Qwert

I used Emu oil after my HT surgery & it healed & cleared up the scabs on my scalp in record time. I went from a bloody, scaby scalp, to looking like I never had surgery in 10 days. You can see pics of it in my photo gallery. It's REALLY good stuff. I'm now going to use it on my scar area since I just had my staples removed today.

At 25, your hairloss is still no where near the level it will be in the next 5+ years. I had a full head of super thick hair until 30. Between 30-32 I suffered a LOT of hairloss. If I didn't get vigilant about it, I have no doubt that I'd be a N5-N6 by now or worse. The key is to hold on to as much hair as you can. Once you lose it, even if you go on the greatest program on earth, you won't get all of the lost hair back. I would get off propecia, especially a 1mg dose. Go for at least .5mg avodart a day. Add in Nizoral 3x a week & a selenium based shampoo like Head & Shoulders 2-3 times a week. 5% Xandrox 2x a day should be a basic anti hairloss stack. It might seem a tad too much, but trust me, it's worth it to not have to suffer the hairloss that will surely happen without it. You can get super hardcore & start inhibiting estrogen,prolactin & cortisol with compounds like Femera, Dostinex & Cytadren, but that may not be a direction you might be interested in going. But a basic program of Avodart, xandrox & Nizoral is, imo, a must.

These definitely do not sound like side effects of propecia/proscar. They sound like hypertension brought on by edema. You should look into a mild potassium sparing diuretic like Dyazide to counter this problem for you. A trip to the Dr & a blood pressure test is definitely in order.

Updated: Day 10 pics

With all due respect, 1mg procecia won't do anything, except be a waste of your time & money. I wouldn't even bother with propecia, but if you have your heart set on it, I'd go for 2.5 to 5mg a day. Better yet, go with Avodart at .5 to 1mg a day & 5% Xandrox twice a day. Use Nizoral 3x a week & consider an anti estrogen like Femera. The most important thing, even more important than a HT, is to keep the hair you have from falling out. I'm the same age as you are & if I hadn't fought tooth & nail to keep my hair, I'd be N5 to N6 by now or worse. Please look into Avodart at least & good luck.

I don't think there is a legitimate Dr out there who won't prescribe Proscar or Avodart to a patient who suffers from MPB. I got prescriptions for both drugs by just asking my Dr. No problems at all.

I'm quite close to locating a Chinese source for RU58841. Fortunately for me, a close friend owns a supplement company & he's hooking me up with one of his raw powder suppliers. I'm as giddy as a school girl.

Congratulations!!! Your before pics don't even look like the same person. You look 10 years younger. Can't wait to see the results of your 2nd procedure.

If you're going to make the leap & take something for hairloss, I'd pass on Proscar & go with Avodart, since it inhibits the type 1 & 2 5-alpha reductase enzyme. Basically, it does everything Proscar does & more. Plus, you can take one single dose per day, instead of Proscar's twice daily dose (11 hr half life). A basic program of 2% Nizoral, 5% Xandrox & Avodart will do wonders. Add an anti estrogen like Femera & an anti prolactin like Bromocriptin or Dostinex & you will probably have the strongest anti hairloss stack out there. Now if I can find some RU 58841, I'd be in hairloss heaven. It is a topical anti androgen that shuts down DHT at the follicle, without any systemic side effects in the body. If anyone has access to this or knows where it can be found, PLEASE let me know. PLEASE!!!!!!!

As I said earlier in this thread, I will go in once a month to have Joe take photos. Not only for the others on this board, but for myself as well, since I'm really curious to see a proper time line of the results that will take place during the next year. Also, I won't get into a pissing match about which Dr is better, which procedure is best etc. That's just a waste of time & not why this board is here. All I can write about is my experience with Dr Hasson & his staff, which was nothing short of 1st class all the way.

I'm VERY excited at how things will go over the next year. Since I live in Vancouver, I will go in once a month to get Joe to take proper pics against the same background. I will even make sure I wear the same shirt to keep things uniform.

My photo album is up. It can be viewed at: http://hair-restoration-info.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f...6060861/m/4181000781

These are my pre op & 1 day post op pics.

I went in for a wash & got the numbers you gentlemen were asking about. My strip is 35cm x 1.8cm to 2.4cm. I had 1920 single grafts & 4624 multiple grafts done. These are all actual whole grafts, & not a single graft split to make 2 seperate grafts. All together, I had 6544 grafts done in 14hrs. I also got some jpgs that were taken by Dr Hasson & Joe & will post them as soon as I can.

PC, I agree with you 100%. I was extremely lucky to get 6500 graft. I went in thinking if I could get 4500, I'd be more than pleased. At 6500, I almost fell out of my chair. Do I need 6500? Well, I don't know. However, if 6500 was harvested, I'll take the extra grafts. Can't exactly turn them down. I do have quite course curly hair, so it was easy to cover up the bald spots. But as soon as it was combed forward or wet, forget about it. Bald city!!! I have no idea how many grafts a 2nd session would yield. I won't even think about that for at least a year. I'd like to move the sides of my hairline down a little bit to get away from the Dracula look, but that is a long way away.

Honestly, I'm not trying too hard. I have no reason to. Altough I am extremely happy about how things turned out. I think my procedure went incredibly smoothly. I really don't know why, but it did. I know several people who've had the procedure done & all of them told me about the discomfort, the horrible 1st night, the constant pain, being out of commission for days after the surgery etc, that I was expecting the worst. But to my surprise, although it was no walk in the park, or a day at the spa, it wasn't any where as bad as those stories. I had a decent nights sleep. Today I put on my cap & went about my day & I haven't even taken any Tylenol 3s since this morning, since the pain, is more of a pulling sensation in the staple area than a bad head ache pain. The grafted area doesn't really hurt that much. Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe the pain will get worse in a few days. I don't know. But so far, it's more than tolerable & I'm already back to my normal routine. As for how many 1s, 2s or 3s & the exact dimensions of my strip. I don't know. After a 14hr day, we all just wanted to call it a day & go home. I can ask Dr Hasson or if one of his consultants is reading this, maybe he can post the info.

Pat, thank you very much for your informative post. Although I am not 100% certain, I'm quite sure that the strip dimesions, especially width, that was removed by Dr Hasson was no larger than what he would normally remove from another patient. I just think I am very lucky to have had a very dense donor area as well as a larger than average head size. Although this may seem funny, it probably had something to do with it. But I'm ceratinly no expert. I'm just so thrilled at having 6500+ grafts in one session.

I have one set of pics I took myself 1 month pre op which I will post now. I had 2 staff members working at once on transplanting grafts. One on each side. This is probably why more grafts can be done in one session, since the workload is split up & the staff rotated when they got tired. So basically you have 2 fresh staff members working on you all the time. I don't know about the lenght & width of my scar, but I'm going in for a hair wash tomorrow & will enquire for you guys. Dr Hasson did say that with their new Tricophytic technique, my scar should be almost invisible. But I'll know better in a few months. So far, so good!!!

It's a combination of hair density in the donor area, which is pure genetics, & very lucky for me. The loosness of the scalp, which again, is genetics & also faithfully doing your scalp exercises pre op for a few months, & of course, the skill of the surgeon & his staff. With all due respect, saying that Dr Hasson & his staff are much too aggressive, without any concern for the patient is absolutely ridiculous.

Well, not quite a day at the spa, but pretty damn close. The pain was non-existent during my session. I took Tylenol 3s for post surgery pain & a sleeping pill to fall asleep. So very minimal pain afterwards. I ended up getting a nice 7 hours of sleep in my reclining seat, to make sure my head wasn't touching or rubbing against anything. But apart from that, man, it was BETTER than a day at the spa. I just sat there, ate, watched DVDs as 6500+ grafts were transplanted into my pathetic bald head. I'll take that over a day at the spa anytime. The only sensation I have now, is not that of pain, but a mild pulling where the staples are. I thought I would have to take a day or 2 off work from the pain & discomfort, but, no way. I'm putting on my baseball cap & going back to normal routine right away.

I had had a consultation with Dr Hasson & Doug back in October. I was initially set on going to DHI in Florida for 2000 grafts, but decided to see what Hasson & Wong had to offer, since I live in Vancouver. After my consultation, I changed my mind & booked with Dr Hasson. Not only was the consultation, professional & informative, but there was no hard sell. Just the facts. I found, that being able to get it all done in one day, to be very attractive. Before that, I would've had to fly to Florida for 5-7 days to get 2000 grafts, since DHI told me they could only do 500 per day. The time involved, the much higher per graft cost & especially the fact that they would take 4-7 days just to respond to my e-mails didn't sit too well with me either. I really liked that all of my e-mails & enquires were answered promptly by H&W. I mean, if someone is shelling out $10k+ for a service, the least someone can do is answer their e-mails promptly. Anyway, I booked with Dr Hasson for a session, hoping for 3000-4000 grafts. Boy, was I waaaaay off!!! I arrived at 7:30 for my appointment & was greeted by the extremely friendly staff. I met with Dr Hasson & he drew out 2 hairlines. The one that would be picked would depend on the amount of grafts available. I was given the anesthetic & the cutting of the strips began. The initial injections stung for a few seconds, but after that, I felt no pain at all during the cutting or the stapling. I was rather surprised at this, since I was expecting a lot of pain & discomfort. After all, your flesh is being sliced open. When the cutting was taken care of, I was taken to another room where Dr Hasson cut the appropriate amount of slits. After that was done, I watched DVDs as the staff, 2 at a time, inserted the grafts. No pain here either. I was given a lunch break & was hoping to be done by 3-4pm with my 3000-4000 grafts. Well, at 4pm I was told that I would be staying longer. A lot longer, since the amount of grafts harvested was just over 6500. Well, to say I was overjoyed would be the understatement of the century. More slits were cut by Dr Hasson & the staff proceeded with more work. I then took a dinner break where I chatted with Doug & Joe who took more pictures. Both seemed genuinely interested & excited that I was able to get 6500+ grafts. It was really nice talking over dinner with people who were as passionate & hardcore about hairloss as I am. Before the this surgery, I'd done & taken some crazy stuff to prolong my hairloss / grow back hair. Forget Nizoral, Minoxidil, Avodart & Proscar. Have you guys tried Femera, Arimidex, Aromasin, Dostinex, Bromocriptin or Cytadren? Some worked well, some didn't, but I had to try them to see what would happen. Anyway, I ended up finishing at 9:30pm, 14 hours later. I watched 3 movies, had 2 meals & got 6500+ grafts done. All of this performed impeccably by Dr Hasson & his excellent & friendly staff. I couldn't be happier with my procedure, as I feel like I have won the lottery, with the amount of hair that was harvested for my surgery. It far exceeded my expectations & I can't wait for the following months to see what the new hair will look like. Dr Hasson took pics, which I will post when I receive them. I will also take pics of myself every couple of months to post as well. What a day!!!