mister_25

If I were in your situation I would;

• Maintain using medication for atleast one full year, and assess if you have any additional balding since then. If you did lose a visible amount you might want to consider other alternatives. If your hair loss was stable then I would say you can go for a Hair Transplant
• Go to a Doctor that does high norwoods very well (Zarev, Eugenix, Pitella are some names to get you started in research) or go to a multi step procedure with some of the best (Pinto, Ferreira, Bisanga are some more names to research)
• Start Oral Minoxidil (2.5mg or 5mg) to maximize donor capabilities for your surgery when the time comes

Your crown is dipping into Norwood 7, this means you have the worst case scenario in sight. But you still have alot of hair that you don't want to lose and can still hold on to. (Your lateral humps are quite high, not Norwood 6 level, and your crown is partway into thinning into a Norwood 6, whilst the Norwood 7 Dip is visible but does still have some hair. If you can save all these areas you can get a massive turnaround at the cost of your entire available donor. Your looking at probably around 7000-9000 grafts, which is also factoring in if medication works well for you. Doesnt look like you have retrograde alopecia which means your donor is probably either average or above average.

In summary, I believe you can get something pretty good (holds up well in harsh conditions such as wet, and harsh lighting. Maybe not as well with both), however to do this you have to have stabilized your hair loss with medication. Its going to be costly on your donor and also on your finances. You also wont get a second chance at that level of balding so you got to do it right the first time.

Regardless if its a real poster or not, to an outsider this thread doesn't make us look good. Straight away to pointing fingers and making us look like a angry mob. Its what the people on reddit have criticized us for with biased surgeon/clinic pushing and biased surgeon/clinic shaming etc. I am not saying I would recommend Dr Diep to anyone but if it is a real poster then its unacceptable for them to be shamed/judged for wanting to share their result that they were excited enough to share with us. It portrays a unwelcoming image to the new visitor. 

@Mohammad A. You look much better than your before photos, I don't think anyone can disagree with that. In my opinion, a small-moderate surgery to refine and soften the hairline would be great and I'm not entirely sure how FUT scar revisions would work or if they are applicable here but if it was a bit smaller it would be almost invisible at a majority of lengths.

41 minutes ago, RTC said:

Hey everyone

Progress has been very mixed

The back looks a 100 times better but could still be improved.

Hairline shape and temples look much more refined and natural.

The top has not grown in.

I'll be going to visit the Doc later this month and will make decisions then.

When you can share photos that would be great, I remember at the 6 month update you were concerned that there would be no futher improvement and im glad to hear that it looks much more natural

when you say "the top" do you mean behind the hairline in the corners?

Here are the crown/midscalp photos as promised, to be honest to me it looks like little to no new growth as of yet which to me is quite concerning, but things may change in a few weeks or months.

Crown:

Top Down Photo: 

Frontal Tilt:

Will be following your journey

Hopefully you have a update for us? You should be around 10 months now and wanted to see if there was any improvements after these months.

I didn’t spray my head at all with saline due to my clinics post op instructions. I’m sure you will be fine.

as for the scabs coming off with hair, it’s normal.

The clinic I had my procedure from told me shock loss can take 3-5 months for it to start to grow back. In my case I had very obvious shock loss by 3 months, it was heavily concealed by 3.5 months, by four months it was invisible unless I tried to expose it and now at 5 months I was fully recovered.

5 month update

A day late for 5 months, not much is happening right now in terms of recovery as I’ve returned to baseline in native hair and generally day to day living. The only thing worth noting is that I’ve been getting a few pimples in the very front of my hairline, which I do not pop because they haven’t developed white or yellow heads. As for growth, it didn’t seem like much happened over this month until I compared to last months photos. Which goes to show that you should always compare to where you were before to where you are now.

I also included a photo showing favourable lighting conditions which is just a photo taken in my second bathroom without the overhead lights.

As for the lack of crown and mid scalp photos, I will post them in about a day or so or in a couple of hours, I just don’t have the time for it. But if I had to sum it up in words, midscalp looks a bit weird due to how much thicker it is compared to the front, in certain angles and lightings a thin part is exposed. Looks somewhat close in terms of density and volume to my baseline photos before surgery. Crown is starting to match baseline again as the miniaturised hair I had before surgery is starting to get length which concealed it partially.

Updates from now will probably be shorter in text due to the less frequent HT related occurrences.

Let me know what you think. I tried to take higher quality photos compared to normal and will try my best replicating it to the same standard. Saying that I took these photos with bed hair hahaha.

Excellent results

But I would not classify this patient as a Norwood 2. His front is quite recessed and he has somewhat noticeable crown loss. Norwood 3V seems appropiate.

Got us a update?

Hey everyone, had this question in my mind for a while that I couldn’t find a answer for.

In my case, after my hair transplant for the first 20-25 days, I saw minimal to no shedding, and during this time the transplanted hairs grew longer until they all had finally shed at the 30-35 day mark.

My question is, what is going on here? Is it a good sign that growth is active before fading away due to shock and surgery? Or is it more simply put the hairs working their way out of the scalp over the course of a few weeks?

I wanted to include a update here because I am feeling a bit perplexed and would like to hear if this looks relatively normal especially for the timeframe.

4 Months 2 Weeks /  Beginning of 3 Weeks. 

After looking at my hair closely for the past two-three weeks since the four month mark, other than the transplanted hairs getting longer/a little bit thicker. It feels like that when I compare in some photos that the new growth is rather minimal to almost not there. Whilst looking in some others the growth looks more packed with finer baby transplanted hairs. When comparing to other posters four months marks and five months mark and if possible a 4 and a half month mark. I feel like I am behind the curve a bit.

I feel like I can say now that I am at baseline except for my crown which is a bit thinner as I had longer miniaturized hairs doing some heavy lifting. As for the crown I have felt and seen a few tiny hairs that barely have sprouted through. So I think I'm just at the very beginning stages of crown growth. I have included a photo of my crown about 5 days later after I first started to feel those tiny hairs.

On a more positive note, I can say that when I try to make my donor look bad I really struggle now. When I part the donor I can still see some rather moderate to large gaps but they are filling in over these two weeks rather rapidly.

I have included some photos of my hair over the past few days. I know that three weeks in reality is rather small but when your watching it closely it feels like a eternity. But I also wanted to include some photos here that I took on the 1st of April (the day of my fourth month mark) for comparison.

As always I took these in the same bathroom with the same lights turned on. I believe all of these except for the crown shot I took in the same exact spot, so the only difference that would shake things up really is the slight variation in angles.

1st of April: 

On 4/1/2023 at 7:13 PM, mister_25 said:

and it turns out that my midscalp is a bit more miniaturized/bald than I first thought and in certain angles it can look very exposed and very thin. I have not included a photo of this but I might if it becomes a problem in the future. Although I do intend to get a second surgery to address these issues

This is one of the two photos I took that I was referencing above.

Day 139:

Day 141 (Yesterday): (Highest Quality photo I could get:)

Day 142 (Today: 21st of April):

Front

Front Tilt:

Left:

Right:

Crown (15th of April):

How is everything looking? To be honest in my opinion so far its not met my initial expectations but lined up rather accurately with what @Z-- said below;

On 4/8/2023 at 12:11 PM, Z-- said:

Things look on track - glad most of the shock is recovered. Imo you prob will hit baseline around month 5 and then it’s growth from there to around month 6. 

The crown has really grown in such a short time frame. Looking great

What makes this one really crazy is that it was done in a single pass. One of the best

I noticed my first few hairs at about 9 weeks in. (Probably about 3 or so hairs)

Growth became evident about 11-12 weeks, and growth became obvious by four months. 

15 minutes ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

It’s not uncommon. Many surgeons don’t perform megasessions. There’s a higher chance that things could go wrong. They’d rather do it in sessions. You need a large staff that are trained in doing megasessions. Only Eugenix, Dr. Pittella, and Dr. Zarev, regularly do large megasessions.

Like I said the smart thing to do is address the hairline and temporal peaks first, then address the crown. If you want to do it all, you have to select a clinic equipped to carry that out. 

What can we define as a mega session nowadays?

I remember reading that 4000-5000 grafts was considered a megasession and many docs have many cases of around this range.

I will say that Eugenix, Pitella and Zarev do 6000+ sessions more frequently than others, is that the new mega session range?

Much more easier to navigate, a well needed and welcome change.

Pinto, Ferreira and Bisanga are the ones I would start looking at.

11 minutes ago, Ferris said:

The hair loss isn't creeping behind my fringe, the minox pretty much fixed that area but it's cutting closer than I'd like

(Also, can posters please stop arguing about how many grafts I need. Happy to let a surgeon decide what's best for me. It's good to know it's about 2000~ however)

Also, how do consultations work, do I need to pay for each individual one? Also, Is there a repository of contact info I can use?

Online consultations where you just send some photos then they reply back in a email are free. Usually though if you want to go in depth on a Skype or zoom call that would cost you.

on the top right of this website there is the “forums recommended surgeons” in orange, hopefully that can help you find contact info for surgeons you are interested in.

30 minutes ago, Legend007 said:

Why can’t we all get along. There’s going to be some bad and good results.. I was only 85 percent satisfied with my result too..  I was hoping to have that awesome hair like some of the pics in here. But reality is ,, it’s very rare to get that awesome full look  when we balding. 
 

I got 2500 grafts just into my hairline .. I was expecting more for my $20k.  But it’s actually not too bad .. I just leave my hair natural don’t put anything in it.. that’s just how I always wanted .. to be comfortable .. this my update for ya from h n w . After about 4 years and on finasteride . 
I always combed my hair forward like the Koreans pop stars ,, even before the transplant .. so I’m happy I can still comb it that way

Your hair looks awesome

Wanted to include a update here, this might help others try to not worry as much who are going through the same thing. All these photos are my right side of my donor which was significantly worse, although my left side improved at the same rate. 

Donor has pretty much 80-90% recovered. Honestly I dont think about it daily anymore so I'm unsure, now im just anticipating for the actual growth to happen.

Pre Op:

Post Op:

1 Month:

2 Months:

3 Months:

Bonus 3 Month Photo:

3.5 Months:

4 Months:

@Aveno I updated my thread on my HT on the 1st of April. Here is the link to it.

Otherwise, two years have gone by last month on Minoxidil if you count oral and topical as one package. Beard is still shedded since starting oral minoxidil at the beginning of January. Although it probably needs a trim so the lengths can match. My crown might of slightly improved, or it could be from the transplant, it’s not easy to tell. Otherwise for side effects, other than increased body hair growth I haven’t had anything else.

I will probably revisit this thread when I hit 6 months in June. Otherwise my other thread is where I’ll be having monthly updates.

40 minutes ago, Berik said:

I repeat. What does that have to do with the malpractice allegations of a technician not legally able to surgically operate on a patient doing so? I repeat. You lack critical thinking and general reading comprehension. 

He is saying that the original poster may be hiding and obscuring facts and twisting the narrative.
 

You got to remember that at the end of the day, we only have one side coming from a unreliable source. I say unreliable due to the multiple alt accounts and numerous edits of his post. There is also a reddit user claiming that when people poke holes through his argument, he acts evasive and constantly shifts and edits his original post. I can’t verify if this is true but I can say that someone accused him of purposefully misleading others.

The elephant in the room is that the likelihood’s of going to three recommended and esteemed surgeons and being botched by all three is unlikely. Someone has to say it and I’ll say it, but I’m not letting that fact cloud my judgement. (Although my opinion on Dr Devroye is not that positive from numerous accounts I have read)

You also do not need to insult him by saying he lacks critical thinking and basic reading comprehension. That doesn’t help anyone.

33 minutes ago, Berik said:

2 of those concerns, the minimal doctor involvement in the surgery, are major issues that people often cite as the main reason to avoid a hair mill. H&W and Eugenix have gravitated towards the high volume, tech driven strategy and as a result patients have been suffering as they try to get even more money. 

Apparently $40,000 per day minimum isn't enough for these guys to actually stay during the surgery and do more than create incisions quickly and leave. 

It depends on what we define as the minimum, If the minimum is “doctor does planning, and incisions with no more than two patients a day” than they both clear that boundary. This is what I’ve seen on multiple forums to be the minimum requirement to be labelled as a good option to get a hair transplant.

Using technicians isn’t a sign of a bad clinic or a good clinic, however the over reliance on technicians in my eyes is a bad sign. H&W have been using technicians for many years with excellent results, unless they changed their game they always had a strong balance between technicians and good results.

As for “patients been suffering” Are there any more patients as of recent other than Qui Bono and Nordster34 who have had mediocre or below results?. Because other than the concerns and experiences Nordster34 and Qui Bono are the only 2 recent mediocre and below poor results that I could find in a three year timespan.

1 hour ago, GoliGoliGoli said:

I have no dog in this fight, but is there any proof that those photos are of an actual HW patient? Or we are just going on OPs word? 

I believe that he is a H&W patient, his post op photos are the standard blue background with even the door handle in the photo where they take the photos.

I would wait and see H&Ws response to this, these allegations are too serious to go unaddressed. Unlike Diep who never responded to the communities concerns I believe that H&W have more integrity and their higher reputation to uphold. Also Unlike Diep, H&Ws streak of concerns is rather small, with those concerns being the following;

• Nordster34s Experience and design leading to a mediocre result.
• Hasson’s high graft counts in smaller areas
• Wongs use of Rowlike placements
• Doctors involvement in the surgery
• Doctors leaving before the surgery is finished.

whilst there are the unaddressed allegations such as;

• Use of technician doing incisions
• Using fingers as a measurement
• Withholding medical information 

Also I would like to preface and say, that my experience with contacting H&W about concerns has been mostly positive, with a few unanswered emails that I sent to Doug. But I usually have quick replies from H&W. 
 

correct me if I’m missing out on anything.