GoliGoliGoli

I've been on topical Min and it definitely made my dark circles/eye bags worse. How long were you on it before you noticed yours? I always had some light dark circles under my eyes but topical made them far worse I think. I'm considering stopping and just trying rosemary oil or something and hoping the dark circles go away over time. But searching online it seems like for a lot of people they continieu even after stopping min, so kind of between a rock and a hard place. If I were to go back in time, I probably would never even use Min and just rely on natural stuff and plan for needing numerous HT's.

update?

What is your current topical combo?

What study was this in?

Great post. I would also personally recommend making sure you're getting plenty of carb's too while also not spiking your blood sugar dramatically.

I would be very hesitant to use any of the hairs from those circled areas. I think they are bound to disappear over time (Especially if not on Fin) so I think so any growth you would get from them would be fleeting. Some NW7 guys you see out in the wild have literally no safe donor areas whatsoever by the time they get into their 30s/40s, so I would only harvest from areas that are suspected to be 100% safe. I would also be very careful about overly thinning out the donor if it's not being done by Zarev or someone of his caliber. Frankly you can end up with a very unnatural look if you have splotchy thinning in the donor that almost has a diseased look (I know that's a harsh word but I think it's true). I see what you mean about Tiger Wds but I can almost guarantee that is natural retrograde alopecia and not thinness due to over harvesting.

I'm really confused by the extraction pattern. Why did they take hairs so low from the nape of the neck. I suppose in order to choose soft hairs for the hairline? These generally aren't considered "safe zone" hairs especially because it looks like you have some retrograde alopecia. You should name the clinic.

I think people mean different things when they say "no meds". Do you mean no fin/dut AND no min, or do you just mean no fin/dut?

Update?

You went to one of my favorite Dr's, your result should be excellent. Not that it matters but I'd say you are NW3 not NW2. But the Norwood scale is fairly arbitrary. Either way you won't be Norwood for much longer.

Thanks for posting these. Gur is really doing tremendous work. A lot of people say he's very conservative with hairlines (Which is good since you don't want a funny juvenile hairline at 50) but franly these hairlines look perfect to me.

I think GeneralNorwood would be a good addition to the tribal council. It's important to have someone in this group who had a not so positive experience with the HT industry so that this perspective is considered.

Disagree. This is a starkly below average donor. @Adriam how old are you? You look to be late 20's early 30's. If your donor looks like this now, you have to anticipate what it will look like in 15 years. It might be the case that you simply don't have a "safe" donor at all. So if you got a HT it's possible that a lot of the transplanted hairs would simply miniaturize over time. I hate to say it, but I think your best option is to not get a HT. It isn't worth the money you will spend now, and the money you will have to spend later chasing further loss. It's one thing to be bald, it's another thing to be unnaturally bald with hair at the front that doesn't look natural. As someone else said, you look great with a shaved head so my advice is to not get a HT.

I would be interested in hearing the full 2 hour interview!

Looks great. I think you waited until the perfect time to get a HT in a lot of ways where it should provide some real aesthetic improvement. Do you have any more pictures of your hairline prior to the surgery? Preferably with hair pulled back

Keep in mind raw egg whites have large amounts of Avidan which inhibits biotin absorption. There is an argument about how much of an effect it really has on hair, but out of caution Avidan is not something you want to be consuming large amounts of if you're losing your hair.

What exactly is a dry shampoo? It seems like it is basically a concealer? Looks great though

If by "restrictive diet" you mean low carb, you should know this is not a great thing for your hair.

I think this argument makes a good bit of sense when it comes to Caveman's case where he got good growth given the area covered with no gaps between transplanted and thinning hair. Personally I think it's almost always a better idea for higher NW's to focus on thicker density over a smaller area (the front) as opposed to lesser density over a greater area, and I think clinics should steer patients in that direction. But that's a subjective opinion and personal matter to be decided between patient and Dr. In GeneralNorwood's case I don't think your argument applies though. In his case he also got good yield, but the recipient pattern did not lead to a natural result. Yes some degree of styling is required after any HT to mask lack of natural density, but the recipient pattern itself should never be the issue. Anyways its an interesting argument, I'm out of here to so as to not derail further.

I think everyone agrees you should shave your head prior to surgery to see if you can live with it. But that's a separate discussion from a case where a guy shaves his head, can't live with it, goes through with a HT, and ends up with an unnatural result due to poor planning on the clinics part that forces them into shaving as the best option. I think in both recent cases where Eugenix patients shaved after a HT, it was in order to mitigate the damage done by poor planning on Eugenix's part.

Patient should have never been accepted as a candidate. Bad scalp to hair color contrast, low caliber of hair thickness, history of not tolerating Fin, severely compromised donor with advance NW7 pattern and sever retrograde alopecia, wide head meaning a larger number of grafts needed compared to someone with a smaller head. Eugenix accepts patients that other Dr's who specialize in high NW cases would likely turn away. Even worse, they accepted him for surgery with Dr Das who is not known for handling extreme high NW cases. Seems that they prioritize financial gain over the interest of their patients. Really shameful.

Eugenix is known for uh.... taking almost anyone as a candidate no matter how bad their donor is. I doubt it was a Dr or medical proffesional who examined your photos and gave this estimate.

Also, I went looking for his study that he mentioned at the end of the video (Mainly to see how many patients were enrolled). Total number was 307 which is good, but I found the below statement: "Male patients with androgenetic alopecia that had received OD for at least 12 months were included." This is similiar to the quote from Vano's study on low does Minoxidil which reads "Patients treated with LDOM for ≥3 months for hair loss of any cause were included." Is this saying that in these studies they only enrolled patients who had already been on LDOD and LDOM for 12 aand 3 months respectively. @Melvin- Adminwe discussed the 2nd quote previously in a thread and I remember you got Dr Vano's response for clarification but tbh I was never satisfied with it (I spent a second looking for that thread to link it but couldn't find it). Dr Vano is out there preaching the message that LDOM and LDOD are safe and effective, but the above quotes make it seem like he's only looking at people who have already been using these drugs for extended periods of time which of course skews the results because anyone who gets adverse effects before then isn't considered. Totally possible that I'm misreading what is meant, but I was never satisfied with Dr Vano's answer previously and it would be great to have him clarify what exactly is meant by the two above quotes.

If the study below of 249 patients is accurate, very low dosages of finasteride cause the same amount of scalp DHT reduction as the more "normal" recommended dose of 1 mg or 2.5 mg. Unless dutasteride works different, his recommended dose of 0.5 mg of dutasteride is going to have the same levels of DHT reduction as 5mg. Even 0.05 mg of Fin lowered scalp DHT by large amounts in the study below. Yes he recommends only taking it 2-3 times per week, but as he mentions Dut has a longer half life than Fin so it doesn't stand to reason that these recommendations would signifigantly lessen the potential for side effects. The effects of finasteride on scalp skin and serum androgen levels in men with androgenetic alopecia - PubMed (nih.gov)

Personally, even if you were a super-responder to finasteride I still don't think you're a good candidate