hairman4321

looks amazing. what was the density in the recipient and the patients age? seems like a lot of grafts for that small area

I've just had a HT and have been told to use baby shampoo for the first 3 months.

After this, i'll want to start taking care of my hair with a good shampoo and conditioner.
Do you have any good brand recommendations for shampoo?

Re conditioner: Conditioner is something i've never really used before, and previously just managed the 'fine line' between hair being too dry and too oily by trying not to use too much shampoo or too often. Is this a good approach or is a conditioner best to use?

looks way better and can't tell you've had anything done. way to go!

nice one, looks great

great work. is the patient on finasteride?

On 11/15/2023 at 2:16 PM, Spring15 said:

Interesting I didn't know that. Would think it would be quite fatiguing for the 3000+ grafts patients, but who knows maybe Laorwong has marathon like stamina. I wouldn't be concerned with that, nearly all his high norwood patients I've seen have had excellent results

apparently he works 7 days a week unless he goes to hair conferences. he doesn't use machines, he is the machine 😂

8 hours ago, pettykinship said:

I'm located in the US, and I'm interested in a HT to treat my "fivehead". I don't think you would describe me as a Norwood II, I just have a high but otherwise intact hairline. I tolerate finasteride well (have been taking it for 2 years with no sides) and so I've been looking at FUE options. My first thought was Dr. Konior, but he's out of my price range unfortunately. After that I had it narrowed down to Dr. Kongkiat Laorwong in Thailand and Dr. Ron Shapiro in Minnesota. But Dr. Laorwong seems just too good to be true – great price, great availability, and seems to be highly respected. I expect if I went to Dr. Shapiro I'd pay more and have to wait longer. Then again, something tells me that it might not be the best idea to go to Thailand for this. It just feels "sketchy" in a way that going to American docs doesn't. What do you all think?

put it this way, in Australia we have no decent HT doctors and the cheaper option of Laorwong in Thailand is more effortful but gets a much better result - effortful in the sense you have to book flights, organise places to stay, deal with some language barrier issues. But the quality of his work is better than 99% of other HT places out there and he has been pumping out great results to the forum members here lately. And I would say for most people the extra effort is worth it given this is a procedure that you have to see every time you look in the mirror - may as well give it the greatest chance of success!

I've heard/seen Konior is great also but very pricey. I haven't looked into Ron Shapiro so can't comment.

3 hours ago, romeo_gent said:

I'm getting quite comfortable with Dr Ratchathorn so I think I will stick to her. She is from the same clinic and they seem to help each other too during the procedure.

FYI i saw a good result from them recently:

@A_4_Archan did you ever find out your graft breakdown - how many singles / doubles / triples etc?

On 11/8/2023 at 6:46 PM, Spring15 said:

9.5 month update. Haven't updated recently as I had an otoplasty done 7 weeks ago. I was naïve and thought it would heal very quickly like a transplant - not the case lol. I had it done in Bangkok so also had a consult with Dr Laorwong about a few hundred grafts in certain areas. Maybe next year, we'll see. I also started topical finasteride

 

A great result, congrats. You will need to change your display photo to one of Krillin with hair!
Did you ever find out your graft breakdown, how many singles / doubles / triples etc?

On 6/12/2023 at 6:40 AM, Jamos1982 said:

Thanks mate yeah for sure no one has even asked if I had a hair transplant apart from the few people I told I guess this is a great indicator of it being natural I’m shocked at how much it’s improved from few weeks ago I was thinking this would be around 6 month mark . I am 100% staying on meds I’m taking topical fin/min zero sides so hopefully will get better from here!

hey Jamos, curious what brand of topical fin/min you take? Thanks
also, did you ever get a break down of how many singles, doubles, triples you used?

i think maybe one issue is that the hairline was lowered a lot - it was a lot of completely bald area to cover. In that case i think a second pass is required for decent density. maybe also a low graft survival - was DHT blocker, minoxidil, or blood flow supplement / anything else being used to ensure high graft survival?

looks really good at your 1 day after surgery photos. good head shape, you could rock a buzz cut!

On 10/20/2023 at 3:57 AM, Sele said:

Exactly, I think the receptors do not do what they are supposed to do. Some say the receptors are oversensitive to androgens. As I mentioned, my current Total T is between 1500 and 1800 ng/dl. Thats double or even tripple the normal T levels. Free T is 3x higher than norm. Yet I dont feel anything different in terms of libido, confidence, aggression etc. But there are tons of people like me with pfs who didnt had any benefits from TRT. But if the receptors are really oversensitive, TRT would have a negative effect.

I indeed tried low dose Cialis. I tried 5mg every day and dropped that to 2.5mg every day after a week or so. Cialis was one of the things that helped with libido in the beginning. Just as Black Maca extract or Rhodiola did. Even TRT did help in the first 4 weeks. But, as with Finasteride, it seems I am a one in a million case with bad luck when it comes to Cialis. After about 2 weeks on Cialis I noticed vision problems on my right eye. In the center of my eye I felt like I was going blind. I lost about 50% of my vision. Couldnt make the connection to Cialis at first. But luckily around week 4 I did some research and found that Cialis can cause vision problems for some people. I immediately stopped and within 2 weeks the vision turned back to normal. Guess I was lucky. If I would have taken it longer, who knows what would have happened. Yet people on Reddit, just as with Finasteride, dont believe that Cialis can do this.

Yes, it was hairs without a root/shaft. The hairs looked like cutted hairs. So just a hair with nothing under it.

Just chiming in here, perhaps you are very sensitive to drugs. Like in your OP you said how you fell asleep almost instantly after they gave you meds before the HT - myself and a few others here were awake the whole time. I was the tiniest bit drowsy and it made me feel less stressed about the whole thing, but no chance was I going to fall asleep.

On 5/28/2023 at 6:07 AM, Sitries1 said:

Here are some pictures under the down lights in my bathroom. I will take some outdoor pictures on my next update. 

Looks great.

Just to play devils advocate here, it will look great whatever hairstyle you have, but i think it actually looked best as a buzzcut. A slightly longer one. Suits your face and makes the jawline pop and kinda gives you a 'tough guy' look combined with the tattoos (in a good way).

On 9/12/2023 at 8:00 AM, Mars11 said:

Dear @Calihome1,
thank you for your honest feedback. I know exactly what you are referring to. I have a few spots that are a bit lacking in density. As I mentioned, I see these myself, but for now I'm fine with it.
I'm even starting to notice "imperfections" in other people's hair that I never would have noticed before. Some of us (myself included) are probably looking for something almost unattainable because we are so extremely focused on our hair situation.  If it's a perfect result is very subjective I'd say, but I am 100% satisfied with the naturalness.

Thanks everyone else for their feedback!!

i also think a bit of sparsity is what can make it look natural, especially given your age. imagine the situation where you're over 30 and your previously slick bald temples are thicker than a 10 year olds, but the middle forelock is thinner. that wouldn't look natural! doctors these days purposely create some jagged imperfections for this reason. your hair is looking amazing man.

On 11/12/2023 at 5:34 PM, Happychap said:

Hey man - that's a really good question.  I Might need to have a think about that. I would probably ask more questions about the quality of my hair and how that would impact the final result.  I put a lot of trust in the Dr and am so far happy with the result 🙂

when i get nervous i ask a lot of questions, although maybe not the most useful ones haha.
i asked him the other day what he thought of my donor and hair thickness - he said donor was good and thickness caliber was medium (this was just looking with his eyes in the pre-op consult, though). with that i'm hoping for a positive result! i've only had 1500 grafts in the hairline and did the cell therapy also so hoping that can boost the native hairs also.

i'm also planning on eating 1 raw garlic clove a day (supposed to boost blood flow), use topical min and topical dutasteride when i get back home. and maybe something like "nitro wood" supplement - also supposed to boost blood flow, its mostly beetroot powder i believe. i'll probably just do these for the first 3 months. i've used topical min before and don't like the hassle of daily application.

3 minutes ago, Ake said:

I know your pain. I think the hardest part for me is trying to hide it from people. As before my HT no-one thought I was losing my hair as I hid it with topik, regular hair cuts and wearing a hat. 

Chin up - itll only be a little longer. A drop in the ocean of time in your life, youll forget this stsge ever happaned by next year.

Can you still wear a hat? If you don't wanna talk about it you could make up some story about having foliculitis or something. It seems things only start getting better around month 4, and you'll be laughing after that.

Looks like this will frame your face r3ally well. 

A very simple technique I use is not letting myself go more than 5kg over my ideal weight, and when I get to that point I stop eating breakfast (and have black coffee instead so keeps me in a fasted state and suppresses appetite) and make sure my dinner and lunch aren't too large and are real whole food meals. This keeps me in a mild calorie deficit while not making it too hard to follow long term, so I do this 3 months or so to lose the 5kg. 

I also incorporate light exercise like yoga and walking. When I do heavy exercise my hunger gets out of control and I start eating too much and too much junk food.

can't tell that anything has happened to the donor at all in these photos, and after 4000 grafts too! you could rock a buzz cut

12 hours ago, consequence said:

Thanks brother. I'm having some difficulty being complacent with the left frontal hairline being a bit whispy. I'm going to look at Couto's other cases at the 5 month mark and then at a year to see if I'm on track, or if people that were thin at this stage just generally stayed thin at the end.

The actionable purpose behind this would be to have an idea as to whether I should start trying other things like laser helmets/PRP to thicken the shaft caliber or if I should just lay and pray. So little is known about these add-ons, but I suspect there is a window of opportunity with their use (ie. they may have more impact within the first year when the follicle is first establishing blood supply, etc. as opposed to afterwards).

There's also uncertainty about differences in the PRP protocol used at Couto's clinic vs ones near me. It has been difficult to get the full details of their PRP protocol via e-mail and to have a local MD follow the same approach -- ie. activated vs non-activated, leukocyte depleted or enriched, centrifuge rate, how many injections and how far apart (as far as distance). The consistency with PRP use across different centers is basicallly non-existent. So many variables and so little is known.

I will probably give the clinic a call later this week to touch base after seeing where I stand relative to his other patient posted cases.

lay and pray, don't want to mess it up and you've got a long time to do until its final form - its looking pretty good already.

wow, thats good growth! scalp is looking at lot less red too, or maybe its just the flash. hoping you have a good result dude!

might be worth coming off it slowly rather than all at once

why is it considered aggressive? the patients existing hairline wasn't lowered.

nonetheless, looks like a great result - i'd be happy with it!