John1991

I would do neither and keep it as is. If I were to do anything, I'd just further improve the density of the hairline you already have - though that's also not necessary. There is absolutely no way to justify altering this design, and, again, I don't think it needs a density improvement, but at least if that were the goal you could essentially guarantee an improvement whereas lowering you always risk the lowering not being dense enough. And, if I were forced at gunpoint to pick between the red and blue lines you drew, I would 1000% pick a slightly more conservative variant of the blue line. The red one is too boxed in and looks like some hair mill design that a severely balding 20 year old would dream up. Perfectly symmetrical hairlines don't look natural in most circumstances and certainly would look worse than what you have.

I bet in another month the difference will be even greater than it was this past month. In two you'll be most of the way there so hang on.

Have you at least tried Niz to see if it'll thicken you any? Niz and Rogaine might do a good deal to help your situation. Honestly, your pictures are way less bad than I was expecting based on your description in your first post - not that that's any consolation.

I'm not one to simp for finasteride or deny its side effects given what it's done to me, but those stats listed are ridiculous. I think the transplant will turn out great.

I think this looks very good.

I think it's possible for transplanted hair to thicken even as it transitions from wiry to straight/fine. That seems to be the overwhelming sentiment, though I ask because I have read a few people note that their hair got thinner as it matured (which seems counterintuitive because even though fine hair is thinner, the coarse hair early on is thinner than the rest of my fine hair, so that it would end up thinner still makes no sense). As for the growth process, I think it varies. For faster growers, It seems the overwhelming bulk of the improvement is seen at about the 6 month mark. I'm at the 5 month mark come Sunday and would be shocked if I saw significant improvement past about a month from now. It certainly seems that probably 90% or more of my progress will likely be achieved by the seven month mark at this rate.

Virtually everything I read states that transplanted hair will gradually thicken and naturalize over time. It starts off wiry/kinkyish and then over time naturalizes to be like the rest of your hair. For someone with fine/soft hair, wouldn't this part of the naturalization process actually lead to the hairs becoming thinner as opposed to thicker? Thus the density overall would be worse as time progressed? It seems based on progression pictures that even fine haired patients improve with time, so that leads me to think the hair does thicken. Is it possible for the hair to both naturalize and thicken for someone with fine/soft hair? I'm not talking about super thin fine hair, but fine/soft hair that's of average caliber thickness-wise. Thanks in advance for any response.

Ok then, so we can safely say that 80%+ of native density yields exceptional results. I would guess that around 65% would yield good results, while 50% wouldn't really make the grade. It's good that you had yours packed extra dense, as your native hair was exceptionally dense. Do you have SE Asian or Amerindian ancestry? Based off the density and color of your hair, I'd guess that (though could be wrong). My guess is for the average white dude with standard "good" hair, around 50 fu/cm^2 would probably do the job. Not so for you.

Great transformation and great accent!

You and I were in somewhat similar situation in terms of hairline height (though I had a bit less temporal recession) and I got a transplant - though I waited an extra 3 years. I honestly don't think it's going to make a huge difference for you if you do get a transplant, but it could definitely be a marginal improvement to your appearance. It's probably the most significant appearance improvement you could make outside of juicing yourself to the moon. You'd hopefully end up slightly better off, but if it goes wrong you could be worse off. And you'd spend probably the better part of 6 months just waiting to live normally again - if not longer. And you'll end up spending 10k+. Obviously you care enough to post on a site like this, so that's a good (actually bad) start, I suppose. It means you care a lot. Honestly, if all of the above sounds like it's worth the trouble for a marginally lower and better hairline, then, yes, you "should" get a transplant. Here’s a few of me prior just for reference.

It wouldn’t be as good, but it might still pass the test as “good”. And you apparently have a far denser than average hairline to begin with if it actually was 90 fu/cm^2. That’s way denser than the average hairline. And I don’t think it would’ve looked good enough at 45 fu/cm^2, which would’ve been half as dense as your hairline supposedly was to begin with. Thus going against the 50% of native density being good enough notion we hear so much.

Right, that's my point.

Does the average male without hair loss have a hairline that is the density of 90 follicular units per cm2, though? It seems this question is constantly getting jumbled up. The relevant question isn't whether you can achieve the same density as your donor in whatever other area of the scalp you're transplanting to, but how close to whatever density pre-hair loss you can achieve. Or, perhaps more relevant, how dense the area of loss currently is - as ultimately improvement is the first goal of hair transplantation, perfection is just a hope. Or, perhaps most relevant, what % of density in the area is actually necessary to achieve enough density that the transplanted area looks dense enough to the naked eye to not be noticeably worse? I doubt 50% actually does the trick. FUE3361 claims his native hairline was 90 fu/cm^2, which means he achieved 75-85% of his native density and his result is as good as is possible. Perhaps his result would've been similarly good if he achieved merely 2/3 density at around 60 fu/cm^2, but I'm guessing 45 fu/cm^2 (which would've been 50%) wouldn't have made the grade visually even to the naked eye.

"At least three of the best doctors (Konior, Shapiro, Josephitius) in the world (both who do FUT and FUE, so no ulterior motive) have agreed that FUTwill yield more than 2,000 to 3,000 more hair grafts in a lifetime if you max out a strip first. For most people who are stabilised on medication at a lower Norwood (no higher than Norwood 4), those extra grafts probably aren't needed needed, especially if they have an normal donor or beard hair to use." Z If this is true - and I have no reason to believe it's not - then any person like OP in there early/mid 20s, who, by definition, can't know how much loss they will have, should start with FUT. Pretty much period. End of story. Everything around hair transplants - and life in general - is about playing the most favorable odds. You come on this forum to find a quality surgeon so the odds are in your favor that you have a good procedure. Why wouldn't you also then play the odds of 2-3 thousand extra grafts on the chance that you lose more hair than you're expecting to lose? This is of course excluding those who truly can't have a strip taken due to scalp laxity issues.

I don't see much of an issue with the graft angles personally. I think the issue with the first procedure was just a pure lack of density - as you rightly recognized from the start. You weren't crazy and you weren't wrong - though perhaps you responded less well than would be ideal, it's understandable very soon post-op how frustrating it would be to know that the transplant wasn't going to "work" even if every graft grew. I think it'd easier to see how this touch up will turn out if your head was shaved in the front, but being able to tell means nothing - how it looks in the final analysis is everything. Bottom line, you had roughly 2700 grafts placed in pretty much exclusively the frontal hairline, you have a chance for success here - that's pretty on par with most good results. Lets take the negative view and say you have finer hair than most. OK, well 2700 grafts is actually more than most frontal hairline restoration results require, so that could certainly account for the finer hair caliber.

This guy seems shockingly not tuned into how hair transplants work. Really seems like he did this on a whim. Shouldn't he of all people have started with strip given his extensive loss? Any thoughts?

Lots of growth for the 3 month mark bro. Things look very promising.

One thing you might try is to send one privately then when you click “other media” you can “insert existing attachment”.

Why aren’t pictures able to be uploaded easily now? That makes the forum useless

You're a good candidate. Whatever you choose, I'm sure you'll be a prince either way. And, yes, I know your name isn't Machiavelli, but it's damn close!

I'd be interested to see what the pre and post-op of your Diep procedure looked like. I wish you'd avoided Huebner, he and his clinic are beyond garbage. They're decades out of date in the way they perform hair transplantation and there results are a) not transparent and b) when they are transparent, they're awful.

Pulling your hair back and looking at it up close makes any hairline that isn’t Reaganesque look the way yours does. How does it look in harsher light, but styled normally? That’s the real test.

Go elsewhere.

His site doesn't seem to have enough quality before/afters for my liking. Nor are they as transparent as one would wish.

There is a scar. It may not matter, but it's there. I got FUT and I think my scar is healing well, but to pretend it's not there seems absurd. Without pictures, your word is worth nothing here.