NegativeNorwood

Just now, Xanadu said:

He still has quite a high hair-skin contrast. With lighter colored hair it would be even more optimal.

Yeah, either lighter hair or darker skin.

20 hours ago, gillenator said:

IMHO the “ideal 3” would be optimal coarse texture, narrow color contrast, slight wave characteristic.

Agree. For a caucasian man, this how that would look like:

Even if he started to bald, he would have a very, very high number of FU in his donor area, and he would need to use less than others with different hair characteristics to cover the same balding area. Basically, cheat code hair type.

On 2/16/2023 at 3:40 PM, Melvin- Moderator said:

I honestly don’t know how Pekiner got so much hype.

I agree with this 100%. Pekiner doesn't even have proper after pictures of his work, all of them are patient posted selfies. How can anyone know if Dr Pekiner is good or bad without good pictures of his work? The hype makes no sense.

46 minutes ago, ready4Hair said:

@Rafael Manelli @NegativeNorwood @Melvin- Moderator

Ok, I got my report from Dr. Feriduni (based on pics):

********

Reconstruction of zone 1 + 2 + 3 + 5v Technique(s):

FUE Number of follicular units: 2800 — 3400 FU in a single day session (FUE)

Dr. Feriduni always takes facial proportions into account when he creates a hairline so the new hairline will harmonize with the facial features of the patient and will be well positioned in the face. (see information 'rule of thirds')

Dr. Feriduni creates micro- and macro irregularities in the hairline to attain a natural aspect. He also follows the natural angle and implantation of the hair.

The importance of frontal hair volume is essential in order to achieve a natural aspect and to reframe the patient's face.

The density zone requires the highest amount of FU/cm².

Due to the dilution of your crown area it is recommended to opt for a conservative hairline design. We would need too many follicular units to create an aggressive hairline design. Follicular units that we might need to restore your crown area. 

*********
Using 3,400 as the baseline, his cost is ~$15k USD with the VAT.  Dr. Hasson is $24k USD. Eugenixs is ~$16k with taxes/etc.

So of course question 1 is Dr. Hasson worth the extra 50% ($9k, and his quoted costs don't include taxes/etc).

As for Eugenixs, since I can get a top European Dr. for the same price, the question becomes a) is there a reason to choose them over Dr. Feriduni b) do I trust their hairline since now Lorenzo, Feriduni and Hasson all agree the hairline they drew is too aggressive.  And I agree with Dr. Feriduni that density is more important then height.

Dr. F suggests an in person so now to me the choice seems to be to fly NY>Vancouver to see Hasson or NY>Belgium to see Feriduni and use the in-person evaluation for either.

But Eugenix seems out since there doesn't seem to be a benefit, and at the end of the day I don't know them or Dr. Bansal well, but in fact had Dr. F on my shortlist 8 years back or so. 

And not so sure I can make a good case for close to $10k extra for Dr. Hasson/Wong.

Time to research Dr. Feriduni a little more it looks like

I really like Dr Feriduni's work, he presents very good and honest pictures, and his results are always very natural.

Just out of curiosity, the price Eugenix quoted you is with Dr Sethi as the lead surgeon, or with Dr Bansal?

Another day, another godly result. Those temples are something else too, most natural result I've seen, and he started as a repair patient (!). Just too good 👏

11 minutes ago, Xanadu said:

I guess Doctors and clinics are trying to avoid the many examples of people who end up looking weird although their goal was to look younger. 

We know this has happened across such vanity operations (like HTs). We all know countless examples I'm sure - traditionally of women like Madonna, Cher and whoever else. And in recent year men are also starting along the same.

For example Cowell, who may have smoother skin, and a socalled juvenile hairline.... but to quote Bill Burr "why do these people prefer to look like a 25 year old lizard, rather than a 50 year old human?".

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/celebs-tv/simon-cowell-sparks-concern-britains-7882997

What an overfilled face has to do with a hair transplant?  (Answer: nothing)

OP is clearly a smart man and has realistic goals, he didn't mention fillers or surgery, just a lower hairline (which Eugenix, a hair transplant clinic, drew in the first place, not him).

I get that you and some HT clinics don't like Norwood 1 hairlines, really, but what you do is peak straw grasping.

PS: we haven't seen OP's face to judge the actual hairline height, what Eugenix drew in the first place may even be a perfectly proportional hairline that follows the rule of thirds. We don't know without seeing the full face.

Avoid Lorenzo. Too expensive, too rude and mediocre results at best. 

That's a good plan, in person consult is always the best option.

Love how you did his temples too despite him being a Norwood 6. Most doctors wouldn't have touched them, but the result and the way they frame his face is perfect. You have a great eye for aesthetics.

I agree with Rafael. Take finasteride and minoxidil to preserve your hair. The best outcome you can have is keeping your already perfect hairline with medications.

Don't listen to Mike btw, there are plenty of old men with hairlines like yours (Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and a very long etc), the term "mature" hairline is non sense.

2 hours ago, Dr. Guncel Ozturk said:

Yes, you are correct. Minoxidil and finasteride are primarily meant to slow down or prevent hair loss, and they can also help to increase the diameter of miniaturized hairs in some individuals. It is important to note, however, that they are not meant to increase the diameter of non-miniaturized hairs. The diameter of your hair is largely determined by your genetics and may not change significantly with these medications. That being said, slowing down or preventing further hair loss can still have a significant impact on the appearance of your hair and can help to maintain your existing hair density. It is also possible to achieve further improvements in hair thickness and coverage with hair transplant surgery, if desired.

Thanks!

I think the biggest advancement in hair treatments would be increasing native, non miniaturized hair thickness.

If someone with ie 50μm could increase it to something like 70μm on average, he would not only need less grafts to cover his baldness (and save more grafts for the future), but also would have an amazing mane compared to before.

Imagine taking that thickening medication for a year + getting a transplant, and going from this:

To something like this:

That would be mind blowing 0_0

13 minutes ago, Dr. Guncel Ozturk said:

Yes, minoxidil and oral finasteride are not specifically designed to increase hair diameter, although some studies have shown that they may have this effect (particularly in patients with advanced baldness). The earlier you start using these medications, the better chance you have of preserving your existing hair and preventing further hair loss. Results may vary from person to person; in general, it is unrealistic to expect a significant increase in hair diameter, especially if you have minimal hair loss or a mature hairline. That being said, taking these medications can still have many benefits, including preventing or slowing down hair loss, maintaining the density of your existing hair, and potentially increasing hair diameter. They can also improve your chances of success with future hair transplant procedures by providing a stronger donor area. That being said, the benefits of preventing or slowing down hair loss can be significant, and may even include regrowth of some hair in some cases. If your doctors have recommended starting minoxidil and finasteride based on their assessment of your hair loss, it may be worth considering.

Thanks! I'll start oral minoxidil + oral finasteride ASAP, just wanted to know this before to get a better understanding. "Just" slowing hair loss is already a great benefit and makes it 100% worth it IMO.

To make sure I understood correctly:

- Slow hairloss, get an increase in diameter of miniaturized hairs and possibly even some hair regrowth in some individuals = realistic expectation

- Increase hair diameter of non miniaturized hairs = not possible, unrealistic expecation.

Would that be correct?

Excellent surgeon choice, very honest and one of the best in the entire world. You have very high chances of getting a stellar result. Happy growing!

*cries in sub 60μm* 😅

On 3/4/2023 at 11:32 PM, vanilia said:

I dont know about you, but i find pictures posted by patients much more representitive then pictures posted by clinic. He said himself for example instagram pics by clinics are useless. He can make every transplant there look good or bad if he wants.

You can find some results by patients on reddit, here offcourse and he is very representitive on italian forum:

https://bellicapelliforum.com/en/portfolio-articoli/dr-kaan-pekiner-3001-grafts-fue-dense-pack/
https://bellicapelli.forumfree.it/?f=64941837
 

I've seen those pictures too, they are quite useless because of the non consistent lighting, the low resolution and the lens distortion that comes with smartphones' cameras.

He also gave you a pretty lame excuse, because by that same logic, he doesn't upload honest pictures because he doesn't want to do it (he could also take honest, not just dishonest pictures...is his choice)

Nothing stops him from preseting his work honestly, like ie this:

No one can say if he's good without proper pictures, just "trust me bro, he has a great reputation".

Good luck, unironically you will need it if you go to him.

10 hours ago, vanilia said:

I just came back from Dr. Pekiner 3 days ago and all i can say is the hype is real. He is on another level. I dont know when i meet such a friendly and sympathetic guy in my life. The details, the time... I wish i would have a family doctor like this. I am glad i choose him. There are people which you afford all the success and money because of the work they put in and Pekiner is one of those. Will open my own thread soon to follow my progress.

I think you need much more then 1600. I had much smaller area to make now and it was 1525.

5 hours ago, blubber said:

 

 

Hey Guys,

I was in Brussels 2-3 weeks ago to see Doctor Mwamba. I thought the consultation was really good. He was very nice and answered all my questions without giving me the feeling that he wanted to end the conversation quickly. First we took some photos and then we drew some hairlines together and talked about the different hairlines. I also asked how aggressive I can really be with the hairline and what he recommends.

So he looked at my donor area and told me my hair density in the donor area, I think 90/100? cm2
He of course looked at the rest of my head and told me that the hair situation looks good, especially because I am taking dutasteride and oral minoxdil and that we can be a bit more aggressive with the hairline. I also wanted the hairline to be a bit denser and I mentioned @Fue3361 case but he said that it also depends on other factors like skin elasticity, blood flow and family history of balding.
He assumes I need about 2000-2400 grafts.

In summary, I was very satisfied, although I had to wait for 30-40 minutes at the beginning, but that was okay for me.

In the end, I decided to go with Doctor Pekiner because I saw a lot of good results from him, especially with the hairline. In the last few weeks alone, here or on reddit, there have been some really good testimonials. I'm going to see him in October and then I might start a thread myself, we'll see

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Everyone talks wonders about Pekiner, but I couldn't find proper after pictures of his hairlines. I've seen very detailed pre-op pictures, but not 12 month afters uploaded by the clinic, they are always uploaded by their patients (and of course, the pictures taken with a phone, not with a proper camera).

Do you have some some proper after pictures of his work to see them (or did he showed you some)?

I find very strange that such a well reputed doctor doesn't have proper after pics uploaded...I've tried searching by Neohead clinic and by Pekiner, but truly couldn't find anything solid, only low quality phone pictures taken by patients, which are pretty useless to judge the hairline work properly.

Not trying to be an @ss, just interested to see how good his work is and quite confused to see such a good reputation without high resolution pictures of his work to back it up.

11 minutes ago, mrmane85 said:

You can also add Freitas and Pinto.

Both present their work with high quality pictures and detail. 

For top surgeons this should be the standard and not the exception.

Agree, can't be a top clinic and not have detailed, honest pictures.

"Trust me bro, they have great reputation" doesn't cut it.

1 minute ago, Archan said:

Yeh ofcourse it is meant for tht but doctor would prescribe if they see the pattern and if an individual notices regular hairfall without any other factors and even if thr is family history...if there is no chance of baldness thn i guess they won't prescribe ..

I don't think it works that way tbh. If I posted my pictures, I would be told here that I barely have any hairloss (it's extremely minor and has been stable for 5+ years), yet the doctors I've sent pictures to suggested starting fin and minoxidil. Same with my dermatologist.

Still, I wouldn't like to derail the thread and prefer to focus in the OP if you don't mind brother.

4 minutes ago, Archan said:

Yeah..bt still i dnt think so any doctor would prescribe oral minoxidil if the patient had full head of hair or average thickness with adequate density considering the side effects ....doctor would rather prescribe topical version or other multivitamins and medicines which would help the cause ...

 

Aren't minoxidil and finasteride meant to prevent (or slow) baldness? The sooner started, the better. Side effects are reportedly very rare, and according to studies they dissapear at 2 months of continuing the medications. The risks are too low and the upsides (not starting to bald, for starters, even if the medications don't increase hair thickness) far outweight them IMO.

Shamelessly summoning 200 IQ doctors

@DrMunibAhmad @Dr. Guncel Ozturk @DrTBarghouthi @Dr Blake Bloxham

8 minutes ago, Archan said:

I guess it would increase the diameter of hair of non balding person as well though the percentage may vary....still some expert doctor's opinion would be great...

Agree, a doctor's opinion would be great.

Imagine if it does increase hair diameter in non balding people too...that would be an amazing benefit not just because of the thicker hair appearance per se, but even if that person starts balding in the future but the donor area remains thicker than before, he would have to use less grafts to cover the balding area (the thicker the hair diameter, the less follicular units are needed to cover the balding area), so he would be getting "free grafts", or better said "free coverage" and as such better graft economy (and as such, the possibility of getting more hair transplants if needed in the future). That would be a huge win.

Let's say you are not balding (or have minimal hair loss, the so called mature hairiline) and start taking oral minoxidil + oral finasteride.

Assuming your hair is, and always was, let's say 50μm on average...can it increase to 60μm (or even 70μm), or is it an unrealistic expectation?

I've read studies that showed up to 15% increase on hair diameter with oral minoxidil, but the patients already had advanced baldness:

https://journals.lww.com/cmj/Fulltext/2021/04050/Combination_therapy_with_topical_minoxidil_and.16.aspx

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7649170/

Quoting from the second study:

"Hair diameter significantly increased from baseline by 10.6% (from 58.5 ± 11.8 to 64.7 ± 15.2 μm) at 12 weeks (P = 0.002) and by 15.21% (from 58.5 ± 11.8 to 67.4 ± 14.5 μm) at 24 weeks (P < 0.001) (Table 2)."

Does that only happen to a few that have advanced baldness and are lucky enough (and the new hair diameter may be similar to the one they had as teenagers?), or is it realistic to expect the same with minimal (if any) baldness, and achieve thicker diameter hair than ever?

You should do the temples too, because they are always the first to receede. So recreating your hairline without taking the temples into account would look unnatural.

Here's a post by Juan Couto, one of the world's best hair transplant surgeons, explaining it in detail:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CgUForkKoM1/

"Rebuilding the temples with absolute NATURALNESS,
MAKES the difference between a good procedure and an EXTRAORDINARY one.

Dr. COUTO considers it MANDATORY to rebuild the temples
when they are receded by more than 25% if the hairline is advanced,
because both (temples and hairline) naturally recede simultaneously.

The TEMPLE PEAKS define the lateral frame of the forehead,
and are essential to return the hairline to its most NATURAL appearance.

Temple peaks NEVER recede WITHOUT receding THE HAIRLINE FIRST, so restoring
the hairline and not the temple peaks definitely provides an unnatural result.

In MOST MEN, the right corner advances more than the left corner,
and of course this also happens in temples, which generates
an ASYMMETRY in the lateral frame of the forehead that
the doctor recommends to be restored."

Even if you get a hairline that is higher set than the one Eugenix suggested (like the one @Melvin- Moderator drew), you have to get temples done too for it to look 100% natural.

1 hour ago, ready4Hair said:

@Rafael Manelli Thanks ;), funny enough in my 20s/30s everyone said I looked like RDJ so go figure. I also toned out the 'wrinkles' since I'd scrunched for the photo.

Here is side mock-up based on @NegativeNorwood temple mock-up. Front was encouraging, if side is even 1/2 that then ... wow

 

I think it is realistic considering your age and the amount of hair you have. That and dyeing your hair to it's original color and you'll easily look 15 years younger. And even if you don't dye it, you would have George Clooney style hair and will look great regardless.

Best luck man, I think you are on the right track.

Look at those temples, just beautiful. And the honest pictures with close ups. This is what top tier work looks like, from the great hairline design that also includes temples (sadly, a rare sight) to the presentation of the results.

10 hours ago, ready4Hair said:

@Rafael Manelli@NegativeNorwood Wow, impressed how aggtressive the hairline they drew is. I also sent wet pics so they got an even better idea of loss, and pointed out I'd like some temple work. If they can pull this hairline off well/dense, well gahdang.

9 hours ago, ready4Hair said:

@Rafael Manelli Yes, just from pics on WhatsApp, not an in-person planning session.  I think yeah with temple points mirroring nose that would be astonishing. I'm hoping in fact the 'wonky' or irregular nature of the line is because they in fact do irregular lines (versus the straight-edge razor ones). Assuming two the hairline would be more level.

I'll try to post wet, you can see I get some good illusion of 'fulness' with fairly sparse hair so that is promising to me. And the back is like a mane when I let it go and that's where they pull from so...

I agree with you, the temple points are essential and would look stunning with the new hairline. 

Also agree with @Rafael Manelli, I made a quick mock up with a hairline with temples on the front that is a little bit more symmetric. It should have more irregularities like the one they drew but the drawing is just for illustration purposes. Also is the first time I've drew temples from the front btw, so take it more as an idea to see how they frame your forehead.

I would say go for it, hairline + temples would look great on you and you are in a great position, because you already have lots of hair at your age, which is unusual.

Best luck!