jackiema

On 9/21/2022 at 5:07 PM, shiba1985 said:

You have amazing hair characteristics. I think your result could have been better. Just my opinion. You still have a decent amount of reserve. choose wisely. 

Thanks! The result could have been better I agree, but he only used 850 grafts. I think he made them come a long way. It is a significant improvement with such a small amount of hair used. Also, it's only 7 months, their is still improving to be had. 

21 hours ago, HappyMan2021 said:

Do you feel enough grafts were used?

If your end-goal this whole time was to have a conservative, mature, non-receding looking hairline, this may be a good result. 

But if you were hoping to turn back into a NW1, you could have used 2k more grafts than were taken. 

For me personally (others can have a different opinion for themselves) a Norwood 1 would have been too much for my liking and too much of a change. My priority was that no one would notice the difference during the process. I didn't want to risk my donor area, not necessarily save for future HT, but to preserve it for its own sake. I want the back of my head to look good too with the #1 guard haircuts I get. 

As I said in previous posts, I want hair that will be appropriate when I'm 50 or 60, of course other people may prioritize having perfect hair but I don't want to take the risk by being too aggressive and possibly committing to a lot more surgery as my hair continues to recede behind the HT. 

7 month update. Hair continues to grow. I think I have reached the point where my hair looks much better than it did before the surgery. I can style my hair up and still looks natural. No one still has any idea I had a HT. Had my 6 month appointment with Dr. Lindsey last month and he said he expected my hair to grow about 50% more. I have a #1 guard haircut in these pictures. As always, you can see the FUE scars under the harsh lights of the bathroom, but in normal life, people will never notice. I am considering getting a second HT in the future to fill in some of the FUE scars since SMP is still hit or miss. 

It's now 5 months since my HT. A lot of news hairs are growing since the last update 2 months ago and I am still seeing some new hairs just beginning to sprout. The previously balding areas of my hairline are finally starting to fill out and I can see my new hairline, which I'm very happy with. I can still get haircuts with #1 guards, you can definitely see the areas hair was taken in the donor area but people don't even notice and to the untrained eye, it just kind of looks like natural inconsistency in hair density. I would say this is probably the part of the HT that I am least happy about, but I think it's acceptable considering you can only see it when I get #1 guard haircut. 

Edit: I would also like to add that the redness in the recipient area finally started to go down significantly last month. The pimples in the donor area are still off and on, but less frequent. Also I have a new phone with a mich better camera, so picture quality will be much better. 

It's been 3 months since my HT. As expected, not much change since last month. The redness in the recipient area is still there. I have noticed a few more new hairs sprouting. I am still having pimples in the donor area that come and go, you can't see them when they are there. At this point, I am now hoping that next month, there will be relatively increased growth on month 4 compared to the last few months, but I know everyone is different so we'll see. 

 

This is a blessing in disguise. Your down a few thousa d dollars which you won't care about 5 years ago. But if you had a bad HT, it will haunt you forever.

I'm sorry I am late to the thread, but would you even call this hair loss? I thought his hair is perfect! 2000 hairs is crazy!!! Why would a doctor recommend that? This is why everyone needs to have several consults with different doctors and thankfully you can do them online. But really, you don't need a hair transplant, you're headed for Regret City if you do. 

Here are my two month pictures. As expected, not much changed since last month and I expect not much change at month three either. Still have redness in the recipient area, but the native hairs are growing and I can see a bit of new hair starting to sprout. I am having pimples in the donor area, I think I have been a little too gentle washing there out of habit due to the previous nerve pain I was having back there earlier. Now that the nerve pain is 99% gone, I really should be scrubbing like I was previous to the HT. I appreciate how uneventful my experience has been so far. Like I said previously, no one has any idea about the HT and I've been living my normal life since day 7. I see so many people posting about their regrets about a HT they just had and they feel they have to hide in their house forever. I feel really fortunate that I don't have to deal with that. 

You look good with a buzzed/shaved head like this. I would say keep it like this. You won't need to worry about doing all the dermarolling, min, fin, and ketocanzole shampoo anymore. Bald can indeed be beautiful. 

What did the doctor himself recommend as a wait time? 

I think his hair looks good, it's a great result I think. 

Can you provide a picture of the shock loss area before you were shaved for the procedure so we can compare? 

It's been 32 days since my HT and things are going very well. For about 2-3 weeks, I was having a lot of tingling/itching nerve pain in the donor area and it's apparently due to nerves that were severed duing the surgery, but they heal over time based on what I've read on this forum. That tingling/itching pain is now almost completely gone at this point. Right now, I'm pretty much just living my normal life, but honestly, I've been living my normal life since day 7. No one has even a clue that I had a hair transplant since I let my hair stay long for a few months beforehand and it's covering the area. A lot of the hairs are shedding out and redness still present. The native hairs that were shaved off are growing back. You can't even really notice anything in the donor area, and these pictures were under the harsh bathroom lights. No ugly duckling phase for me at all. 

14 hours ago, Jared said:

Which one would you choose and why?

It depends on each individual. There is no one size fits all answer. There are pros and cons to each and depending on the type of hair loss and the type of hair you have, one may be better than the other. 

7 minutes ago, dtap said:

Do you know if Clomid which is a medication to improve testosterone levels can also cause hair loss?

I have no idea, but I think the general belief is that any medication that increases testosterone would have some of it converted to DHT. A crude google search says that clomid is used to treat female infertility by acting like an estrogen hormone. It seems raising testosterone might be an off label use if used for that. 

On 2/17/2022 at 7:11 PM, Rafyht said:

When can I go back to the gym after a ht generally ? It’s been 22 days so far

I think most people say after day 10 for an FUE is fine, though the caveat is usually prioritize what your surgeon says. My surgeon has his patients go back to my normal life on day 7 after fue, including heavy weightlifting.

They nailed it!

On 2/15/2022 at 3:19 AM, Mike10 said:

Even though you are still young, I would you say generally make for a decent candidat for HT. 

Thanks! But whether I'm a good or not candidate for a HT is kind of water under the bridge at this point 😆

4 minutes ago, TheGreatPretender said:

I believe DHI is when the surgeon makes the extraction and the implantation, in FUE techs may get involved with at least one out of the two. Please correct me if I am wrong but this is my understanding. 

But yeah, I would guess that it would still be a waste to just dump the transected folicle instead of trying to put somewhere were they might see use for it. I mean, good clinics are supposed to try and maximize the results of a transplant so placing a few folicles in places where it might fit would only make sense. 

So in regards to DHI vs FUE, whether the surgeon or tech extracts has nothing to do with it. Here's a video explaining the difference. 

Also, I don't want you to misunderstand. If a follicle is not good, like it was completely transected (which means that the hair bulb was completely cut during extraction), then they should NOT be putting that in and should be discarding it. I think you may have a misunderstanding of some of the terminology. Transection is NOT a good thing, and there is a spectrum on how bad the transection is. A good clinic can make a judgement whether the hair is a good graft to put in or not a good graft and should be discarded. A bad clinic will put all the grafts in, regardless of whether they are good are not. Keep doing research and through the forums as I am sure most of your questions have been answered in one way or another. 

I am a little confused on your usage of DHI vs FUE. My understanding is that the extraction is no different in either technique, the difference is how they implant grafts in the recipeient site. 

With that being said, after a graft is implanted, a good clinic will have microscopes they use to assist them dissect the grafts and it is under the microscope they can see if the graft still has a good root bulb or its just a hair shaft in their. Bad clinics can't tell the different and they just insert their rootless hairs in the recipient area that obviously don't grow. I know that sometimes there might be damage to the root and I would imagine they would at least just put it in on a less critical area (like the crown) to at least have a chance to grow. But that's just me guessing. 

12 minutes ago, Mike10 said:

I like the approach taken to do a small procedure. Can you give more specifics though, how old are you now and are you on any hair loss prevention therapy?

I'm in my 30s and I've been on 1.25mg finasteride daily for over a year and intend on taking for the foreseeable future

Just came back from the first haircut after HT. Because we know work has been done, you can kind of notice, but really, you can barely even tell anything was done Post-op Day 7! This is a #1 guard btw. 

3 minutes ago, SadMan2021 said:

Can you explain Dr. Lindsey's thought process in determining 850 grafts? Even for a Norwood 2 that seems like a low amount. 

I don't know his thought process exactly, but I think it's pretty simple. We did a very small procedure, we didn't lower the hairline at all, so not very many grafts are needed. Not all people with the same Norwood want the same amount of work done. You can see the plan that was made and the area filled in, there were already a lot of native hairs in the area that were shaved off so donor hairs can be put in the same area. 

This thread will be documenting the growth of my FUE with Dr. William Lindsey. Let me know what you guys think of the work and feel free to ask any questions. Really excited to see how this grows. You can find more details about the procedure experience in an earlier thread. 

Before Pictures

Mid-Procedure

Post-Procedure

7-day post op

2 hours ago, Viney said:

If you are having doubts then I would keep saving until you can pick a doctor where you have confidence.

At least you're wise enough to not get one here in Aus so you're already headed in the right direction. 

I don't mean to derail the thread, but I wonder how good the Australian doctors are on the youtube channel "The Hair Loss Show." I think they give really solid information and were a great help to me at beginning of my hair loss journey, but I know they are not on the recommened list here.