hairlines

Day 1 Photos

Here are some pictures from the day after surgery at the first clean and dressing change at the clinic. We also did the the LLLT treatment, and I forgot the mention that PRP was included as part of the surgery.

Note these are not the official pics, just a few grabbed with my phone? Keen to hear your thoughts, but it’s looking good to me!

And here is a bonus pic immediately after the operation. Note that it wasn’t strictly necessary to shave my whole head but some needed doing and it was going to look weird so I told them to go for it to make things easier. I had been growing it out for a while just to see what it might look like in the future.

The Plan

We had discussed a bit on email and video call the expected plan before I arrived in Bangkok and it stayed more or less the same once meeting in person. I think all the research done prior gave me a good idea of what I was asking for and why, along with recommendations from the Dr.

I have a lot of area to cover, something that is made worse by aiming for a feminine hairline which needs to cover areas that a 40 year old male hairline would normally leave clear for a natural look. I want to wear my hair longer though which should help and don’t mind a scar so wanted to include FUT in the process to try and make the best use of the donor area. The FUT + FUE combo seemed like a good route based on Dr’s recommendations.

Our plan was to aim for 5,000 plus grafts, and start filling from the front back. I did not except to fill the crown in this session so am expecting to be back in a year or so to address that and touch up any of the current surgery. We exceeded the graft goal which is great. I have seen the breakdown on the board which looks good but will wait for their official photos to post that.

I flew in on the 25th Feb, had consultation and finalised the plan on the 26th, and had surgery yesterday on the 27th. I’m here for 5 more days to get daily post op care and one set of stitches removed before I fly home.

Here are some before pics to show the scope of what we’re deal with! As you can see, this has the potential to be a fairly life changing part of my gender transition so I really hope it goes well!!

Good morning! It’s is the morning after an epic long day of surgery and I’m starting this thread to document my notes. I’ll keep adding bits to it as time goes on, let me know if there anything in particular you’d like to know.

First of all though, thank you for all the help with me questions and getting me here!

How is the healing going?

Booked and ready to go with Dr Laorwong!!

VERY EXCITED.

I'm all booked in for almost the same treatment, thank you for all the notes and advice! Staying in The Ex Capital Hotel, fingers crossed it is OK.

Thank you for the write up. I had a call with him early this morning about a very similar plan, FUT + FUE combination. I'm trying to make a final decision between him and Dr Path.

My main concern has been about communication ability in English, as that is all I speak. From what I'm reading here on the forum he is quieter and doesn't say so much which is OK, but do you think we understands and can take feedback well? Particularly interested around hairline design etc.

Very handsome results, I am impressed!

It would be great to hear more about the process before and after travel, how much detail is locked in before going over etc. Do you find a good surgeon and book them inl knowing that the details of surgery will need to be worked out one you arrive and they can get hands on with your hair to inspect it?

How much of the consultation process have you had done beforehand? It's hard to dial in exactly what we're doing without the surgeon seeing the hair in person I guess, but also scary to spend so much and fly overseas without having the details dialled in.

6 hours ago, mrmane85 said:

I'd look closely at I'd look at Dr Laorwong. Excellent results on this forum, does FUT + FUE plus he is hands-on throughout the entire surgery.

Having a good review of his posts too... he has some nice hairlines to show!

12 minutes ago, TorontoMan said:

If you’re taking hrt, then you should be waiting to see what it will do for you 

How long? We'd be 18 months on meds, and 9 months on HRT with current plan. I'll have a chat to the surgeon about it too.

There is some noticeable recovery since starting this whole journey. It's hard for me to inspect higher up but some hairs have slowly come back in in the highlighted area. They are still very fine and short but are growing at least. There is not much going on off to the sides.

This is a long road.

Hi,

I am a trans woman trying to work out what I should be taking to do best by my hair. I am currently on:

• Spironolactone (anti-androgen)
• Estradiol (female hormones)
• Finasteride Oral 1.25mg daily
• Minoxidil Oral 1mg daily

Everything seems settled and I don't have any undesired side effects. It's been a little hard to figure out what dosages are appropriate for this mix of things as there is some overlap in effects. The other complication is that oral minoxidil is difficult to get in low doses here in NZ. If I'm going to continue it I'd want to push that up to 2.5mg I think so that I can quarter a 10mg tab and use that. My GP is happy to work with me if I can show appropriate references.

I do have a transplant surgery lined up later in the year out of country. Advice was that 1mg oral minoxidil wasn't enough.

Keen to hair any other guidance, especially form other professionals in the network.

Thanks

Does anyone else find it slightly odd to talk to a surgeon on a hotmail address though? It's the one listed on their website and we've done Zoom consult etc, but the email doesn't really say "professional" to me!

It looks like I have a date set in April with Dr Path, thunderbirds are go!

🥳

On 12/28/2022 at 10:41 PM, Fue3361 said:

IDK how long you've been on hormones, but if you've recently started, give it a year or so, see how you respond.  Sometimes when people go on Estrogen they see ridiculous changes and hair regrowth.  I'd not touch a Hair Transplant until at least knowing what I'm working with.  

6 months in, plus a year or so on fin / minoxidil. From my research I'm not expecting much more of a change on its own from here. It'll be April before I get overseas too so almost a year anyway I guess.

We can always hope though

On 11/5/2022 at 9:35 AM, 5BetaReductase said:

Dr Path has been around for a long time and has some great results. With that being said, some of the best female hairline work I’ve seen is from Nadimi 

Cost for going to America is a little prohibitive unfortunately.

Here are some notes from initial email consults:

Quote

 

From the photos, you have extensive area of hair loss from the front towards the crown. Your donor hair at the back and both sides look good .My rough estimate is you might need a few sessions to complete. For the first session, you might need 4,000 grafts, more or less, depending on the time of consultation. The grafts to be placed from the front towards the midscalp, or until running out of grafts.

 

Thank you for the thoughts.

I'm relatively high on the norwood scale, with goals to have longer hair, and expecting to want more than one round of transplants. Thread linked below.

A combination wont prevent future work being done as well I presume?

Can anyone comment on the pros and cons of having a combination of FUT and FUE done at the same time? Does anyone have good experiences to share?

I will need a lot done so want to get the most from the donor area and do want to try and minimise travel as I'll need to be out of country to do it.

Thanks

For example:

Currently looking at Dr Pathomvanichas top of my list.

I hope so. It's hard to make out in the picture but there is some very fine hair about which came in over the last year. E can't hurt.

Note, I'm approx 40. I wish the world had been a better place and I was getting to this sooner.

Here are a couple of pictures (f you recognise me say hi some time, haha).

Obviously loss is very far progressed on all of the top through to the crown, though I think I have a strong donor area to work with. There is a lot of work to do.

From the research I've done a large FUT session to begin with, and expecting later rounds, sound like the way to go. I'm not expecting miracles here because time has done its damage, but hoping to get a hair style I can work with because it's a bit existential for me. Today there is little I can do other than shave it short.

Thank you for all the comment

Oh chest hair was never going to be much or a resource and the beard has had enough treatment already that it isn't very helpful either. Maybe if I'd done my research earlier I'd have looked at that but here we are. I've been on finasteride and using minoxidil foam for a year or so which has had some positive impact. Medication is all being moved around a bit a the moment so not exactly sure where I'll end up.