GeneralNorwood

This Eugenix guys are so bad... Of course you are not Norwood 3. You are Norwood 6 diffuse thinner. It looks like they are downgrading patients deliberately. 

They contradict themselves by grading you Norwood 3 and then proposing 5000 grafts procedure. Norwood 3 would need only 3000 grafts. 

Lowering your hairline by 2 cm with this state of balding is a big no-no. 

Your hair are miniaturised all over the scalp, even your lateral humps are recessing. 5000 grafts will be only a start, you need more then this, 1 procedure is not enough. 

If i were you (we have somewhow similar cases), i would search for another clinic that is good with diffuse thinners. Do not jump into procedure. Talk to more clinics, do reasearch, be patient. If you have to wait 1 year for the procedure, then wait. 

38 minutes ago, TakeAction said:

I don't doubt that Zarev has some improved techniques that allow him to also extract more. But a big part of what he does is simply expand the donor. Why are other doctors not doing this?

 

1. Other doctors plan procedure in 5 minutes, Zarev makes long consultation with specific measurements which lasts 2 hours. It's not like he recklessly expands the donor area. He looks at every areas and estimates grafts/cm2 in this areas and other details of the hair, then he decides how much he can extract from every area. It sounds simple, but it takes a lot of time.

100 patients equals 200 hours for the consultations and within this times random clinic can perfrom ~ 25 procedures. 

2. Expanding from traditional safe zone is what i call "New School of HT". There are more doctors that take this new approach. First examples that come to my mind are dr. Pittella or dr. Ferreira. 

it looks like you need 8000-9000 or more grafts for the full effect. Donor looks like it loses pigment, the questions is if it is because of miniaturisation.

You should consult with good surgeon before thinking about HTs. And of course medication is mandatory if you want to think about surgeries. 

7 hours ago, Berba11 said:

Dr Feriduni in Belgium is the master at these sorts of repairs. 

Can you show examples? 

2 hours ago, Melvin- Admin said:

This is ugly duckling 🤯I can’t wait to see the finished product. 

Donor is healing well. I think it will look untouched in few months. And this is after 12 k grafts😅 I saw in real life people with destroyed donor just after 6k, but it was of course job of a hairmill. 

I voted for @mtb. We saw spectacular transformation after 1st procedure. Now he is only 2 months after 2nd procedure, so we will see the final effect of his journey in 2024. 

So for sure, he will get more votes next year, but i voted for best Hair transplant. First procedure, It was over 8000 scalp grafts in 2 consecutive days, insane. 

4 minutes ago, Melvin- Admin said:

How would you suggest making it more visible? 

It depends what is possible here. 

1. You can for example add flames 🔥🔥🔥 before and after name of the topic. 

2. At main site, you can temporary change "View real patient photos and videos, research hair transplant physicians, get support and share your experience." to banner with information "Click here to VOTE for best HT of 2023"

3. If you want, you can record quick video with information for people watching hairrestorationnetwork yt channel. 

These are three things that quickly came to my mind

I think this topic is not super visible. Many users skip first few pinned topics. I only noticed this poll, because i was following topic with nominations. 

6 hours ago, Melvin- Admin said:

Why? I think it’s a good thing. Im not voting worst HT of the year. Obviously, everyone can nominate someone here, and the community will vote. What would make someone feel sensitive about this?

I understand his reasoning, It makes me think that i would be rather in "the worst HT of the year" then "the best HT of the year". However i am not so sensitive, so for me this is not a reason to be against of "the best HT" poll. 

Being the best is always inspiring for other people and leads to development. So i think yearly presenting best results nominated and voted by members will show what is currenly possible in HT world. Reading stories of nominated/awarded members will be beneficial for the newcomers. 

44 minutes ago, Melvin- Admin said:

It’s futile debating you because you will believe what you want to believe. Just like you believed you weren’t a Norwood 6/7. Sure, you can share one-off cases where the patient has the best of everything. Donor thickness, hair thickness, etc.

I don't think it's futile debating me. It's hard. 

Listen, there is always same argument that i believed i weren't Norwood 6. So i can repeat once again. This is evaluation by Eugenix before surgery. They graded me Norwood 3V. And i trusted them that this is the truth. That was 2 years ago, since then i got more knowledge in HT and balding and now i understand that im Norwood 6. You can ask yourself why did Eugenix graded me 3 norwood stages lower and if that is ethical. 

44 minutes ago, Melvin- Admin said:

But this isn’t reality for most patients. If you’re Norwood 5+ you’ll need multiple surgeries. That’s just the way it is, if you don’t want that, then shave your head. Forget about surgery. Shaving your head should be the first thing you do, along with medication. Surgery should be your last resort. 

Yes, that is the thing. If you are Norwood 6, you need multiple surgeries, even if you go to Zarev. But you have to know it. Ethical surgeon will present you plan and tell how many grafts  you need, for example "You are Norwood 6, you need 2 surgeries, 3000 grafts, then we will think about third surgery for touch up". 

And this kind of plans i heard, when in this year, i went on consultations for next surgery. 

From Eugenix, i didn't hear any plan, i didn't hear that i will need 2-3 procedures. Now it is obvious for me that i needed multiple surgeries, but 2 years ago it wasn't and i didn't hear this crucial information from the surgeon. So you have to understand that some people don't have such level of knowledge like you now and they can't make surgeries plan by themselves. This is a job of a doctors. 

Maybe they skip this information and downgrade patients, because when patient heard that he needs 2-3 surgeries, there is higher chance that he would resign from HT and shave head like you mention.  

29 minutes ago, Melvin- Admin said:

I think this result looks good for the number of grafts. You can’t fully restore everything in one go as a high Norwood. 
 
But this is the second thread that I see of someone shaving their head after an HT. I think this is unsettling. 

To me, shaving your head should be the FIRST thing you do. Why, because it’s free and has no drawbacks. Before you decide to get in the chair you should shave your head and see if that’s a good option. I shaved my head @Bandit90 shaved his head @Zoomster shaved his head. It was only then that we knew that we were all in on surgery.  Once you have surgery, scars will be visible if you shave. 

I hope this serves as a public service announcement. If you’re considering surgery before shaving your head. Stop! Shave your head first, maybe you’ll be happy and move on 🙏

I agree that this is unsettling and both threads are from Eugenix.

This is true that there are cases like this when clinic can't fully restore everything in one go, however clinic can deliver result that is presentable after 1st surgery. And i think this is important, because sometimes patient can't jump into second surgery within short period of time after first surgery. 

I think this is good example of high norwood's result that is presentable  after 1st surgery and patient is happy about it : Dr Juan Couto. 4000 Grafts for my HUGE ALOPECIA at FUExpert Clinic 03/2023. - Page 5 - Hair Transplant Reviews - Hair Restoration Network - Community For and By Hair Loss Patients

And that was too only ~4000 grafts. 

For the record, i did shave my head before my surgery and it looked ok. However i prefer myself with hair, so i decided to do HT. 

45 minutes ago, Berba11 said:

 

Will you be telling me what colour the sky is next, or was there some specific reason you're stating what I and everyone else already knows about this case?

It's good to know that you agree with this statement. I don't think that everyone agrees with it though. 

End of topic. 

8 hours ago, Berba11 said:

Thanks. Interesting to see your current situation in context now. Looks like they'd lowered your original hairline/mid centre point by maybe a centimeter or so? Eugenix should have taken it back up slightly rather than pack it out with more grafts.

They didn't do the repair. They didn't start this 3 procedures repair treatment plan. They took money and did some lazy job, which caused harm. 

7 hours ago, asterix0 said:

I would just recommend to not do microneedling if you plan on another transplant. I read it may damage your scalp and compromise future transplant yields. 

where did you read this? 

1 hour ago, caveman said:

I just had a consultation for SMP. It will be $3200 to get it done in 2 sessions. Now I’m thinking some more about what to do from here.

 

 

It's too expensive. I checked prices in Poland and it's 1000-1500$. 

Ok guys, so the news is that i shaved completely bald 😁

Do not treat this as part of "just shave it bro" movement though. I lost the battle, but the war continues. Of course i am still on medication and there will be second HT in some time. 

So why i did i do that? To be honest, i was just tired of this strategy "just comb your transplanted hair back". Basically, it required my constant attention, using hair products like seasalt spray, gels,pomades,fibers, hairsprays, wearing headbands and there were always some flaws and the wind was the enemy and physical activities were the enemy. It was really exausting. My life before HT was easier 🙃

Then i decided to cut frontal hair shorter and see how it looks : 

Unfortunately, not treating lateral humps area is pain in the ass and with shorter haircut combed forward, it looks like i wear a wig for the frontal third only  

So i decided to shave bald to not care so much about my hair for now. And i must say that i feel good about it. It is liberating. 

And of course, if you look at the pictures after i shaved, the frontal third looks darker, the sides look darker and midscalp and crown look completely bald. Because as you may remember, i am Norwood 6  

So i figured out, that i would be good candidate for SMP after all and it doesn't matter that i have blonde hair. 

PS. I decided that i am back to weekly microneedling (dermapen 1,5mm) + topical minoxidil 5%. Oral minoxidil didn't impress me, so i am back to the treatment that in 2021 i used for bald scalp too and it had best effect for me. 

On 12/14/2023 at 11:12 AM, captaincalico said:

Almost month 6 ! What do you all think ? I think it’s still got a fair way to go yet In my opinion but that can only be a good thing going off how it currently looks ! Let me know what you All think 

How many grafts in total after all the procedures? 

On 12/15/2023 at 6:20 PM, Melvin- Admin said:

Like the title says, nominate a member you feel had the best results of the year. After we have the nominations, I’ll create another thread to have an official ballot. 

The winner will get featured in our last newsletter of the year, plus a special prize from our community. 

Ok, but it means that we nominate members that had procedure in 2023 or what makes more sense to me, they hit 6-12 months mark after procedure in 2023. So basically we can nominate somebody who had procedure in 2022, but in 2023 we saw great effect. 

9 minutes ago, mtb said:

Dr Zarev told me there are 2,500+ grafts left for future balding. Beyond that I think he can still take more but I would have to commit to a very short side look. Nearly shaved. Low probability it will come to that. 

The diffuse look has to do with the shock loss. If you look back on page 6 of this thread I had the same thing 2 months after my first procedure. By months 4-5 everything was healed from shock loss and growing in the donor area so I assume it'll be the same thing after this second procedure. 

That answers my question. 

Yes, i know that current look is shock loss and your hair is short, so we have to wait some time. I was just wondering what was opinion of Dr Zarev about this subject and in particular how many grafts he estimated that you have in the bank. Thank you for responding. 

@mtb Will you be able to grow sides and the back longer without diffuse look? It is 12000 grafts after all. What Dr Zarev told about this? 

Did you get some detailed report about density in donor and recepient area? I am speaking about something like this 9:10 : https://youtu.be/XASvPhbsRO4?t=550

11 hours ago, jjalay said:

The hairline is WAY too low.

But this was before 2nd procedure. Now it is even lower. 

40 minutes ago, Melvin- Admin said:

Its by far the most compelling treatment. But more studies are necessary before we can make definitive statements. That said, its promising. 

Ok,  i'm sceptical, but let's hope for the best. 

This photos doesn't proof anything. In each of the photos, the comb supports a different amount of hair. 

16 minutes ago, caveman said:

Do you think with the current hair density I have, I’d I buzz it and get SMP it will look decent?

I have very little knowledge about SMP, I have never been interested in it. Check the forum, maybe here are some interesting informations about it. 

So the buzzcut is the best option for now in my opinion. Looks neat.