duckling

That Third pic must have been so satisfying to look at. Sure the pic was not best resolution but seeing hair all over the scalp when you take a picture must have been satisfying. I have exactly same pattern of hair loss like you .. (little bit of hairline receeding with crown thinning but i am 27 so mine is slightly denser). You results give so much hope.. and when you talked about styling hair to either choose between hiding crown or hairline i could relate so much 😄 . Its such a problem when you start to lose both. Congrats on getting a great surgeon and good luck for your results 🙂

it all depends on the placements of grafts. some surgeons can use less grafts to give a more better illusion of density , whereas some surgeon who just places it randomly is going to fill the scalp but the density will look less.( unless the patient had really good donor hairs, in that case surgeon can get away with no proper stratergy of placement of grafts)

Can you post a picture of your donor which was taken during consultation , if its available and you are okay to share ?

Amazing hairline for a guy who is nearly 50. He can surely get one small procedure if he wants to by using his beard and little scalp hair to fill the mid to crown region. But don't think thats necessary as this looks most natural for the age. His temple and side hair being this good helped so much. They could use the all grafts on top area without wasting anything on temples and his side hair density will add nice illusion of density if he uses it well when combing.

I completely agree. Being on meds and good response to them will give the surgeon, the option to make the best hairline which frames the face and not the hairline which just covers a part of the scalp.

Wow, this is some interesting pattern of grafts placement. Guess in higher norwood the surgeons are really tested. I have seen some give more grafts on one side so that they can used to cover the other side with longer hairstyle.

That guy looks like he is in his mid 20's now. 8-10 year age difference by surgery. Guess you get these options for hairline if your crown is good.

I can guarantee you that headset cannot cause alopecia. Don't worry about that. It will not cause traction alopecia. Please check vitamin d , vitamin b12 along with iron and thyroid for hair fall. If you correct them then hairfall may be stopped. There is a chance that the hair which propecia had helped you save or helped you regain, those hair you might be losing. Loss of transplanted hair is also possible if they were not from safe donor area. ( But since you said 2006 , so i am assuming it was FUT and likelyhood of this reason is less if strip surgery was done properly) Transplanted hair also thin (according to some articles) so that is one more reason. Last one is seasonal shedding which common for people and they assume it be serious and start worrying and lose more hair in doing so.

@Raphael84 amazing results. His donor was so good as it has given so many multi grafts. The hairline given looks natural. Any reason though why he is on oral minoxidil of 5 mg but not on finasteride even topically? Normally the people on oral minoxidil are the ones who were on topical minoxidil and oral finasteride. Later they make the switch as they find that oral route is more convenient. Did he receive any sides from finasteride?

That is true, they can definitely teach them. The tech assisting the surgeon during extraction can definitely learn it easily. Because surgeons get involved in two parts of whole surgery (in ones where both surgeon and techs are involved ) apart from the hairline design during consultation : 1) crucial extraction, where they pick singles for the hairline and also pick the juicier grafts 2) hairline slit making to not give a pluggy look So, I think they might not love the idea much of giving away these parts due to which they make most money. (from VIP patients)

Loved the results and your approach of conservative hairline which makes it look so natural. You are using blow dryer, haircut, combing and hair fibers in the best possible manner and have hence easily put off idea of re-starting meds too soon after last incidents of side-effects and also second surgery can be delayed as you have already some tools to fight off any thinning look and incase you want to use topical version then hopefully you can reach age of 40 without any more loss and by then hairloss should have stabilized a lot and you can again fill in the thinning areas and keep the same density as you have now. Imagine this density at 40. Even people with minimal hairloss will be jealous.

I agree, we want that one extra picture to evaluate the results. Because In before pic "the bird's eye view" was used but in results pic the hairline was used to hide the crown, midscalp area and also angle was changed.

@neverendingsearch i would suggest pekiner. I have seen him do cases similar to yours (norwood). Definitely your hair is different than one i have seen him do. You can search 2704 grafts fue dr pekiner /neohead clinic. That guy also had temples similar to yours ( but his were little bit better so thats why you are getting qouted 3000-3500 grafts). Your and his crown area and midscalp is also very similar. The reason I suggested pekiner is because your crown is good with less signs of thinning due to meds maybe and you just need hairline and temples to frame your face. Pekiner does give aggresive hairline but i think, just like that guy, aggresive hairline will suit your face at this age. But ask him about your donor , if he says it has enough for future surgeries then go with his design else don't bring it that lower. note: If you want very high irregularity then don't pick him. I agree with your point of minimal irregularity completely. Others are excellent too . I have seen eugenix work on people with cowlick in their hairline. The design though was done by dr arika. I also saw a guy with slightly curly hair get a transplant from them (which is your exact hair type) . His case was 3566 grafts if you search it online but the norwood was different so i didn't hype it much like i did for video i saw from pekiner. Here the grafts were more spread out

it depends on individuals i guess. Skin of some people is sensitive to the artificial hair fibers. Even if hair fibers are applied to your existing hair strands still some reach your scalp and can cause itchiness. And an irritated scalp can cause more hair loss. And yes washing it out completely is tough as to naked eyes it may look clean but may not be so. Then any build up on the pores can create problems for the healthy hairs and also any medication applied on scalp may not work properly.

I have read that whenever you apply, you should wash it off before going to bed. Because it will come out and end up on pillowcase and touchups will be needed next morning and for some as it makes their skin itchy so they prefer to remove it and apply again next day. But some people say they keep it on their head from shower to shower and use silk pillowcases. Guess those people don't get any irritation on their skin from hair fibers so a little extra investment into pillowcases is all the inconvenience they face.

@rush There are so many hairs which i can see getting improved from minoxidil and finasteride should help you keep these existing hair with probably bringing back hair which you lost to DHT ( if those hair follicles are still alive). The last pic which you have posted shows that sideburn hair density might be less(or maybe they were white so it looked less dense in pic) for now but with meds lets see how much they improve. Check your vitamin levels also to see if any of that is causing the side hair to fall. (Some articles suggest vitamin d deficiency causes side hair to fall or it might be a gimic to sell vitamin tests and tablets 😄 ). You haven't mentioned minoxidil so i would say please add it to regime with derma roller ( if you find that to be effective after checking results of people here with it). I have seen people similar to your case use it as its lot more easier with less hair density so no need to be worried about existing hair getting pulled/damaged and obviously the superior results is the main reason. You can try ketocanazole shampoos. They should help your scalp remain clean as minoxidil will make your scalp greasy/flaky/itchy. Be consistent and have patience. Hopefully you get amazing coverage before you even think about hair transplant after one year of results from meds. Don't constantly check for results though and worry about progress. Set a realistic progress timeline at which you record and post updates here. (every month preferably after the initial 3-4 months gap as that time shedding would have stopped and gain would have come atleast in form of hair thickness).

I understand your problem completely. I have same thoughts when considering FUT over FUE. We will have lot of hair at back to cover donor area scar and at front it will be shaved so it will make us look like very higher norwood than we actually are , until it all grows back and that too will be delayed with shedding phase and shock loss. So incase we didn't have to shave we can easily hide the transplanted hair with different styles of existing hair. The issue which i have seen people have with this is that when we consider FUT, one of reason is that we get more grafts and they are from your permanent zone for sure , so don't you wanna let the surgeon have the best view of the recipient area to place that many good grafts. If they have a good view they can give dense packing of grafts at good angles too which is going to help create nice illusion of dense hair for rest of your lifetime (hopefully). And won't be placing grafts near your miniaturized hair. The biggest fear is losing existing hair due to fighting with transplanted hair for blood supply. I have seen people pull their existing hair back, when they have placed grafts infront of them so as to not irritate the area, easily use saline water and allow that area to breathe 😄 . So avoid these and let your surgeon shave if they want to. Try to imagine inconvenience for them trying to part your hair to create slits between them and when doing implantation also its a problem. The result will surely take a hit. If you had no/very less hair in places where you wanted to place them then there was no issue but you seem to be grade 3 from what you wrote so you will have native hair at front with less density and you want to add in between them. The surgeon will try to give you best results. Why will you want to not give them best conditions to do so.

For the travel part i will say incase you think a surgeon is good, try to think of it as a trip+surgery instead of trip for a sugery. (Don't know how it sounded 😄 ). Haha i do the same by searching for people who have same hair like me .Figure out what norwood you are and then search. It will definitely save you lot of time. Then try to get as much information you can from posts of people having similar grade. Make a note of all the clinics you saw performing those cases(which match your hair type and grade) . On youtube search their channel and see if their results are consistent and how many cases they perform similar to yours . Get in touch with them and get a qoute. After first clinic you will lose the fear of asking. Be shameless and ask them to show you more cases which they haven't posted online or help in getting in touch with their patients(if they don't mind helping). Ask the patients how their growth has been after years of the desired result which you saw on youtube and what approach they would have taken different to the one they have taken already ( if any pointers they can give like spacing out surgeries for different portions of scalp coverage or related to meds or the clinic itself etc). Donor assessment you can get done from any surgeon near you. Just go for normal consultation and ask the surgeon to check with magnification. Definitely this number will change with surgeon and their skill of what they can extract without making it look depleted but estimate cannot vary by huge margin. During consultation ask them what their plan regarding donor management for future surgery is. This will let you know who cares about you and who cares about extracting a certain graft number. If you have not been on any meds then they should recommend you meds that you have to take for atleast a year before your surgery. This way you will know how you responded to meds which is needed to keep your existing hair. (No transplant can give excellent density without your existing hair helping). And this will drastically change the grafts you need to extract and change the initial plan for good. Take your time and use all resouces.good luck !

@DeltaV this is some excellent donor or donor management because with that many grafts extracted donor cannot look like this. Everyone has already commented on results so no point adding to that. But I will say your face looks great even without beard / with less beard so you can definitely tap into that samundar of resource in future along with scalp hair which can still give you some more. I say this because not many want to give away their beard which adds to their face cut. We are inspired by virat kohli or yash to keep them long. Because not many can pull off a ranbir kapoor or dhoni and look great with/without beard. (But in your case you are pulling it off).

My conclusion will be that: 1) with surgeons you get stability and assurity. 2) with just techs and no surgeon all types of results are open (bad, average, good, excellent) 3) If both are performing then you need them to be in sync for a good/excellent result. I don't have a specific order of reasoning. I will just list out all the points which came to me. 1)When you pick a plastic surgoen then the hairline they will give you will not be a basic one which is copy pasted on every patient but a hairline which complements your face. ( i know nowadays even many surgeons give a standard hairline ). But In hairmils doctors will give a basic hairline for everyone and techs will work on that. 2)Many clinics now have multiple surgeons so sometimes its a hit and miss which one you got unless you get the surgeon you wanted. (which is true for clinics where they have different packages for different doctors) 3)If you pick a clinic which is run by one surgeon only then you can sure that what kind of result you might get by looking at past results of them. Because they will have techs working with the surgeon from long time. The sync between surgeon and techs is very important. 4)In hairmills Techs are sometimes hired if lot of surgery are planned on a single day and they are overwhelmed. In this case the techs will not have a proper sync between each other and mistakes can surely be made. Whereas if a surgeon is doing majority of important task then atleast you have a assurity but even then the surgeon also might make mistakes because they also have few bad cases but the probability of this happening is lower. 5)Techs sometimes have more experience than surgeons who just perform VIP cases. So if you get them and are lucky then you might get even better result than what a good surgeon would have given you. 6)Role of techs even in clinics run by single surgeon will exist as surgeon will do majority of work but they can never perform all the task unless the graft counts are low and surgery is expanded to 2-3 days. 7)Donor management a surgeon will do better. Techs will not care much about your donor. They have a specific number to extract and implant. 8)Surgeon will definitely pick juicier grafts which are healthy but techs might not pick them. And even if they do they might put muti grafts in hairline.

It is little tough with the resolution of pics. But i think pretty dense packing they have given you in the frontal area because 4000 grafts used is a lot honestly for the area covered but maybe you wanted a high density hairline. Unless they have done your crown (which is tough to see by the pics) then its fine. Else 3000 grafts you could have used or even 3500 and saved atleast 500 grafts for later. Anyways on a positive note you will definitely have a great front profile and incase you thin around midscalp area in future you can surely use the frontal density to hide them. Good luck for your journey 🙂 .

Twice a day will give you a little bit more results but not a big difference according to studies atleast. But if lot of scalp coverage you are doing then definitely do twice a day. People use it before bedtime as its hectic to apply twice a day. Micro needling can definitely help you in more results. This might increase absorption of the topical solutions ( according to some articles) so you will get more response from minoxidil when combined with micro-needling regime once a week ( depending upon the healing timeline and depth of needles). You can micro-needle and then wait for next day to apply minoxidil and that might reduce too much absorption. People use 1.5 mm once every week so get more penetration of solution and some people use 0.5 mm to just irritate the scalp by creating very small micropores before applying minoxidil. Check out the results and add to your regime.

The first part i would not be able to help with as I am not from there so suggesting anything will be wrong. I am sure you will get info about it from reddit or here too as somebody would have already asked this. Second part i can answer that start anytime after 2nd week (There is no scientific research on this, but doctors recommend this 2 weeks gap so grafts are not affected if people apply it in rough manner and your scabs are gone too ). Some People wait one month or more because already so much shedding from transplant will happen ( transplanted hair will shed and also some shock hair loss) and minoxidil or the alcohol in the solution can irritate your scalp more and also the minoxidil will start its own shedding phase of your existing hair (weaker hairs so more thicker and healthy ones grow ) so people may get more demotivated seeing all this shed. But minoxidil will help you against this shock loss by helping in faster recovery. People who were already on minoxidil before transplant you will notice starting it again right after 2 weeks or even faster if they were on the oral version , the reason is that they don't want to lose out on the gains they gave got from minoxidil because minoxidil is essential to save your existing hair because If only transplanted ones are left then think about the density right. My suggestion is If your scalp is healed then start it after 2 weeks or max by 4 weeks but be gentle on your scalp when applying. Don't be demotivated by shedding. You will find timelines of people here who have waited 1 year to see full results. Hope the transplant and response to min+fin combination is good for you. And don't stress about sides or how long to commit to meds for now as the reason you are taking topical versions are so that you are less worried about sides and as someone suggested the oral finasteride is also safe for majority and very less percent are affected.

The results are great. Loved the fact that doctor didn't bring hairline down as he had some hairs below the hairline created by doc. Its adding so nicely to the hairline and making it look natural. yes @Melvin- Moderator i think this is taken just before his second surgery which was for his crown in decemeber 2022. @Giuseppe-HDC I think you will have the 2nd FUE post op pictures so if you can share them it will help in getting a peak into crown results and also the sides, nape of neck looked slightly thin so what happened to donor after 3500-4000 grafts. If its not allowed to share now then no issues, good luck to him for crown results.

Zayn's hairline is achievable with decent donor also But should only be replicated if mid scalp and crown area is same as zayn with no sign of progression ( meaning you are nw1 and want to just alter your uneven or high hairline which you have got by birth) Otherwise no doctor or patient should use that many grafts on hairline because where will you get donor grafts for mid scalp and crown when they thin. When i was a teen or in early 20's i also thought of this but this will only make your expectations unrealistic from meds and transplant. And no reason that it will suit everyone as it suits him. Imagine dwayne or vin with zayn's hairline.