youngsuccess

newhairguy, Understandable about wanting the perfect hair above your temples, but if the hairline in the middle of your head is decent, that's what really compliments your face. Check out these two pics of Jude Law, who has kind of a lot of bare area above his temples. One shows his hair a little pushed back, exposing the left corner; the other shows him with hair styled over the temple recession, looking cool. So here's a guy with great hair but I guess just a natural recessed look that is easily disguisable. The second pic shows the cool styling cover up: I think this actually probably looks more distinguished and stylish than someone with the werewolf hairline.

depressedchild, Everyone here has given you good advice. The first step to arresting your hairloss is trying propecia/rogaine when you turn 18 (it might even grow some back!) Never tried Rogaine personally, but have been on Propecia for almost two years now with no side effects and no hair falling out. Like newhairguy, I too had a ht restore my hairline recently. I'm 24, and yes this is considered by many to be too young (you'll realize that seeking to restore a youthful hairline is a very controversial topic). There is a ton of hope for you; like others have suggested, you will see vast improvements in this field soon. Look, being in highschool and losing your hair must be devastating; people this age are very judmental. You will have many points in your life after this when you will have the opportunity to meet new people and reinvent yourself entirely if you see fit. If there had to be one good thing about losing your hair at a younger age (which I know there isn't) it would be that the sooner you start thinning, the sooner a doctor may be able to assess your loss and the degree to which you will permanetly bald, and therefore plan a transplant or series of transplants accordingly years from now. I have a friend who rapidly starting losing his hair after highschool. Rather than dwelling on the negative, he decided to concentrate on another area of his appearence: his physique. So basically he got buff as hell and shave his head, making him look like some kind of Stone Cold Steve Austin badass and girls love him (guys definitely wouldn't make fun of his bald look). This definitely wouldn't work for me, but just goes to show you that everyone is different, so take time to really think about how you feel about your looks as well as the ways in which you choose to represent yourself. You will have a plethora of options in the years to come.

newhairguy, Cheers! Actually I didn't tell anyone either; the only person who knows is my mom (she drove me and picked my up). I too stayed at my family's, telling the rest of them I was sick and needed to get away from my roomates. I was a true schemer: basially, I had it done on a Thursday morning before a Friday on which a already had off from work, and over the weekend called in to let them know I would be out Mon. + Tue (never abuse sick time, so no big deal). This way I had 5 days to relax and recover before I had once again enter the world. The night before I had the procedure, I went home early telling friends I felt a major sickness coming on, so no one was suspicous when I didn't come around over the weekend. I luckily had almost no swelling, definately none by the time I went back to work. At the time I was also wearing my hair like Shaggy from Scooby to do cover op the recession, so it wet right over the crusts and I was home free (although majorly paranoid some ass was going to walk by and mess up my hair noogie-style in friendly, jocular fashion, exposing the truth or possibly damaging the grafts! but that didn't happen) I also whore hats for a couple years prior to surgery enought to where it wasn't weird to see me in one for a few days of the week, but not as suspiciously as wearing one everyday. Luckily we grew up in an age in which wearing baseball/snow caps for style was a popular look. You might be perfectly fine with not experiencing permanent shockloss. The other contributing factor with pemanent shockloss I think is having super dense packing in the area to the point where natural follicles are damaged, and I don't think that a thousand spread throughout the hairline places enough in a small area to cause that kind of damage. But don't quote me on that I have also heard guys who claim that they were moderately thinning all over the top, and than had grafts sprinkled throughout their scalp which resulted in p.sl. I was reading a thread on here about it the other day: some claimed it was okay to conseratively approach native hair, just not to overkill it. Everyone is different, and being on Propecia before the procedure can reduce the chances of something like that happening. Good luck! Any pics?

Bill, Oh yeah permanent shockloss is a scary thought. It is probably the one area that isn't adressed when you're first looking into hts, as most info claims that shockloss is not permanent. My doc finally cleared it up for me, stating that if grafts are placed amongst sparse or even moderately thick hair that is predestined to fall out, you could loose it permanently. Good thing my grafts were placed in a new area without preexisting hairs. I'll try to get my hands on that before pic when I go in again in at the 6 month follow-up. Also, going back to my first question: so at like 6 months I've read that it's safe to assume (if you've seen decent growth) that you are 50-60% done. Is that just in terms of thickness/density and maturation, or does that mean that 40-50% of the hairs haven't come through yet (more ambiguity!)? Thanks again for your insight.

Bill, Thanks for the comments- I've been reading these boards for awhile now before I signed up, and always respected your opinions as you are an articulate guy with lots of surgery experience. The before pic is me at 22. This was a maturing hairline that I admit would be hard to detect if you didn't know me or my hairline previously. My doctor has the before pic right before surgery, so I'll get it from him at my 6 month checkup. I understand your reaction that I didn't "need" a ht; however, if you really think about it, nobody "needs" hair on their heads. Maybe 100,000 years ago some early form of man needed it for warmth, but today, isn't any hair transplant done for cosmetic improvement and how the patient feels about how his/her hair looks? As I said in my first post, I want to be here to offer younger guys like me support after I've seen guys post pics seeking advice on hts and they get laughed off the board by people. Most of the time, I do think the guys discouraging us from hts have good intentions and do have compelling arguments against it. But you have to understand the young guy's plight. Someone in his early twenties may think, "I want to correct this now. This is a significant period in my life when I am going to be judged more severely by others on my looks as I: 1.Graduate College 2.Get my first real job and get settled into some kind of regular career of sorts 3.Want to be my most attractive as I enter the adult dating scene A guy this age may think, "Why should I wait until I'm 47 with a wife, kids, and a stable job to fix my hair?" I mean no disrespect towards anyone and think that a hair transplant is just as important to someone at 70 as it would be to a 30 year old, as we all know what it's like. BUT to our detractors, I guess that would be our argument. And yes, hair loss is unpredicable as well as the field of hair restoration. Personally, I have great donor hair, no signs of hairloss other than maturing hairline, no family history of baldness, financial stability enought to comfortably pay for propecia, so for me personally, I thought I was a good candidate for an early procedure. I don't think I'm going to need another ht, but if the drug wearss off and my hair starts thinning elsewhere in ten years from now, I have tons of good donor hair left and the prospect of new advancements in this field. I took a risk, I know, but I think I made a good choice. I in no way intend to start telling 18 year olds to run out and get hts. I've just seen guys my age post pics, and I can see what they're talking about, even if nobody else can.

Hang in there. Hair Bank is right: starting propecia in a year is the fist step, as hopefully it will arrest the hairloss (maybe even grow it back!)and buy you some time before considering a ht. I started thinning in the front at 19, so I know what it's like. I waited until I was 24 to have my ht, which just involved restoring my hairline. 24 is still very young, and most people will recommend that you wait a few years beyond that point. But just keep in mind, everyone is different, so the first thing to do is see a dermatologist, wait it out a little and to see if any progress is made with propecia. I started Propecia when I just turned 23 (should have sooner) and haven't peramnently lost a hair since (I'm almost 25 now). For the meantime, you also may look good with a buzzed head like kamin suggested- it's a pretty fashionable look nowadays, and it doesn't have to be permanent. To obsure my hairline, I just wore my hair like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, which covered it entirely until I had my HT. But yeah, propecia is the way to go. The only drawbacks I have heard of are the following: 1.Side effects- But none experienced by me or many people. 2. Cost- but is $60-70 dollars a month really that expensive to save your hair? It's 15 bucks a week; just skip out on buying a cd or going out to eat once every week. 3. Some studies suggest that some people may become acclimated to propecia's effects (stops working) after I think like 7 years or so, but again everyone is different, and you are going to see major improvements in this field, so I wouldn't worry about that too much.

4 months, 1week. Still slightly pink, but fading fast. Additional stubbly hairs popping through. Hairs have yet to mature fully, but looks ten times better than it did before.

Donor area after 3 months. A lot of the pinkness faded by this point. The hairs are growing back now, and only a little more fading to go before it's completely undetecatble

3 months:

Okay, here is the new series of pics, and I increased their size. The before pic sucks, as I did have to snap a shot of an existing photograph; however, I tried to make it sharper and drew arrows to indicate the areas that were focused on. The middle-right thinning is especially obvious because of the shiny spot (that was on my head, not the photograph).

Thanks Hairbank, Basically the hairline was lowered a little less than 1/2 centimeter, and 600 is definately a low number of graftrs relatively for hts but it was the perfect amount to fill it in densley but naturally. I wish I could juxtapose the images in one thread, that way it would be easier to see the area that began to fill in. I definately did not look balding before, maybe just slighlty receding if one looked hard enough. But I did look older and the missing definition of the hariline did change the way my face looked overall. It is getting back to almost exactly where it used to be now! The problem for me is that posting the pics is a covert operation: there is only one computer in my house that has the photo programs on it; I can't even upload them on my laptop yet. I did find a before pic though, so hopefully at an opportune moment tonight I will be able to run to the other computer and upload and rearrange the pics into one file the pics (plus make them larger). Our scanner isn't working though, so I'll have to take a pic of the before photgraph with my digital camera and then upload it (I won't post it if the quality is total crap though).

Looks good for three months man. I've read a lot on this forum that it is not uncommon to see NO signs of growth at only 3 months, so impressive progress. I had a little at 3, but mostly due to the fact that a small number of grafts were never shed. I wish I had uploaded larger photos like these (well, next time). Old-school ECW fan, thus "Taz" with one z?

4 months, 1 week (not bad...not bad at all)

4 months, 1 week (didn't realize I cropped these pics so small; I'll post larger ones next update):

Another 3 month shot:

Hey guys: I don't know how many times I've come to these boards for advice; I decided it was finally time to sign up and share my experience. I'm 24, and I recently had procedure done involving 600 grafts to the hairline. I'm sorry I don't have a decent before pic right now, but you can clearly see the recipient sight, as it is thinner and a little pinker in the 3 months pics. I had the grafts distributed evenly across the hairline, but from the pics you can really only notice my right side because on the left, the oriention of the natural hairs above point down/to the side and obscure the new hairline. I understood the risk involved in seeking to restore a youthful hairline; however, the hair directly above is thick enough that it seamlessly flows into it. I also raised my eyebrows slightly for pic "4months#2" in a bad attempt to give the Rock's "People's Eyebrow" (yeah, I'm a wrestling fan), so the widows peek isn't as far down as it may look in there (although it is just low enough!)If I had a particular purpose for joining (other than to ask questions and just share/empathize with everyone), I guess it would be to offer some hope/advice to the younger guys out there who are contemplating a ht. I've attached some pics: a few are from month 3, and the other two were taken at 4+1 week (holy $#%(^! Major improvement in this 5 weeks!) I've had excellent results so far; however, I have a question to start with: Despite my evident progress, I think that about 30% of the transplanted hairs never were shed. I did notice some new ones popping through around month 3, but I really think the cosmetic difference so far has been due to the combination of a FEW new sprouts and the original trasnplanted hairs that were never shed. Can I expect to see more growth in months 5-6? Pretty good so far though right? (I am attempting to attach the pics now; I apologize, as they are pretty small. I don't really know what I'm doing... it seems like I can only do one at a time...this may take a while to figure out... P.S. I am aware that basically I just had a maturing hairline. I hope you don't rush to judgment and assume that I am vain. I have no extensive balding in my family, have been on propecia for a year (to correct/prevent minor thinning before it starts) and feel that I overall have taken the right measures to ensure that this won't be a disaster down the road some time. If I can dig up a decent before pic though, I think many, especially the younger guys, will understand why I did this.