Firstly, I must say kudos to the folks here for putting together an awesome forum! Until last Friday I had no clue as to what was causing my hair-loss, the options I had for restoration and tons of other stuff that I now feel I am better educated on Great work guys!
My questions is at the end but first some background on my situation --
I always felt my hair-loss pattern was weird - if someone were to look at me from the front, they would not know that I had any issues with hair-loss. A top-view and rear-view would tell the true picture I could never understand where in the NW scale I fell and that was frustrating!
Finally after reading some good literature on Dr. Shapiro's website, I have come to this conclusion -
1. My "hairline zone" is intact and has not experienced much loss, reltively speaking
2. The "crown" and "frontal core" area has significant loss - that would be a bald crown and significant loss on frontal area.
I consulted with Dr Lawrence Samuels in St Louis (reccomended on this board) and he reccomended about 1450 - 1500 molecular FUT's and said he would work mainly on the frontal core area and not do anything on the crown since there is not a significant donor base to replace that. He even felt nothing needed to be done in the front.
Now that was a long explanation but here is the question - is it worth travelling far to get this procedure done with the best in the business if no "hair-line" restoration is needed? Based on my research here (and I am less than a week old), I feel Dr Samuels is a good fit for my needs and budget.
I am 34 and feel I have reached a point where my hair-loss has not stopped but slowed down significantly.