THE TRUTH

There has been a significant improvement between month 3 and month 4. This is how most sucessful hair transplants grow in. Koniors, Bisanga, Couto etc... Early and rapid growth happening between month 3 and month 5. I am 99% confident this is going to be a great result based on your 4 months picture. Pitella's work is really impressive.

You have genetic DHT-caused diffuse thinning from Androgenic Alopecia. Yes what you have is Male Pattern Baldness at its very early stages. Consult a good doctor and start Finasteride immediately please. That will save you tens of thousands of dollars of hair transplants down the road... Time is off the essence when it comes to fighting the evolutionnary curse in permanent Male Pattern Baldness.

Looks good m8 Definitely a big change compared to before. 👍

Nice progress so far. The fact that you were completely bald on that area before makes a drastic change. To be completely honest, I would expect a little bit more density at this stage though. I believe it will still thicken up. 🙏 Rolandas had some visible improvements even until month 7-8. All the best

We would need to see some pictures please. Are you on medication ? It is strongly recommended at least 6 months prior to any hair transplant surgery. Diffuse thinning can be very tricky because A. It's often a very large area to treat thus it requires a lot more grafts than you think. B. Low survival and poor yield often happens. Existing miniaturized hairs can be damaged and in some cases they can be permanently lost. There are not many good surgeons able to perform sucessful procedures on diffuse thinners in that specific price range.... Depending on the number of grafts you need, with 12k you may be able to afford Bruno Pinto, Bruno Ferreira, Ximena Vila, Rafael de Freitas. I've seen really good and consistent work from them on diffuse thinners. But if you are already Norwood 4-5 with severe diffuse thinning then you will pronbably have to save more money. The Belgian surgeons (Mwamba, Bisanga, Feriduni) as well as the top US surgeons will probably be out of your budget. Bicer is good too at 2€ per graft but I haven't seen much from her on diffuse thinners specifically and she is not at the level of the previously mentionned surgeons. Dr. Gur has built up a good reputation recently. Other than that, I wouldn't recommened Turkey at all for diffuse thinners. They are terrible and have extremely poor yield. I've seen cases where patients end up actually worse than before surgery because they try to implant too many hairs in between native hairs.... Be careful.

At one month you certainly didn't damage the grafts. Nothing to be worried about. 👍 However, this doesn't mean your grafts survived. Grafts dislodging and graft survival are 2 differents things... You never know and you won't find out till the 6-month mark.

DHI is overhyped in my honest opinion. It is often used for marketing by turkish hairmills. It is simply a subtype of FUE and speaking from years of researching, I don't believe it's superior to classic FUE.

All I have to tell you is this brother: Please stay away from all the clinics you mentionned. Your hairloss is serious. It's a Norwood 5 diffusely thinning pattern. You will need at least 2 (and more realistically 3) sucessful surgeries with optimal survival rate to recover a decent head of hair... Don't rush into surgery. Take your time. Do your research. You get what you pay for.... Recovering a Norwood 5 is an ultramarathon. Look at DavidDiMuzio or Mister Rolandas....Their cases highlight what it takes to recover Norwood 5 hairloss. GET ON DUTASTERIDE immediately please. Add some oral minoxidil too. Make sure your hairloss doesn't get any worse. I remember a poor pakistani guy from the UK who had very similar hairloss to yours and who got a terrible result from ASMED. It ruined his life and he was desperately complaining on forums for years...And so many others too. VERA and Smile clinic are hairmills. Certainly not the worst although they have mixed reviews... It's a gamble. Could be a great result but could be a bad one too with damaged donor. It's lottery. Don't be fooled by the youtuber Amir who got a good result from them. His result on the hairline is good but when you take a closer look it is still seethrough whereas on the crown it isn't that impressive...He got a free transplant or a significant discount to advertise VERA. When youtubers do that, they are generally given the most experienced team of technicians. Not all technicians are equal in hairmills... Look at Emrah Cinik or Serkan Aygin for example. Some of their results are phenomenal. Some are disasters with permanently overharvested donor area. AHD and Ahmed Altan I don't know them brother to be honest. I assume they are hairmills too and I wouldn't risk it. All the clinics you mentionned are a gamble. It could be a great result but it could be a disaster with irreversible lifelong consequences. You have only one donor area and the main issue is that you have already significant hairloss already. For your particular case, I would suggest you look into Bruno Pinto, Bruno Ferreira, Rafael De Freitas, Christian Bisanga, Ximena Vila or even Dr. Zarev. Waiting lists are long but well worth it. Getting a bad hair transplant can ruin your possibilities forever. Impossible to regenerate wasted grafts. Only clinics I would ever consider in Turkey are Kaan Pekiner, Bicer, Dr. Gur, Dr. Tuan and perhaps Dr. Demirsoy although they all have some questionable results too and they are not the best at treating advanced patterns....

Good news is you don't have much hairloss at all mate ! And you caught it early with Dutasteride. That is the most encouraging part. Your hairloss isn't very agressive to be honest. You have still perfect density on the midscalp and crown. Chances are it'll stay the same for many years possibly decades if you stay on Fina/Duta. You are currently Norwood 2 (not even a Norwood 3 yet) so it's just a matter of doing a ton of research, finding the right surgeon and getting it done. As for RU, kaneshop or anageninc are generally where Kevin Mann and Derek get their RU. So I assume these are the most reliable sources...But again some claim it has a poor molecular stability etc...Give it a try if you want. But like I said, it is just a complementary treatment to oral Dutasteride. Certainly not a long term substitute. Maybe fluridil (topilutamide) is a slightly better option. Good luck

You are literally the incarnation of the Androgen Paradox. DHT is the biggest evolutionnary non sense ever in the history of man kind. Why the bloody heck on earth does it make us lose hair in such a stupid pattern on top of the scalp while at the same time stimulating body hair growth ?...... Your have extremely agressive hair miniaturization and you hair follicles seem to have high genetic sensitivity to DHT. Finasteride isn't gonna do much....I'm quite skeptical even about Dutasteride to be honest....Maybe slow down donor thinning at best... You would need some crazy hormonal pharmacogical intervention like introducing Estrogen and some hardcore oral anti androgens, which of course isn't an option for you... Getting a beard + body hair transplant is the only option to increase scalp coverage to some extent but beware it won't look nearly as dense as scalp hair. All the best 🙏

Epstein is a legit. From what I've seen he does good work. He's been around for a very long time. He's the doc who trained Gary Linkov.

MorePlatesMoreDates and Haircafé have discussed RU58841 in depth. It's a bit overhyped honestly. Just like any other oral or topical anti androgen, it won't grow hairs out of nowhere. But it's a good adjunct treatment if you are on on oral 5AR inhibitor in the first place. It can wipe out some remaining androgens in the hair follicles and sometimes thicken up some existing hairs that are miniaturized. Dutasteride + RU58841 + oral minoxidil is probably the strongest stack for hair maintenance that a man can use without risking feminizing sides. I believe its efficacy is comparable to topical Finasteride/Dutasteride. It's very inconvienient to prepare and mix, you never know what you could be getting from those shady websites that sell it. Like I always, they can sell plain flour instead of RU. You never know....

If you feel like you are still miniaturizing on Finasteride then yes I would personally switch straight to Dutasteride 0.5mg daily. Don't wait and don't overthink it. 👍 Chance are you will not notice any difference compared to Finasteride in terms of shedding/hair thickness and hopefully it'll halt further miniaturization since it inhibits more DHT in the hair follicles. I've used 2.5mg of Dutasteride orally for 6 months or so. Didn't make any difference compared to just Proscar 1.25mg daily...No sides, no regrowth, no difference in regards to shedding...Nothing it's all internet talk. All you can do is hope your hair will not continue to thin on these drugs and track the progression with a legit hairloss specialist (microscope examination every year). Shedding cannot be stopped. Even people with very minimal endogenous androgen production such as castrates or transgender men shed hairs on a daily basis... Hairs go through cycles and you cannot keep them in the anagen phase permanently. Not even with oral minoxidil. Hope this clarifies things for you. All the best 🙏

I agree. It's a decent result but slightly subpar because of the 2 reasons I explained (thin donor hair + suboptimal survival rate).

Topical minoxidil is crap. Forget about it. Even when combined with dermarolling and tretinoin to increase sulfotransferase expression blah blah blah..... If you want to get serious you need to consult a very good HT surgeon or a trichologist and discuss oral minoxidil. If you have no history of cardiovascular disease then it is definitely a good option. 2.5mg to 5mg daily depending on your bodyweight will be prescribed. That said, don't expect miracles because I can tell you your crown is already too far gone for medication to regrow it completely. An extremely agressive male to female transgender HRT protocol may reverse it to some degree but since this is not a viable option, you will most likely need 2 surgeries for the crown. Also oral minoxidil will not stop hairloss long term since it only prolongs the anagen phase by stimulating the dermal papilla cells proliferation via K+ potassium channel but without tackling the undelying rootcause of the problem which is DHT. Therefore, getting on Finasteride/Dutasteride immediately is an absolute necessity. You don't want your crown baldness to expand otherwise no matter how many grafts you transplant on it, it will always look thin. Don't rush into surgery. Take your time. Do your due diligence.

Zarev seems to be the best in the world for high Norwoods. Pitella and Hattingen are pretty close too. Eugenix has some worldclass results but also some botched jobs on easy cases. And Zarev's results on high Norwoods seem denser than Eugenix's.

It's a decent result considering your Norwood 6 starting point. It's a visible improvement compared to baseline. I agree your hair isn't too thick though...And that is perhaps one of the main limitations in your case. It's more on the thinner side of the spectrum but still I would expect a bit more coverage from 3800 grafts... That said, we cannot expect miracles on a Norwood 6. I know Dr. Bicer, she is nice and seems to care about patients but just as Dr. Keser, HLC or Pekiner I've never seen impressive "miracle" type results from them on advanced Norwoods. Have you seen Dr. Zarev's and Dr. Pitella's FUE work on higher Norwoods ? Definitely worth exploring. Hattingen also has some crazy transformations on Norwood 6 with FUT but you would have you have lower yield with FUT now since u already had FUE. Last thing, you mentionned in the beginning of the thread that you starting shedding hairs as early as 8 days after surgery and by the 14th day most of your transplanted hairs had fallen out. This sounds a bit too early honestly...Some grafts may have not made it and might be this is one of the reasons why the yield/survival rate from your surgery with Dr. Bicer seems slightly below average. But this is purely speculation on my part.

Wow your growth seems very fast. Looks already incredible and way above average for 3.5 months ! Very optimistic and promising.

How about this ?

Check out Derek's video.

He's been losing hair on the crown for a very long time. You guys didn't notice it but he had this bald patch on the crown already during his match against Khabib. Go back to the footage showing the post match brawl following Khabib's victory. You can see in one video from the top that his crown was already thinning pretty bad. He's not on finasteride and his 1st hair transplant done last year is neither dense-looking nor 100% natural.... You can be a celebrity millionaire and still have bad hair transplants and poor approach to dealing with hairloss... Look at Lebron James, Rafael Nadal, Wayne Rooney, Joe Rogan....

Where did u get yours ? Sure. There may be some decent options that are cheaper with shorter waiting lists. Not many though as you know...

Yes you should. At least for Dutasteride since this is your foundation. You should use brand name Avodart. For minoxidil, liquid generic minoxidil 5% in India is fine. Rogaine is way too expensive. That said, they won't make any difference to the outcome of the transplant. At best minoxidil might speed up a little bit the regrowth.

Hello Sorry to hear abour your experience. I don't wanna sound pessimistic or jump to early conclusions but like you said yourself things aren't looking great for 6.5 months. There is still room for some improvement but I wouldn't expect miracles at this stage. Try to stay optimistic and Insha-Allah it will improve until the 8-10 month mark. 🙏 To answer your question more specifically, there are many different reasons for poor survival. The 2 most frequent are -Poor extracting skills. This often happens in turkish hairmills when uneducated technicians "transect" the grafts during extraction. Those grafts generally do not survive. -Poor handling of the grafts. Crushing the grafts during handling, letting them dry out while on the gloves, spending too much time outside the scalp etc... There are also some very rare conditions that can cause poor growth like scarring alopecia, lichen planopilaris, scalp infection or weak donor area affected by DHT-caused DUPA. In your case the 2 first are more likely. Where did you get your procedure done ?

And I think you need to be objective and realistic. I have made a detailed post the other day about this particular topic. Check it out.