scooping around

correct me if I'm wrong, but how can someone be viewed as gay for having a shaved head? I don't know of many cultures that stereotyped shaved heads with gay men? In most Asian cultures, if you have a shaved head, people would associate you with a monk.

yea, and mobley is not even ashamed of it, just shave it down to a buzz fade, and the scar is very noticeble. If he grew it out a bit, and wears a head band, it'll be a lot better.

I haven't followed Nash's career as much until the last 4 years when he started playing really well. I do remember seeing him with a buzzed look, but he grew it back out to how he wears it today. Even when you look at the way his hair is now, it still shows that he has a higher hairline, but not necessarily receeding or thinning. Mobley's work looks pretty good, other than the huge scar on the back of his head. He's not ashamed of the HT either, it's shaved really short in the back. Probably didn't get the tri-closure method.

I watched Cuttino Mobley play today and noticed that he did have a pretty bad scarred smiley face on the back of his head. I knew it!! He did have some work done. He went from a N4 to someone that has a full head of hair.

Abbie, you might be right. I've noticed that when the grafts first shed few days after the HT, the hair come out straight with a slight bent of angle on the ends grafted into the scalp. Maybe that's what you meant by "over manipulating" the grafts while they're placed at the angle to match the native hair?

Baldeagle After being an active member on this forum for a few years, posts like this pop up all the time. More often than that, those posts are from members that did not know about this forum until after the HT had gone through. Most of those members ended up getting their HT done w/o the research and done by bad quality docs. At least your HT was performed by one of the best Coalition Docs, and I have no doubts that your results will be great. Like Billero mentioned, the best thing for you to do now, is to follow the post op instructions religiously. Other than that, look forward to your 5 weeks break to relax. Drink lots of water, eat healthy and you'll be back to normal in no time. Have a set of loose clothing for at least the first week, so you won't accidentally knock off any of the fragile grafts when you're changing like I did. Get some Dermatch to help conceal the donor area, when the time comes that you have to go back to work. Let us know how you're doing after about 2 weeks, I think you'll be surprised at how "normal" you feel and look then. Best of luck.

what's Neosh? Is a topical treatment for MPB?

not sure if it's because the picture is really zoomed in, but it looks like the grafts are spaced too wide apart.

I was lucky enough that I was in between jobs and was able to take off work for about 2 months. When I started working again, it was in a really casual environment, where I could wear a hat, shorts and flip flops if I wanted to. I wore a hat for about a month straight to the 3 months post op mark, and slowly started showing up w/o the hat. I've had a few people stared at my head when I went hatless, but the thing is most average joe just don't know enough about the HT process to notice anything. I've had a male co-worker stared at my head at a really close distance, and I'm 100% sure that he can't tell the difference between newly transplanted hair vs. native thinning hair. Even I can't tell the difference between them sometimes. I had pretty much the same mindset as most members here, if I had to I'd tell them, but if not, no one has to know. To this day, only my immediate family(mother and sisters) and my regular barbar knows I've had a HT. After the 3 months post op mark, you're pretty much done worrying and just waiting for the final results.

If that's the case, then like previous poster mentioned, you really shouldn't be eating at all then. Protein can be found is just about anything that you eat, which you really cannot live without. Lifting weights may have a direct relationship in the increase of DHT, but you're not going to be able to find protein as the cause of balding. If protein has anything to do with MPB, then I'm sure just about every man on Earth would be suffering from it.

no you don't need a prescription for MSM. All you have to do is google it to find out what it does. It helps strengthen your joints and cartilages and "promote" healthy hair and nails. You can find it at most grocery or nutrition stores.

Furless, Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you the Asian guy that asked me for my pics because you've wanted to see how another Asian member's pics turned out? If so, I'm glad that you went with Dr. Keene as well. The receipient area turned out clean as usual with Dr. Keene's work. Be sure to keep up with updates of your growth with pictures.

the scar is still visible back there, if I lift the hair up. With my head buzzed with a #6 all around, it hides underneath quite nicely. I think it'll be completly faded away at around 6 months mark. Shockloss, what shockloss? I know Dr. Keene pretty much grafted hair all over my existing hair, but I'm glad that there's no shockloss that I can see at all. Even in the spot behind the hairline where there's thinning hair all over the place, I didn't notice any shockloss at all. Now that the hair is sprouting, I can say that the mid 1/3 area is looking even thicker and more even than before.

Just added some new pics for my progress at slightly under 4 months post op. Geeze, this 4 months flew by, now that I've thought about it. My camera is still crap that I can't show the finer hair along the hair line, but they're very visible in person. I'm starting to get a good idea of how it'd turn out. Very glad that I went along with the HT so far.

I just love these kind of complaints and random rants that we get here. Some new member just come up and rants for a couple of days, and decides to never come back on and do anything to help other members from falling into the same chair that he sat on. Instead of calling his doctor, he'd rather come here and rant... Won't be surprised if we never get another response from him again.

not necessarily early for you to feel the pinch in the scalp, as I started feeling that towards 2nd weeks after the surgery. Remember that each hair will grow at different rates, some will shed, while a few will not shed at all and will start growing and thickening up much faster than those that shed. When I was feeling the pinch, it was pretty random and sometimes happened in spots that didn't have any grafts placed at all. I'm 3.5 months post op now, and the there are still a small spot on my scalp that is numb. We all heal differently, be patient brother.

wow...hairdini, your hairline right now looks so natural. I think Dr. Keene did a really good job on your hairline. Mine is still slowly creeping in at 3.5 months post op.

Sure Furless, here's the link... http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/showthread.php?t=155098 The problem is that I don't have a camera with high enough resolution to show the really fine hair that is starting to fill in. I'm currently at 3.5 months post op, but haven't updated the album because the camera just aren't capable of showing my progress at this point. I should be updating it sometime around 4.5 months post op. So far, my hair definitly appears a lot thicker than before, and the temples are starting to make the outline of my new hairline. If you're light-skinned like me, with dark hair, it's harder to achieve the illusion of full coverage like some of the other members here. I'm still wondering how come I don't see much Asian members on here. I see a lot of balding Asian men and women in person, but still believe I'm the first one that is "out-there" posting pictures and helping others on this site. Either most Asians are just not as resourceful, or more reserved about posting their pictures.

I believe Billero is right, the miniaturized hair never completly dies or stops growing, but becomes so thin that it is no longer visible. If you look at any NW7's head, you'll notice that there is still a bit of really thin hair left that does not provide any scalp coverage at all. If you take a magnifying glass, I'm sure you will find the hair that are no longer visible to the naked eye.

Your yield or result should not vary from front of the head to the crown area of your head. Not sure about what they've told you oversea, but the recommended doctors here will do a good job of concealing the scar on the back of the head, there should not be any scar on the front. The transplanted hair is removed from the safe-zone(back of the head) and grafted into either the front, crown, temple, or a combination of all three areas. The number of hair within each follical will vary, some doctors will split the multiple-hair follicle into individual grafts, while some doctors transplant them as is. Can't speak for all of the Coalition doctors, but I'm pretty sure that I signed a waiver that mentioned that the doctors cannot guarantee a 100% yield or growth. Personally, I think the guarantee that you're seeing pretty much do nothing, as there is no way you can count exactly how many grafts were transplanted and how many grew back after the initial shedding. I think the yield that most members got from Coalition doctors were anywhere from the high 80% to low 90%, but I could be wrong.

I'm Chinese, and think that I'm probably the only Chinese member that have gone through with the HT and posted pictures on this site. It's weird that I don't really see much other Asian members on here.

No, I didn't see any side effects with Propecia, and the percentage of people that do are only 2%. You should try it for a week, if you see side effects then stop using it, because the it's rare that people see side effects. I didn't want to try Rogaine, because I don't want to apply it on my head twice a day for the rest of my life. My doctor didn't shave my head, even after I'd mentioned that I don't mind shaving my head at all.

notgoing2gobald... the coalition doctors on this site are reviewed very often and compared with all high standards transplant doctors. Very rarely, you'll see a patient with low yields from the transplant. I personally have not done much research on Dr. Bernstein's patients and their results, but I'm sure it's safe to assume that one patient is one of the few that was not satisfied with the results. There will always be a risk of having shockloss, when transplanting hair to areas where there are some thinning native hair, but an experienced doctor can minimize that. I've had 2000 grafts tranplanted in areas all around thinning native hair, and so far(3 months post op) I can tell you that there is either none or very minimal shock loss on the native hair. There are a few medical treatments such as propecia and rogaine that could help minimize the shockloss as well. I've never tried Rogaine, but have been on propecia.

Bald Mouse Blues I don't get the point that you're trying to reach. I personally think actionradar's results looks great and well worth it for the $ he spent on it. I've had my done with Dr. Keene as well, and I think you'd be pleased with your results. If you don't think having hair is that important, and just "natural", why are you even going to Dr. Keene yourself? And no, you can't have too much density, at least not as dense as "nature" gave us.

hairlossnewbie: I'm the same age as you, and have been on Propecia for over a year, I can tell you the most of the side effects known caused by Propecia only affect about 2% of people on it. I understand that you're thinking about having children, but you can always stop taking the pills about 6 months before, although you might see more hair loss when you go off of it. Why don't you post a picture of your hairline, so we can get a better idea of your NW level, and amount of graft needed. If you don't want to take any pills, you can always use Rogaine foam in the thinning area, but you'd have to apply it twice a day, and for the rest of your life. If you search around for member's pictures that shows the scar after a year post op, you really can't see the scar if you wear the hair on the back longer than 1/4 inch. If you're talking about having a HT of less than 1000 grafts, I can't imagine the doctor making that long of a cut on the back. I've had 2000 grafts done, and the scar was pretty much from ear to ear, but even at 3 months post op now, you can't see the scar at all, and the hair on the back is only 1 inch long. In the hands of a expert surgeon, the entire transplant is pretty much completly undetectable after about 1 month post op for nearly everyone. If you're thinking about getting a HT, I'd suggest you read the threads regarding prep work for the HT for the fastest healing and least detectable results. After that first month post op, you're just sailing home.