hairison_ford

Yes, been there. Most docs don't seem to report seeing this but I've definitely experienced this 'cyclical shedding' myself and I've seen plenty of online anecdotes from people who have too. Been on fin consistently for 3 years and took photos every time I had a monthly haircut to track progress for the first 2ish years, so I knew I wasn't just imagining things. Had a huge shed over the first 3 months that took me to below baseline, got a ton of regrowth for about 3 months afterwards that took me to above baseline, and then went through several sheds/regrowth cycles over the next couple years at roughly that same cadence, though with reduced degree of shedding/regrowth each cycle. I also messed around with minoxidil on/off during this time, so that may have contributed a bit as well. I'd say it's been pretty stable over the last year with only minor sheds that I notice every now and then, but I ended up stabilizing at about pre-medication baseline -- which is fine for me as long as it's maintaining. The 'theory' that I've seen floating around is that the medication synchronizes your hair follicles' growth/shed cycles when you start taking it. So a bunch of miniaturized hairs shed all at once, then they regrow back all at once, but because they're miniaturized they have a shorter growth period and will shed again within a few months, and so on. Eventually they become desynchronized and the shedding/regrowth cycles become less obvious. If the hairs were miniaturized enough to begin with, they may not be able to become terminal again even with medication, and so they may get 'stuck' like this for a long time/indefinitely. Again, that's just a theory I've seen floating around on the internet so take it with a grain of salt, but it makes sense to me and aligns with my experience.

Thank you guys for the input so far. Sounds like my expectations are reasonable from what I'm hearing. I think I've viewed most of the results that have been posted in the last year from Hasson patients. A lot of them are still partway through the growth stages and some seem to have stopped posting updates, so tougher to point to many with final or near-final results. @BrockLanders result looks pretty great as you can see above. My graft quote is a fair bit lower than the 4500 he got, but looks like there was more work done in his mid-scalp than there will be in my case. I thought the one below that was posted recently was also pretty great: I think pretty much all of the final results I've seen from Hasson in the last couple years look good aesthetically. I get what you're saying though about some cases having what seems like more grafts than you'd expect were necessary given the surface area, but that's partially why I wanted to consult the knowledgeable folks on this forum on what you guys felt would be a typical number of grafts for the area I'm hoping to get covered. My understanding is that the 2500-3000 quote is fairly typical for what I'm hoping for, and wouldn't be out of line from what other top surgeons would recommend for the surface area (basically everything in my frontal third minus the tuft/temple points), but it would be good to know if I'm off the mark there.

I have a 2500-3000 FUE booked with Dr.Hasson in a couple months. I've done a fair amount of research and lurking on this forum so I'd consider myself pretty well-informed on hair loss/transplants at this point, but it would be good to get some advice from some of the users on here on what I should expect going in and what I should discuss with Dr.Hasson the day of the procedure. For background: I'm 27, started gradually losing hair at around 16/17, but have been taking finasteride for the last 2.5 years which seems to have halted the hair loss. I'm also taking 2.5mg/day of oral minoxidil starting mid-October 2022, though I don't think it's had any noticeable impact so far. Most of the men on both sides of my family are shaved bald (dad, both grandpas) so I would probably be destined for minimum NW5+ without medication. As of now, my hair loss is mostly concentrated in the frontal third, but I do have some modest thinning throughout the mid-scalp/crown (though not noticeable enough to warrant a hair transplant in those areas). Had an in-person consult with Dr.Hasson where he did a quick comb-through of my hair and quoted me 2500-3000 grafts to restore the frontal third. He also mentioned that I had a top 10th percentile donor area (dense and coarse hair), so that was reassuring. I've seen a couple negative reviews of Dr.Hasson lately on this forum, but he still seems to be a top surgeon based on the vast majority of his results, and I live close so it seemed like a natural fit for me. I do want to be prepared on the day of surgery though, so hoping to get some advice from folks here on the following: 1) I've attached some pics of my hair and a (poorly drawn) sketch of what I think is a realistic goal for the hairline. I'm hoping for a mature hairline with good enough density to match the fringe in the front, which has held up pretty well -- is that reasonable to achieve with the quoted 2500-3000 grafts? I've seen posts on this forum where Dr. Hasson increased the graft count on the day of surgery compared to what was quoted after further examination, sometimes by a significant amount. I'm hoping that the in-person consult I had with him (as opposed to virtual where it's harder to estimate accurately) makes that less likely to happen, but I'm prepared to go up to a maximum of 3500 grafts if necessary. 2) My temple points are somewhat recessed/concave looking, although they've also held up decently well I think. Temple point restoration seems to be tricky to make look good even for experienced surgeons, so I'm leaning towards not having anything done to them (other than closing off the temple), but wondering if folks think it's necessary for the points to be brought in/reinforced in order to make the hairline framing look natural. 3) Assuming I stay on finasteride, what's the likelihood that I would need a second transplant within the next decade? This is a decent chunk of my savings, and I have other financial goals in life that I want to save for, so I'd be reluctant to do another one in the near future. The advice seems to be that most people need more than one procedure (especially if they're young like me), but I'm hoping that Hasson's dense-packing combined with medical therapy can hold off the need for another one at least until I'm in my mid-late 30s. Is that realistic or should I adjust my expectations? Any other tips/advice are welcome! Thanks!