hairman4321

work looks really good. the skullet was a questionable choice though 😃

4 hours ago, Jamos1982 said:

Found these old passport photos from 2020 today and made me laugh at the difference from new photos taken yesterday not the best quality but wow 😂😂

Aging in reverse!

Week 3 passed a few days ago, nothing much to report other than the hairs have started shedding. I'd say i've probably lost 50% of them by now, maybe a little less. I started topical minoxidil a week after the transplant, so its been 2 weeks of that now. My native hairs have been a bit shedding too. Hoping this means I will get quick regrowth by month 3 or 4. I'll probably just do photos at monthly intervals now.

I also started 'nitrowood' 2 weeks ago as a blood flow supplement to try and help the grafts survival rate. Anyway, overall I feel like my scalp is getting pretty good blood flow - more so than before the HT. But just the HT alone would probably cause a lot of the bloodflow / healing, but it can only help.

Recipient is a little itchy and still a bit numb feeling to the touch. Donor area i can be as rough with it as before the transplant, feels like its made a total recovery. I opted for non-shaven in the donor too, so i can feel where the hairs were trimmed - i've got a couple of rows of random short hairs in there. I think they parted the hair, shaved a tiny amount, did extractions, and repeated the process in different areas on the back and sides. I haven't had a haircut so I can't see it, only feel the shorter hairs.

I'll be looking to experiment with shorter haircuts when this has all grown in - sick of the fringe trying to cover my dodgy hairline! I'll be very happy not to have to worry about the wind or water showing my hairline too.

insanely good. great hair quality for it too i think. seriously the grey hair is always the thickest / the best for HT.

if you've got a HT that doesn't look very dense wait till you go grey! 

results should keep coming until month 8. 

that is a lot of single grafts unfortunately, and very little 3's or quads. i have seen some good results with twice the doubles to the 3's, but haven't seen or heard of this many singles before. i thought normally they only take like 300-400 singles for the hairline. 

14,000 grafts taken and 5 surgeries...

isn't that too much, i thought only 4k grafts or so FUE before you gotta use body hair? 

At this point doesn't this guy just have to re-evaluate and shave it or wear a wig? 

my transplanted hairs have grown a decent amount too. i'm day 15 or so now. when i went to rub the scabs off on day 12, some hairs were coming out but most stayed in. i assume this is only the hair and not the follicle, which should be firmly implanted by 10 days. month 2 or so it all falls out again. 

Things are going pretty well. I have some skin flaking off from under the recipient - mostly gone but a little still along the edge of the native hairs. I was rubbing this day 12 after soaking it in olive oil. Some small transplanted hairs were coming off, but I assume that was fine because the graft itself should be settled by now. 

Day 14:

On 11/24/2023 at 4:34 AM, consequence said:

My actual 6 months (180 days):

 

Still having density issues at the center/left hairline that haven't changed, and even the right looks a little sparse from the side.

From looking at (several) cases similar to mine on the forums it seems about 30% are behind me at this month and 30% are ahead, with about 40% being just where I am.

For the people who are at my level, it seems most of them stayed about the same through the end. So yes I've got 6-12 more months for caliber but I'm not holding my breath at this point. Time will tell, but my hunch is that it's unlikely.

The good news is I can style my hair a little and disguise it, at least from the front:

Hair combed from left to right:

 

More chaotic neutral:

 

I've been looking into microneedling that @mxnprettynice suggested though I know others have debated about its benefits. The Dr. Pen that seems popular on Amazon is appealing, but according to that 700+ page thread on Hair Loss Talk, the Derminator may be best. This is from a comment there:

Here's a video from the Derminator manufacturer that goes into more detail:

And an image from their website:

Wish they had done it with something that acted more like scalp soft tissue (ie. a banana or half boiled potato) but the demonstration is compelling. It suggests that some pens have more motion in the translational x-axis as opposed to a straight z-axis puncture like you see in the second row.

Still, I wish they had the Derminator on Amazon so I could see some user reviews. The pen's inventor himself has kind of weak diffuse thinning in that video which makes me wonder from whom I'm taking advice.

And regarding PRP, Dr. Couto's kit is from an Italian manufacturer that I've not been able to find in the US. I sent them a message on their website to see if I could purchase the machine for myself but haven't heard back. If they don't follow up, I am going to go with Emcyte as that has the highest and most consistent concentrations of platelets/growth factors according to the study I linked above. Who knows if this means they get better results. Studies that have compared PRP with saline wounding suggest that the majority of the benefit is the wounding itself, so.. whatever.

More than anything, I just don't want to go through a second procedure -- the first was such a painful rollercoaster. Not being able to dye my hair has isolated me from the dating scene for the last 6 months and I don't want to go through that again. Still, surgery may be the only option after a year and perhaps it's not as bad the second time around, but I'm trying less extreme solutions first. Second procedures can also fail or not provide improvement too.

Alrighty then, onwards and upwards.

 

give it a few more months and have some hope, lots of cases keep pulling through really strongly until month 8 that i've seen. 

re a second procedure: i've just been to Laorwong and had next to 0 swelling. There was a tiny bit the day after, and then the day after that near one of the temples, but by day 3/ 4 it was undetectable. it could be that your body just had a reaction to something, or it could be that the Drs all have different techniques to combat swelling. I had a head band and anti-swelling drugs for 5 days or so afterwards all provided by the clinic. Whatever it was, it was incredible. Your day 3 photo is really insane so i'd understand why you'd be put off a second. Do you know what happened or is it still a mystery? still, you could go for a 2nd procedure with a different doctor who's patients you've noted have little to no swelling. 

theres still the annoyance / dealing with wanting to hide from the world for 4 months after though; thats very understandable. 

58 minutes ago, Jamos1982 said:

Like if I put a row of fine single hair in front of the hairline so it looks a bit more soft and natural. Also a widows peak in the middle 

also one side of my temple looks more harsh then the other side 

Ah yep. Agree with baldv, maybe you could suggest just 1000 in the crown and the rest into hairline refinements - might be less than 1500 even.

Is there anything in particular you don't like about the hairline? What do you mean by soften?

Looks dense as to me now. Maybe you could make the temples slightly more irregular. I wouldn't do too much if anything to it though, maybe a couple of hundred grafts max.

17 hours ago, CJ89 said:

Day 14 Post Op Update

I’ve reached the 2 week mark! I haven’t used the travel pillow during sleep since op +10, and most of the itching has subsided (still a little here & there).

The grafts should now firmly be in place & I can return to my pre op routines, as per the advice from the clinic. I’m looking forward to getting back to the gym, and today washed my hair with my regular shampoo rather than baby shampoo. 

Just a waiting game now for my back & sides to grow back enough to get a decent haircut, and await the shedding phase!

 

nice one, out of the Wds now! we're almost perfectly aligned timing-wise and have the same graft count. i'll be day 14 in a few days, with dr. Laorwong.

hows it looking now?

9 hours ago, Cooper48 said:

Hi All,

Just wanted to share my 2 month update.  It's what I consider the love/hate period.  Love that I have made it to this mark but hate the way it looks for now.  Here are some general things I'm going through:

Recipient Growth

Not much happening here.  Really excited to see some growth.  I do feel like I can feel some baby hairs in the front and more stubble like growth in the crown. Not a lot and hard to see on camera so waiting patiently as is could be another month or more before anything kicks in.  The crown and top of my head still  look worse than my before photos.  I think this is due to shockloss and maybe some of the stubble I am feeling is this coming back. 

Donor

Yes, I need a haircut badly.  I'll probably look to get everything cleaned up in a few weeks.  While overall there is progress, there are still some patchy areas.  I do think they are looking better.  The gray hair also seems to have made a comeback better than the dark hair.  I have full confidence this will come back in the next few months. 

 

General

The redness is still there but it continues to fade.  My head is still 60% numb but slowly fading.  The numbness is probably the thing that bugs me the most at this point.  It just feels weird all the time.  I don't think any of my progress is concerning.  Hope the next month flies by since time is the key!

 

congrats on making it to the lowest point, will only get better from here!

On 11/10/2023 at 7:26 PM, Sele said:

I had PRP (and so called stem cell) with Dr. Laorwong during the transplant. And then one PRP session about 10 days ago. But I do micro needling weekly, if that does anything to speed up growth. 

are you microneedling the transplanted area? if so, when did you start doing that post-HT?

i'm not an expert but just thinking maybe thats not a good idea if the area is already full of inflammation trying to heal after the transplant, i think they say its like 1.5 years until its fully healed. BTW i saw that quite a few people here are actually against microneedling including @Melvin- Admin . I've tried it and it didn't provide any benefit for me personally, but yeah saw a lot of success cases on reddit. But they were microneedling alone or with min, not with a recent hair transplant.

anyway regardless looks like you've got some decent growth coming in month 4. i'm thinking up all these ideas i can do to try to make sure my growth is quick and dense, but i'm worried i might over complicate it and get in my own way a bit.

Looks great.

I've had something similar with a V shape - I think it is more common naturally in Europeans to have this hairline and I also think less can go wrong with the naturalness / density / saving future grafts.

I think I spoke to her at reception and she was very accommodating and had good English. I'm not sure how they do it there - do they usually work together on the same patient? In that video for example they're both doing one side each. I was nervous before my operation and don't recall if I saw them both in the surgery room or not. It would be good to get clarity on that.

The results speak for themselves though, and the amount of accolades / education she has had is unreal.
In the examples posted above they are also only Asian hair, would be good to see some other types.

1 hour ago, Coffee_bean said:

This is going to look so dang good! Sick hairline design. Did he choose that, or was that your idea? 

thanks, hope so! i drew it on myself for the first pass 😂 but he added all the irregularities etc. i'm following your thread too, hope you get a great result also man.

5 hours ago, Rawkerboi said:

Great Write Up! The works look clean any specific reason why you opt for non shave technique?

 

yeah so i can hide it! and my balding seems localised to the hairline anyway.

After reading (and seeing) all the positive reviews of Dr Laorwong, I pulled the trigger. Thank you a lot for your reviews, especially @Ake@A_4_Archan@Jamos1982@Sele.

My background:
I'm in my 30s and have been on meds for about 3 years which seems to have either stopped or considerably slowed my hair loss, which was at its strongest in my early 20s.
Currently using topical dutasteride.
However, I didn't have any noticeable regrowth and my hairline bothered me.

My main complaints were an asymmetrical hairline (the widows peak was more skewed to one side), as well as my right temple being more recessed. I also wanted to thicken the existing hairline, and leave the V shape - didn't want to go for anything too aggressive.

The experience:
There are many recent threads here about his clinic and what to expect, so I wont go into lots of detail but things ran smoothly and I had a very positive experience.

I drew the general shape of what I wanted done for the doctor and we were good to go from there - I thought fair enough, it was pretty specific after all!

During surgery they added the micro irregularities and all that jazz, I'm not an expert but I don't think I see any doubles in the front row. I'm very happy with it so far - swelling was minimal and recovery has been easy. They do PRP included in their package, 5 days of washes + LLLT, and I also opted to pay extra for the stem cells. I stayed all 5 days for the washes and LLLT which was very relaxing, nearly fell asleep each time. I also got extra sleeping pills and added in 10mg of melatonin (a tip I got from another user here @consequence, because I'm also usually a side sleeper, so this helped me get some sleep on my back).

I laid low the 5 days after surgery especially compared to what the rest of the folks around here were getting up to. I didn't want to sweat it up or accidentally bang it on anything. Funnily enough on the last day (day 6 post op) to catch the flights home, I banged my head about 5 times on car doors, airplane overhead luggage, you name it - but luckily it was all on the top of my head and not where the recipient was. When they were doing the washes, and as far as I can tell, I haven't lost or seen any lost grafts.

He told me I have average caliber hair (I was worried because I know most blonde people have thinner hair, and I was blonde as a kid). My graft breakdown also seemed decent enough - something like 335 singles, 585 doubles and 585 triples. Here's hoping to dense growth and high graft survival rates!

Photos:
You should be able to click into the images below to see higher quality.

Pre-op

left temple:

right temple:


7 days post-op

left temple:

right temple:

On 11/18/2023 at 1:23 AM, jjalay said:

 

You should avoid topical minoxidil if you have any redness on your skin after surgery.

why?

i also don't understand why you'd want to avoid topical minoxidil - it improves blood flow to the area to speed healing, and improve graft survival, no?

i feel like anything that reduces DHT and enhances blood flow would be beneficial as a no-brainer. seems weird to me you've been given this advice. advice from Dr Laorwong was to avoid topicals and hair styling products for 7 days, which is what i will plan to do.
then i plan to use topical minox and topical dutasteride.

4 minutes ago, Jamos1982 said:

thanks - this could explain your excellent results. twice as many 3 hairs as 2 hairs! some people have twice as many 2 hairs as 3 hairs, which i think would make it look less dense. although there are other factors that come into play like hair thickness and hair colour vs skin colour etc etc.

second the comment above, i've never seen that balding pattern / that transplant recipient area before haha.
you must be happy - looks like they've done a great job. month after month it keeps looking better, 10x better than baseline already.

all you can do now is see how it looks at 12 months and reassess. i'd say you'll probably be happy with it as a one and done.

interesting - i haven't seem that many afro HT examples before now i think about it. i would've thought the curls would make great illusion of density. but yeah understandable that its harder to work with. hope it turns out well for you man!