 

I said before i will make a final judgement at month 12 post-op, but i think it's useful for me to document these concerns for now to see if they improve and unfortunately camera pictures aren't the best of highlighting what the human eye can see in person unfortunately. 

4 hours ago, Madhur Vansil said:

Wow Awesome improvement Narmak congratulations  .Looks really good 👏👏

BTW how did you manage to explain your barber to only cut the non transplanted hair as I guess you wouldn’t have told the barber to cut the transplanted hair length for symmetry with native hairs so that they grow first right ? Or else if you can elaborate on this ?

I have not had a haircut yet since my hair transplant. I have had my beard trimmed and told my barber to stay away from the temple points when doing the sideburns and to only do the part above the ears by lifting the hair up. 

I plan to get a haircut with a proper stylist maybe around 9 months post-op but deciding on who to go with atm. 

Overall, my hair both transplanted and native has just been allowed to grow without intervention as much as possible but the barber did trim a bit of the right temple once despite me telling him to stat away from it. 

Things that i can see in person that currently bother me is that on the right side of my temporal areas, the hairs look like they have good macro and micro irregularities but the left side, there's almost a straight row of grafts and they're doubles to my eye in person. The other problem i have noticed so far, is that the temple point hair on the left seem to stick up and out more than the right temple points. 

I'm not hitting the panic button yet, but they are areas of concern i'm keeping an eye on. 

2 hours ago, Westview said:

I think TB had a transplant as well.  If you look at the left side it looks a little pluggy

 

 

Come on man, showing off such a happy time before he was divorced lol

Yeah, I don't know if it's a hair transplant or maybe fibres. The celebs usually get the hair bulked with fibres to look better under brighter lights. 

OP, take it one step at a time. Right now we don't know exactly how many hair will yield of the look visually for your situation and tbh, you may need to wait till about Month 10 or so before another clinic will be willing to take you on and even then it will require proper planning. I would say when you get to 6+ months, start reaching out to people about repairs from those reviewed and respected for their repair work you can get to. 

You need to just be patient and recover for now. 

15 minutes ago, Mike10 said:

My understanding is that he stopped permanently but I could be wrong

Personally i only know he used it because of that one interview where he candidly discussed it and seen nothing else but to let his hair go as an actor usually wouldn't be a good idea so if he did stop, he must have permanently stopped hair loss because his 2022 pictures via Google look smashing for the hair. So i think he's still on it. 

Personally i left it to grow out myself as i went completely bald but as others have said, if you can use a plastic guard, shouldn't be an issue. However, i felt the hair grown out hit the redness sometimes people get and it probably hides the donor area whilst healing. Your recipient area however depending on the size won't necessarily be easy to hide whether you grow your hair out or buzz it down imo but can see an argument for it being a bit easier when buzzed. Personally i wanted to regrow my hair ASAP because i had frontal and temple point restoration and longer hair combed forward would give a possibility to hide it. 

5 hours ago, Mike10 said:

Nah, I would not touch it. And Kutcher dropped Propecia 

Didn't he say publicly in an interview on a late night show he used Avodart (Dutasteride) and he only stopped because of him trying to conceive with his partner. Not that he stopped permanently. Although i'm not aware of anything other than the interview a while back, or looked into it recently. 

10 hours ago, Gatsby said:

For five months NARMAK your hitting home runs already. Looks great my friend!

Thanks Adrian. I'm definitely seeing it as a positive but also quietly hoping things will keep improving bit by bit over the next 7+ months. There's definitely some room left for the hair to still grow out, thicken and mature yet. 

Your own results are looking pretty good themselves and really chuffed for you. 

On 10/25/2022 at 4:56 AM, Mountinvan said:

Just saw a 4 month update on youtube:

Interested in comments about what he thinks a line of transplanted hair at 8.05. Is this normal or a technique issue?

It seems like the hair is supposed to transition from soft singles to multi grafts behind and that line he drew to demonstrate, the transition zone as it's supposed to be known as seems jarring and not properly done at all. 

Personally i think the way the hair looks in different lighting is the weirdest to me. In the regular distance shot it looks great and like a 12 month result but then when you actually see proper close up pictures, it's all exposed and not great. That's really weird to me and i think he's using hair fibres even though he claims he isn't. The result is way too full looking from that distance imo at 4 months but hey, i could be wrong. 

Overall though, i think it is what it is. He went to a hair mill and they basically sprinkled temple point grafts like morons, which didn't really make any aesthetic impact and imo were a waste but lucky for him they didn't do more than that, because they'd have screwed him over much worse. 

I can't comment on the alcohol side but do not drink coffee. I learnt the harder way when my BP spiked a bit and blood wasn't clotting as well after the first day post-op. 

Usually i like the idea of a bit of coffee to wake me up for the rest of the day, but this wasn't a good thing for my body during the HT and also i never remained fully awake during moments. 

Elon has had a hair transplant and hr appears to have made sure he went to the best because the results are solid and the higher FUT scar has been pointed out as a hallmark of Hasson & Wong. 

Personally i dislike him very much as an individual. A petulant manchild with an inferiority complex that managed to hoodwink others to think of him as the cool 2nd coming of a tech messiah when all he does is steal the work of others and take credit for it both financially and intellectually. 

2 minutes ago, Mrsmith434 said:

Thanks Narmak for  your reply I did get checked out by a dermatologist and followed their plan exactly before the hair transplant happened I didn't just jump in blind.

Thanks for the reply and good to see you went down that route. Hopefully that will help immensely with your HT being a success. I personally have an issue with quite dry skin resulting in a lot of flakes and dandruff. I've tried to keep it under control, but it's a tough old game. 

Good luck OP and hopefully you enjoy the fruits of your HT for a long time. 

4 hours ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

10 year challenge 27 vs. 37 

People can say what they want to, but hair matters. 

Man, the hair is looking phenomenal in that picture. 

Yeah, hair does matter, but also getting help from the right doctors and having the right attributes and making the right choices in the end i think is a huge part of how you go from the left picture to the right. 

Y'know, one thing now that you have posted that picture, i want to ask had you been able to tolerate Finasteride and use without any major issues etc. Do you think it may have put you in a similar place by helping you retain the hair you had at 27?

4 hours ago, Mrsmith434 said:

Thanks for your reply unfortunately I can't take anything topical on my scalp due to sebehorric dermatitis.

Oral minoxidil is an interesting idea.   Anyone know where I can get it cheap and is it a suitable alternative to Finasteride?

You should get a dermatologist to check you out and preferably before the HT happened to get things more ship shape for the HT but whilst i personally wouldn't call oral Minoxidil a substitute in any way, shape or form, i do know those that cannot use Finasteride swear by it as being as effective for them to keep hair longer. In terms of studies, we really can't say there's many modern studies to really use but it is now gaining more popularity as a hair loss treatment in oral form at up to maybe 2.5mg pills per day. 

Whether you can get it cheap i guess depends on your country. The US seems to have an easy enough method. Recently the UK had more companies start offering it whereas before it was very pricey. 

What the user above said but just in response to your seeming a bit extreme to alter your hormone, i think it's fair to also say that it's successfully helped a lot of guys keep their hair for many years now and is it really anymore extreme than undergoing a surgical procedure for a hair transplant? 

I think with the fact you got told you only have another 700-1k grafts, you of most people should be concerned with ensuring the longevity of the existing hair. If you don't want to do it via Finasteride due to the reason mentioned, perhaps consider Oral Minoxodil as an alternative and perhaps even topical Finasteride. 

Firstly OP, i'd like to wish you well on your recovery. That's a big part og the post-op regardless of anything else. 

A lot of people have already said what needs to be said that it isn't matching up with the graft numbers in terms of density etc. and as attentive as the clinic seemed to be etc. it's quite clear, they have no right doing what they're doing with the work you've shown in those images. 

Unfortunately Google Reviews are highly manipulated and so are most other review sites. The clinics usually get bad reviews taken down through legal threats or some other clown methods. 

I think a site like this is built upon sharing experiences and helping steer people away from a similar situation so if you ever feel comfortable naming them, it could save somebody else. 

In terms of the extractions in the donor to implanted sites, there's definitely a mismatch and after enough time has passed, you should go for a professional evaluation of your head to check the donor area and what grafts you have left. You are more than likely going to need to have somebody competent fix the hairline and crown areas. 

What's done is done. There's no reason to dwell and best to try concentrate on your recovery. Reddit can be full of some buffoons but it does appear the mismatch was picked up on accurately. For a place that seems to only specialise in hair, it appears their skills are severely lacking. 

12 minutes ago, John1991 said:

7 months and things are slowly thickening.  I think it'll still get thicker.  It looks very good in all circumstances unless you split the hair apart and even then it just looks how my hair would've looked prior when intentionally trying to make it look bad.  Very glad I made the trip to the East coast.

 

 

Looking great John. The smile says it all too as to how things are going for you. 

I'm a few months behind you and hearing others and yours experiences really helps keep me on track so thanks for these updates. 

3 hours ago, MazAB said:

Right on track @NARMAK! Reminds me of where I was after my first procedure at the 5 month mark. My temple points were probably the last thing to thicken up at around the 1 year mark. My hairline continued to improve up until month 10. Looking so natural even this early bro!

Follow my Journey with Eugenix and Dr Arika Bansal!

Thanks a lot for the detailed reply and i definitely will take comfort in knowing that was your experience. I definitely think the temple points were the biggest reason i got the HT in the first place but even just catching myself in a reflection whilst out to a shop today, i thought the new hairline gives a great framing to the face too. 

Patience is definitely the name of the game with HTs and i have to be patient for 7+ months more. I definitely think that it has helped things when you are looking visually better in the mirror post-op even at 5 months, because i'm not having to completely hide away under a baseball cap. 

Looking forwards to seeing your results over the next stage of your journey. Things are looking great already. 

4 minutes ago, JoDimaggio22 said:

Ya his hairlines do look almost better than the patients hairline prior to Ht. Are his photos shopped at all or his hairlines are just that dense? 

I don't think it's necessarily photoshop but and this is just my experience, that clinics are not above manipulating the lighting and angles to show off the HT in the best possible way. This is why you get a lot of people saying how they feel that a lot of the results they come across, don't always fully represent the in person appearance. I don't feel like cameras always accurately convey things how you view them yourself and i can see this in even my own updates which i try to be candid about and add a paragraph or few explaining how it looks to me