John1991

Thanks guys. Happy thanksgiving to all those that celebrate it. I can honestly say I'm very satisfied with how this has gone and it's great to just put some (OK, maybe more than just "some") pomade in and be able to pull of the slick/parted look well. The transplanted hair is about an inch shorter than the rest, but getting there. I actually think these pictures below do a better job illustrating how good it can look. I'll upload more around New Year's if there is any change. It's actually this message board that led me away from a doc that I'm pretty sure would've delivered a meaningfully worse result, and for that I'm very thankful.

It’s too zoomed in for me to really give an assessment, but even in those conditions doesn’t look bad.

Thanks man. Things are slowly getting a little easier to style, hopefully over the next couple months the hair continues to improve texture-wise. Lately, I've been using a water-based Goon Grease and it's been holding things together very well. The first pic is right after being outside in serious wind, and even then it wasn't too messy.

Looking good, man. Give it more time and it'll just keep getting better.

There Is no possible way anyone can know how your loss will progress or how much fin would prevent it from progressing. It will give you the best (outside of DUT, which Is even stronger) chance of keeping as much hair as possible for as long as possible, though. You apparently have a pretty low donor graft availability at your disposal. And you've already invested much time and money to try to make your hair as good as possible. The choice is yours. I wish these types of threads would be banned because there is no possible way any grown adult can actually expect the fundamental question you're asking to be able to be answered.

There isn't too much more to know other than that they're an atrocious clinic whom you should never deal with again. It doesn't appear that this was one of those ridiculous 5-6000 graft over-harvesting sessions the likes of which Asli Tarcan would perform, but given how much ground you need to cover, this definitely puts getting full coverage in jeopardy going forward. @Pbaird98, it would be hard to go "overboard" in criticizing this work. I feel for you, OP. Keep your head up.

Glad to hear it. Hope yours is going well. In a few months you'll just go about your life and not think about it much. The transition from "hair transplant" mode back to normalcy (albeit "normalcy" for a hair obsessed person) is great.

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. For reference. from the glabella to the anterior-most point in the center of my hairline is at or just below 7.5 cm.

Things look normal for this point in the process.

Both the ideal height and the realistically achievable height varies person to person. And "ideal" is also subjective. What's wise is often different than what's ideal or potentially achievable. One should lower as much as possible while also considering the possibility of future loss and understanding the importance of strong density. Some people mistakenly think because they have no or little loss that they won't have any in the future. One of my great grandfathers was a strong NW0/Reaganesque at 40 and by his late 60s when he passed he had lost most of his hair. Another one was also a dense NW0 at 40 and basically stayed that way until he died in his mid 70s. Not sure exactly when his loss occurred and obviously medications weren't available then, but it just goes to show that you never know for sure.

Sounds like a lot of weak thinking from you here now.

My honest take is that you even asking this question to random internet strangers is a pretty bad indicator of your mental state. You’re a grown man. No one on this forum can help you with this type of decision. If your co-workers don’t like that you improved your hair then they can pound sand. The end.

So you don't buy into the Eugenix explanation as a possible answer to this? I don't. Given their explanation, it would seem that the desynchronization phase would impact appearance in a fairly minor way - and only for a couple months - since the anagen phase lasts way longer than either other phase. It wouldn't explain a huge loss in volume that the OP seems to be describing. The notion that you get to the best possible result (all hair growing) only to lose 20% volume and have that 20% reduced volume be the real "final result" - if that's what they're saying and it seems to be - just doesn't pass the basic common sense test. If that were the case loads of people would be describing there results worsening from the 10-12 month mark onwards. Whereas it's pretty universally subscribed to that results only improve as time goes on.

I've never heard anything remotely like that. Not saying you're wrong, but it seems most say things just keep improving or stay the same at that period.

How I'd expect it to at 5 months if things were likely to progress to a good final result.

It seems odd and unlikely that transplanted hair would fall out. It also seems unlikely that your native hair - given that your loss wasn't severe - would start rapidly falling out this quickly. I think to better judge this situation we'd need to see better pre and post op (graft placement) pictures to really get a sense for where the transplanted hair is vs where the native hair is. Just judging from the two pictures you've posted, it would seem the 2,000 grafts hasn't done much and that the current and pre-op pics are nearly identical. That is to say that it doesn't appear you've lost any native hair.

Give it another 2 months and you'll be where you want to be IMO.

Putting aside what has already been a fantastic improvement - and what appears will be even better by summer - the amount of patience you have to go through all this is impressive.

A few doubles isn't a big deal or all that out of the norm. The issue here is density. Hopefully this gets the job done.

Why go for a 2nd pass if the first one looks natural and indistinguishable from the rest of your hair, though? What actual gain do you get? It won't improve your odds with chicks, coworkers won't notice/it won't help your career, at best it will make you feel slightly better when you zoom on pictures in harsh light. That's just not - in a rational worldview - worth thousands of dollars and months of your life recovering. Sure, if the first procedure doesn't give a "good" result, I understand going back to get the job done properly. I know this is a hair transplant centered forum, but it's important that people not be too myopic. Yes, the definition of "good" will vary person to person, but there comes a point where a very marginal improvement isn't rationally justifiable and the whole thing becomes an unhealthy obsession. To be sure, I'm not saying hair doesn't matter. And I'm damn sure not saying looks don't matter. I drove 14 hours, spent $11k, and months of my life recovering from my transplant just to have a slightly better hairline. That's not rational and going back for another 500-600 grafts (for perfection) would be even less rational. At some point, people need to get that the happiness they're searching for isn't going to be found in that minor extra improvement.

You're looking much improved as well.

Seems like an unwise use of money and time if those touchups make no difference in the life of the patient, though. If the purpose of a hair transplant is to a) improve one's hair situation (to help one's overall appearance improve) and b) have the recipient area look indistinguishable from the rest of their hair and look natural then once a and b are accomplished, anything further seems unwise. Especially given that "anything further" (more surgeries) requires thousands of dollars and months of recovery. Hair transplants should be a means to an end, not an obsession in and of themselves to the point where one's only goal is to ensure the most perfect head of hair humanly possible. Just my two cents.

At this point any improvement won't impact my appearance to the extent that it impacts my life in any way. Sure, I won't complain if it gets a little thicker - and it getting to be the same length as the rest will be good - but at the point it's basically all icing on the cake.

I'm 6.5 months post op (so it will still get a bit thicker and texture will improve a bit probably) and comparing my hairline in natural daylight or even bright sunlight from two feet away/selfie range, it looks as dense or denser than my original one, which wasn't bad to begin with. So, at least in some instances, I would say there isn't much illusion going on. I can honestly say it looks completely natural/not see through or weird in any way whatsoever. Or at least not more see through than the average good hairline you see. Mind you these pictures are cropping out the rest of my face and zooming in on only the hairline - something no one does in interactions.

So the guy who plays the race card in a way that would make Al Sharpton proud - Looksmaxx - gets outraged when someone responds to his inane post and claims they are the ones using the "discrimination card." Classic.