David____

10 minutes ago, Shadman said:

You mean hair patch ?

No I mean a hair system...

New to a hair system so have never tried any of the shampoo / conditioner. Which ones would you recommend? Ideally with some thought towards value for money. Also how often do you shampoo / condition?

Hey I’m new to this world and looking to get my first hair system this weekend. I would like to learn how to do it all myself instead of becoming dependent on a salon. Is there somebody who would be willing to mentor me through my first re-installation living in London?

I promise to pass on the favour once I’m confident!

On 11/20/2023 at 4:21 AM, ALittelTeal said:

You owe it to yourself to see if you can get used to the shaved/buzzed look. I got a HT without fin and regret it constantly. I can't stress this enough - try cutting your hair shorter now and save yourself the nightmarish hassle of future procedures that in all likelihood will not give you the results that you hope they will.

alright I did it! I had no idea I am so bald haha

Not great, but I think I could live with it if it was a bit more uniform. So I’m considering skin micro pigmentation. I think it’s considered lower risk? ie there’s much less risk of regretting it? Could somebody educate me on the risks of SMP please. Perhaps it looks weird if I start getting grey hair later? Perhaps it will look obviously unnatural? Perhaps it requires a highly skilled person and they are few and far between. 
 

Since I’m in Turkey maybe I should get it done while I’m here? Does anybody have any recommendations for places in Turkey? 
 

I think I’ll start a new thread with these questions if people here aren’t as knowledgeable about SMP?

Thanks

Interesting, can you point to some negative experiences?

41 minutes ago, Berba11 said:

Which clinic did you [sort of] go to?

Your issue isn’t finasteride. Your issue is that you’ve approached the possibility of surgery all wrong, haven’t done your due diligence & haven’t properly considered a long term plan. 

You made an excellent decision to bail out of surgery. 

Thanks

Dr Acar Cosmedica was the clinic. Recommended by a friend of a friend who did lots of due diligence and impressive ratings. Does that change things?

I bailed at the last minute. I flew to Turkey and even got the cannula put in my arm. Moments before payment I felt I had too much FUD due to the consensus on forums like this that a HT is not worth it without Finasteride. I’ll shave my head this week and see how I feel. Even though the surgeon there was confident that it can be done without Finasteride it’s hard to trust him as he isn’t unbiased.

15 hours ago, Berba11 said:

What?

This forum is littered with threads and journeys by people who have had a HT, many of them do not take finasteride.

I did another deeper look I can’t find any submissions where

* Sub 40 with male pattern baldness and ended up shaving their head due to lack of finasteride 
* Can show the scars of a DHI Sapphire FUE surgery

The closest I found was this guy on YouTube 

2 hours ago, Gatsby said:

If you have any thoughts whatsoever of shaving your head after having a hair transplant then I would seriously consider canceling surgery. Also terms like Blue Sapphire, DHI, etc are just marketing terms. No surgeon can guarantee that scarring won't be visible. I strongly suggest that you shave your head and get a feel for it now while spending at least a year educating yourself on hair transplants. What they can do and what they cannot do.

Thanks I think I’ll do this 

9 hours ago, Berba11 said:

What?

This forum is littered with threads and journeys by people who have had a HT, many of them do not take finasteride.

Well I find it hard to find examples of where they explicitly say they don't take Finasteride

9 hours ago, Berba11 said:

If your long term plan is to shave your head, then do it now and save yourself the hassle and cost of a HT. At the very least, try it for a while as part of your research before surgery. Surgery should always be the last resort.

Depends how short you shave it. If you go too short, you'll expose the scars in the donor area and the gaps between the hairs on top will be bigger than native hair, so it might not look great unless you have a few HT's to get a more homogenous buzz look overall. If it's a slightly longer buzz cut (maybe a grade 3+), it'll look better, but again only if there's full coverage of the scalp.

So will it look better? Probably not, and it will be more challenging to get it to look good.

I think you have two viable options; Shave it off now and just rock that look, or eventually get a HT with a view to chasing down your hair loss with more HT's. Trying to a take a little from column A and a little from column B is just going to get to down a rabbit hole full of problems.

Right but it might look better for the next few years and it may also look better long term as the hairline could be better even with grade 1?

Or maybe I'm delusional. I don't really have the luxury of time as I'm in Turkey now and surgery scheduled for tomorrow so I need to make a decision.

Surgeon will use DHI Sapphire and they claim no scarring will be visible? Is that possible?

I know I will end up as N7 due to male pattern baldness as I’m 33 so I know that unless I take Finasteride I can’t expect a great result. I have decided that 100% I won’t be taking Finasteride. However, I'm still strongly considering to get a transplant tomorrow because:

* I do expect that having a transplant will extend the number of years before I have to shave my head. I expect an extension of at least 2 years maybe pushing me to 36?

* My shaved head with a transplant will look better than without?

Are these decent expectations?

Please can people send me some pictures of people in a similar scenario to me who underwent a transplant and did not take Finasteride.