John1991

If - as I suspect based on the pictures - all the grafts are placed in the thinning region and the final outcome will not be a lowering of the hairline so much as a vast improvement in the existing one, I think this will be good. I will say this is one of those things where your hair texture makes it quite different to judge than non-black transplants. Hope it turns out well. I found the position of my head for the placement of the grafts to be very uncomfortable - to the point where I had to take a couple of 5-10 minute breaks during my transplant. And my entire procedure was only 6 hours total for 2600+ grafts. I can only imagine how exhausting that 10 hours must've been notwithstanding you probably didn't have neck discomfort.

Two things: 1. There is no way that is only 1500 grafts. 2. There is no way you can expect anything like a final result at 3-4 months. At best the ugly duckling stage is starting to lessen at 3 months, and noticeable growth is occurring at 4.

Wish I could speak from experience, but I'm earlier on in the process than you are. That said, from everything I've gathered, you really shouldn't expect growth yet.

Four points to make: 1. If this grows decently, you will surely look meaningfully better afterwards than you did before. The density looked good. Maybe even very good. 2. That doesn't mean you don't have a legitimate gripe about the temple points being too aggressive. I personally think they look better/completely acceptable straight on, but less so from the profile view. That said, realistically a million different hairlines occur in nature and it's unlikely they will draw much or any attention from people in actual life or negatively impact your appearance to the point where your life would be better if they were better. 3. The cost and recovery for these procedures (even if money is no issue for you, time most certainly is) is such that I wouldn't try to get scheduled for another unless the result truly sucks for you. I would personally wait and see how it ends ups. If it just grows decently I don't think another procedure will actually be worth your time - and another procedure could potentially be less than ideal or use up what littler donor you have just to further lower your hairline to match the temples. That's not ideal. And, again, "matching" your temples almost surely will be pointless because there really is huge hairline variability in nature such that I don't think this will look unnatural. 4. Speaking broadly, I think most people, perhaps even the overwhelming majority of people, should not focus on temple points. Perhaps minor corner closure when having one's hairline lowered is desirable, but full on recreation of temple points seems to be both a) hard to get correct and b) not particularly likely to age well if more loss occurs (and a waste of grafts if further loss occurs).

Hope this turns out great for you! I found it odd that you had an Australian accent as I always just assume a neutral, midwestern American accent unless I check the profile and see a different locale.

You can wear a normal hat that touches the grafts starting 10-14 days post operatively. Unless you're wearing a hat that's tight enough to dislodge grafts (which you'd notice), there's nothing magically awful about a hat that will hurt the grafts or impact the success of the surgery. The issue with a hat early on is that it can potentially cause friction when you put it on, take it off, or if it's too tight and so should be avoided to lessen the chance of accidentally dislodging grafts. You're well in the clear at 4 weeks post-op and have nothing to worry about. In fact, if you're going to be in the sun, it's pretty much necessary that you do wear a hat. At the stage you're at, the only potentially damaging things you can really do are seriously wound your head, smoke (and it probably wouldn't hurt much to smoke an occasional cigarette), or get a sunburn in the recipient area.

That plus each person heals differently and each procedure isn't likely to produce equal amounts of scabbing. The denser the grafts are placed the more scabbing will occur, the longer they take to go away, and the redder the area underneath is after they go away. In the front of my hairline I had a few scabs that lasted until about the 3 week mark or so. Ultimately I think gently massaging in the shower after a week is fine and then after 9-10 days or so being more aggressive with the massaging is OK. Like Rahal said, don't use your fingernails.

My opinion is that they should've quoted 3000+ grafts (give or take) for the frontal third and then filled in the crown after allocating the grafts in a way that would better frame your face. For the number of grafts they used and the area they placed them in, this isn't bad, but it's their job to appropriately assess the number of grafts you need to have a more cosmetically significant result in the first place (without another procedure). I would second what J.A.C. says and advise you not to go back to this clinic.

How many grafts in this most recent procedure? Did the first (not pictured one) look much less dense post op than the more recent one that you showed us?

For 3500 grafts this is particularly good. Are you from Quebec?

First off, you look good. Second, I think the rotation of techs is pretty standard. I'd rather have that than have one tech stand there and get exhausted mid-way through the procedure.

It's normal for it to happen, but it doesn't always happen. It seems common sensical that the stronger the hair in question, the less likely it is to experience "shock" loss. I'm not sure if that's actually the case, though. Other than how densely packed the grafts around the native hair are placed, it may be somewhat random.

You'll probably have that happen occasionally for a few more weeks. Remember, you essentially just had your scalp annihilated. This stuff is normal.

This looks very, very good. The more results I see, the more I'm convinced that hair quality is as important as anything else.

"I'm not interested in having repeat procedures over the years, and I'm not just being naïve...I have thought about that for a long while and decided I want to repair this as much as possible in one go (or at most two) and then be done with it." As someone who's 39 days post operation, I have to say this statement hits home. I get that some cases are more difficult (yours perhaps being such a case), but the recovery for this procedure is shi*. You, at bare minimum, end up looking worse/weird/having to explain what happened for months, you have to take time off of work, spend thousands of dollars, then wait half a year to see good (though not even final) results. And/or are relegated to hat-dom for months. I'm not saying it's the worst thing in the world, but if you can cut down on the number of procedures you undergo, by all means do so. Life is too short to spend months at a time waiting to live - and feel - normal again for an elective procedure

It's wise to avoid using one at all until around 7-10 days post-op. That said, a loose-fitting one shouldn't be much of an issue even several days post op. Nothing tight for two full weeks.

It's funny how directions seem to differ clinic to clinic. I was told no alcohol for a full 2 weeks prior, but only to avoid caffeine the morning of the procedure. Also included in my instructions was not to engage in any strenuous exercise for a week prior and no smoking for 2 weeks prior. I have no idea why they would recommend discontinuation of finasteride prior to surgery - that's the first I've ever heard of that. Anyway, you look to be healing fine and the work looked dense enough that you should be looking good in several months time.

Working your legs doesn't boost T in anything like the way TRT will, though. Or in a way that will lead to more muscle gains when other areas of the body are trained.

"I've never even known what it's like to have a full head of thick hair as an adult..." That's rough, man. Obviously there are actual diseases and what not that are far more serious than something like hair loss, but I empathize with your situation. I really hope you end up getting results similar to some of the good ones I've seen in NW 5/6 cases that went to Eugenix. I hope there will come a day when some super dutasteride w/out the sides comes into existence.

Cosmetically, the FUT procedure is a quicker "recovery" because of no visual change to the donor area (if your hair isn't short). What particular part of the recovery is most important to you? If you want to be physically active quickest, FUE is best. A few extra weeks out of the gym shouldn't sway you to doing FUE if you think FUT is a better procedure results-wise, though. As far as the "if you can't eat it, don't put it on your skin" line, respectfully, that makes very little sense. What about sunscreen? Or moisturizer? Or chapstick? Or shampoos other than Nizoral? It's a shampoo - I'd imagine you already use shampoo for your hair, what difference does using a kind that might actually help thicken your hair make? It simply doesn't seem logical to being willing to undergo a surgical procedure, but not use a different type of shampoo or apply a foam to your hair.

Fair enough, but there are things outside of Fin that you can do to try to preserve your hair (minimally) or at least thicken what you have. Such as nizoral and minoxidil. If you care enough to consider an extensive transplant, I'd imagine those two things would be worth your while. Also, to avoid potential side effects from fin (because it seems unlikely the actual taking of the pill is the real issue), you could try taking it twice a week... That would at least prevent loss to some degree and reduce chances of side effects. As far as which procedure is preferable, it depends upon whether you want one (likely) small scar that prevents you from cutting your hair very short, or whether you want thousands of miniature scars that allow you (generally) to keep your hair shorter than the one, long scar. Even with a less than ideal FUT scar, you'll be able to wear your hair reasonably short, just not very, very short. Some think graft quality and yield rate are higher for FUT, though many here will say otherwise and very few are disinterested (on either side), but I don't think it's crazy to suggest that starting with FUT gives you a greater quantity of lifetime grafts. The duration of your recovery will be longer with FUT, but the immediate noticeability of the transplant will be greater with FUE. And even with FUT, the increased tension in your scalp that results from the removal of the strip should recede around 3-4 weeks after the procedure. Numbness can last several months more (generally to a significantly smaller degree than you'll find immediately post-op), but FUE isn't without donor numbness or discomfort either.

I'd be interested to see how this turns out. I live in the area.

"... I really wish I had just bit the bullet and flown somewhere rather than try to stay local w/ Diep." OP It was the traveling that was the issue here. I was just including point one because I think those two things are the primary reasons people end up going to doctors that, quite frankly, either aren't top notch or aren't actually who the patient would like to go to.

The downside of the scabs lasting longer than you'd like is that it's unsightly, but the downside of the scabs being ripped off or dislodged too early is that you could lose grafts doing so. By about days 7-8, there absolutely should be no problem with lightly rubbing shampoo into the area. After a couple of days of that, you'll likely find the scabs coming off naturally (without even noticing it as they do - no blood, pain, etc.). Around day 9-12, rubbing more vigorously is fine, just don't pick the scabs or use your fingernails while massaging the shampoo into your hair. The time frames you hear about scabbing (and everything else) aren't hard and fast. Scabbing is dependent not only on your individual physiology, but on how densely packed the grafts were. For instance, 3000 grafts packed densely into the hairline only will almost certainly cause more scabbing than will that number of grafts placed over a much larger area. Separately, it is a bit hard to judge what we're seeing without a photo of you before the procedure to see what your level of loss is. That helps assess whether the graft placement was dense enough. That said, there doesn't appear to be anything remotely approaching infection or anything problematic, so it seems you have nothing to worry about.

Just looks too weird. I decided I'd either continue with the leftie hair part (how I've worn my hair forever) or wear a hat. Slicking the hair back to keep it off the recipient area then throwing on a hat never quite works - the hair always reverts back to the leftie part. I've found a middle part keeps the hair off the recipient area best, then I just throw a hat on. It's definitely convenient that probably half the dudes at my work places wear hats - in an office setting this would be a nightmare. Have you been a hat guy after your transplants?