BackFromTheBrink

I wondered this too. I’d read that scar tissue from the first transplant could delay hairs breaking through the scalp in the second (assuming they’re both in the same area). in my case it’s hard to tell. I’d say anecdotally my second is slower than my first, but my second was also mainly in the crown which has a poorer blood supply. It’s also hard to tells since in the first I could see every hair that grew and now they’re hidden by the first.

No problem. It's still there. I've sent you a message with a screen grab from the latest video.

A great result - very effective use of grafts! Quick suggestion at 1:21 the patients face is unblurred as the text is overlayed on the video. I'd suggest that be changed to maintain the patients anonymity.

@Gatsby have a crown procedure with them recently

The search functional on this site should provide lots of patient results for Eugenix.

My first transplant was 3100 grafts as a Norwood 5. I was lucky in that I had a high hair to graft ratio and high survival rate. However, it made a very big difference to my appearance, so it is possible. If I were you I'd look to frame your face, and work back on your scalp with decreasing density, leaving the crown. You said you'd booked a surgery? Who have you selected? In your position, I feel it's important to choose a top tier surgeon to make best use of your available grafts, and someone highly proficient with body hair (assuming you have sufficient BH grafts to use).

You're Norwood 5, heading to 6. Usually that'd take a minimum of 5-6k grafts to get full coverage. I'm not sure what your donor is capable of supplying, but i would guess that for most surgeons, it wouldn't be possible to extract what you need. I'd consider whether you could use body hair to make up the numbers or a surgeon such as Zarev who maximises extractable grafts. It'll certainly be a number or surgeries. Even with 3k grafts quoted, you'd want to focus on the front part of your scalp. It could well make a good aesthetic improvement, but it wouldn't get full coverage. My case was similar to your but with a strong donor, and I'm 5.5k grafts into this without full coverage yet.

I had a little swelling but nothing unsightly. You'll be given an antibiotic cream to mix up (with aloe vera) to apply to the donor area, bandages if you need them and shampoo to use for the few couple of weeks (starting day 4 I think). The hotel is about a 20min walk into the city centre. There are restaurants within a stones throw though. The challenge is the heat - you want to keep your head out of the sun.

I think that’s good advice. Choose a brilliant doctor, explain the situation so he can treat you appropriately, and then trust him and the process.

I understand the anxiety, I really do. However, it’s good to try to stand back and assess the entire pool of information/cases if you can. it’d be easy to talk yourself (and anybody else) out of a transplant. It’s really the last option and there’s no denying it does come with risks attached. In that particular case, it’s probably down to extremely aggressive hair loss with no medical therapy to halt it. Transplanted hair is donor dominant so effectively takes the properties of the donor hairs. If those hairs were due to fall out anyway, then they’ll still do so. Similarly, if surrounding hairs native to the recipient area were due to fall out, they still will, and perhaps give the illusion of transplanted hair falling out.

To paraphrase - you saw one case in the public eye and despite knowing nothing about their situatio, concluded all hair transplants fall out, despite being on a hair transplant forum where that clearly is not the case.

When you spoke to the surgeon did he mention planning your transplant with the consideration that you will not have future procedures and cannot use finasteride? If you plan for the worst (your existing hair will decrease significantly over time), then you’ll want your remaining hair to not look unnatural (such as a really strong hairline and weak midscalp). You have chosen a good surgeon, so I’m sure this will have been anticipated, assuming he understands your situation fully. The are also other herbal remedies you may want to try to lower DHT as well as topical solutions that are less likely to go systemic. My recommendation would be to arrange another call with him, hopefully you’ll be able to agree a mutually acceptable compromise whether than be a specific surgical plan, or helping refund some of your deposit.

I don’t. I keep promising I’ll post one, but my case is relatively unspectacular as it’s basically a procedure for density so it wouldn’t be the most exciting! Even the placement pictures are uninspiring since my existing hair largely covers them up. I posted this on another thread but I do think it’s made a good early difference. I’m happy with the hairline, and am now waiting on my crown to grow in. before 2nd surgery 3 months after:

He used to be a director at a clinic in Cyprus then set up on his own. He occasionally flies his entire team out to Barcelona and operates out of there, but his main clinic is in Cyprus. I think he’s a solid surgeon who offers a fairly unique approach (manual punch and partial shave).

Yes, it was really easy. It's a relatively small airport so collection is simple. The hotel is very comfortable (and includes breakfast) and the drivers to/from the airport, hotel and clinic were great. There's a Cypriot Uber eats equivalent so I used that for meals. Everyone speaks English so there's no problem there. Take a good book/iPad and you'll be just fine. I had a 2 day procedure and stayed a couple of extra days before flying back.

Zarev is without doubt brilliant, and is the best (IMHO) practicing surgeon for high Norwood cases with virgin donors. Given his unique method, he prefers to use scalp grafts and also prefer to be the first to operate (since other doctors perform extractions differently to him). That's not to say he doesn't do BHTs or repair cases as be does both. However, I couldn't say I had seen enough published cases to assess whether he's the best surgeon for body hair transplants or repairs. If you don't want to travel there are elite surgeons in the US. However, they're generally more expensive than in Europe. In your position I would also consider Eugenix, though only if you can make peace with the need to travel.

Heavy bench press is probably the exercise you don’t want to do. It’ll mean pressure on your grafts against the bench (which probably isn’t the most sterile of objects) and high blood pressure to your scalp. Your body will be recovering from several thousand small ‘injuries’ - I would give it the chance to do that rather than repairing muscle damage from training. i would personally leave heavy weights until 4 weeks afterwards and resume light training (cardio or training with lighter weights / no heavy compound movements) at 2 weeks. Your grafts are anchored in the 1 to 2 week period, but given that you won’t lose any significant muscle mass, is it worth it?

Stick with Couto, and save your 7k cancellation fee. You’ll get a better result from him anyway.

I'm not sure why that would be the case. They both reduce DHT, but dutasteride more than finesteride. That reduction is what should enhance the crown, so dutasteride should offer at least the same benefit as finesteride.

I am, all going well so far. I’m just over 3 months but already seeing early signs of growth in my hairline. Before: after:

Not all grafts will survive. However, they're not usually dislodged. When that happens 99 percent of the time you'll bleed from the incision. Try not to worry about it. I'd say that it's most likely to be just hair and scab tissue ground around the incision. Worst case, it's one graft and it'll make absolutely no difference to your outcome.

Just a hair and a scab. Nothing to worry about.

Possibly, assuming they are operating in that way - small extraction sessions followed by implantation. ultimately, I don’t think it’s something worth focusing on - find the surgeon who suits you best and who has good outcomes using the method they think best.

I don’t. I think they’re both skilled tasks. However, there are parts of both that benefit from more experience such as the first few punches to establish the properties of an individuals skin and selection of specific grafts (for the hairline, temporal peaks etc). Similarly, i would say that implanting the hairline is the most visible and therefore critical part.

Surgeons can be selective. While you can split grafts, the hair in the temporal peaks are very fine so surgeons usually select single follicle (sometimes nape) hair to make them look as natural as possible.