Al - Moderator

I would have gone for a slightly higher hairline in order to get more coverage.

I personally think you should always have an in person consultation with the Dr whenever possible, but I realize it's not always possible. To your question though, I would say a lot of it depends on several factors. If you're a NW 3, over 40 years old, been losing hair very slowly over 20 years, and still have thick hair in the donor area then unless there are other non hair related health issues, you are probably a good candidate and an in person consultation isn't necessary if you know enough about the procedure. A good estimate of what is required can probably be given to you. If, however, you are NW 5, under 30 years old, not sure if the donor has thinned any, then it will be harder to tell by pictures. I'd say a skype or other live video chat is certainly better than just sending photos, but I still think it will be much harder to know how many grafts and how much area can be covered without actually seeing you in person and being able to examine your hair for density, texture, etc.

It looks like you are beginning to realize that there is no safe zone. The "safe zone" phrase is a lie that every hair transplant DR must keep telling everyone or else people wouldn't get hair transplants. If there's no safe zone it blows up the whole idea of a hair transplant being permanent and lasting a lifetime. Of course once you start to call them on that they then go into trying to convince you that it's called "senile alopecia" and only happens to men over 70, so you don't need to worry about it. Even the term they use (senile) is an attempt to make you think that you'll be so old by then it won't matter. But as you've been noticing, it happens to many men by the time they are in their 40's. Many people on these forums will talk about ethical Drs, but every single one of the supposed ethical Drs will tell you there's a safe zone and that the transplanted hair won't fall out. How ethical can they be if they are saying this?

Uhh Blake... then couldn't he have simply said something like: Medications that have been known to help in these types of situations are ....

I had 610 chest hair grafts last September. After 10 months I can't really tell the difference between the head hair and the chest hair grafts. It doesn't seem to grow any slower than the rest of my hair. Keep in mind that what you will experience depends on the type of chest hair you have to begin with. My chest hair generally grows several inches long, so it grows several inches long when on my head as well. As for healing, this did not go as fast as I hear others say it does. It took over 6 months for the red spots from all of the FUE grafts to really start to disappear. After 10 months they are pretty much gone in normal conditions, but if I work up a sweat such as after a good workout, then the pinkness starts to show up again. I'm hoping this continues to subside as time goes by. I'm scheduled for a session of about 700 beard hair grafts coming up in a few months. Hopefully the beard area heals much faster. I heard it does. I will let you know.

Combing your hair away from the natural whirl is always going to make that area look thinner than the rest of your hair no matter how many grafts you try to put in there. Your hair does not look bad. If you want to feel like you are doing something to improve it then take finisteride/propecia for a year or two and stop looking at the area. After a year or 2 then you can revisit the issue to see how it compares to where you were. That's all you should do at this point.

Suppose these things (thinning donor, eventual NW 6 or worse, not enough grafts,etc) happen to only 1% of the patients who have HTs. You may think that shouldn't really deter someone from getting a HT because it's so unlikely. You may even think it's so unlikely that it's not even right to say they are things that can happen. If 10000 people get a HT, 1% is 100 people. For those 100 people that are having these problems, it is most certainly true for them, no matter how many people want to keep saying it's not likely to happen. And that is if the chance is just 1% If something happens even just once in a million times, then it is true that it does happen. It can't ever be false once it is true. If you don't think this stuff happens then take a look at my pictures on my profile. I didn't get a low, aggressive hairline. In fact I still don't even have much of a hairline at all and that's supposedly the most important area to cover. I didn't have unrealistic expectations. How can expecting a high hairline with a decent amount of actual hair be considered an unrealistic expectation? This is a hair transplant after all. Al

This was banned in the USA way back in the late 1980s or early 90s due to extremely high infection rates, bleeding, other complications, and a lot of consumer complaints about the procedure. If you do it, be advised that the result is not permanent. The hairs fall out or break off over time. You have to go back every 2 years or so to replace what has been lost.

Isn't the statute of limitations generally about 2 years for this sort of thing? I know it's 2 years in NJ. Even if you didn't reach the statute of limitations in your area how would you prove anything that you're mentioning? I will say I am not bashing you in the rest of this post or against you in any way, so don't take the following personally. However these are the questions you will get if you want to try a lawsuit. 1. A rude person at the clinic. Oh well. What does that have to do with the work performed? How do you prove the other person was rude? How do we know it wasn't you who was rude first? 2. They left a stitch in and you had to remove it yourself. Any proof of that? Or is it just your word? Why didn't you go back to the clinic to have them remove it? Did you call them to tell them? 3. They left you with a large noticeable scar. Didn't you already have a scar in the same location from the first HT done by someone else? How do you prove it was the 2nd Drs work that was bad? It sounds like from your description that he was trying to fix a bad scar from the first HT. If so, it's not his fault your first scar wasn't ideal. Also, you must know after the first HT that HTs leave a scar. 4. You don't feel the yield was great once it healed. That is your opinion based on what and when? Nearly 8 years later? Did you have another Dr look at it to get his opinion? Most important of all is did you ever notify the Dr of any issues or concerns that you had within the first days, weeks, months, or even the first year. If you didn't then you are wasting your time (I think you're wasting your time anyway after so long) because there's no way to show that you were not satisfied until many years later and there's no way for the Dr to know you had any real issues that he may have been able to resolve. Final thoughts: It's extremely hard to successfully sue for elective surgery barring any major, immediate, life threatening problems that happened as a direct result of the surgery. I know because I tried years ago. Whether you like what it looks like or are happy with the results doesn't matter. You weren't happy before the surgery. That's why you had it done. The fact that you still aren't happy afterwards doesn't mean it was the fault of the Dr or due to the result of the surgery.

DO NOT GO THERE AGAIN. He is not good at hair transplants and is using you as practice. You may like him for other things he has done and that's fine, but you are in need of a hair transplant and he does not do them well. You wouldn't go to a foot surgeon if you need your tonsils removed even if it's the best foot surgeon in the country. The temples are done completely wrong. He transplanted down to the temple points giving you a rounded down hairline. That is not a good design. It does not look like a normal hairline would look.... and that's not even getting into the issue of poor growth.

It depends on a lot of things. How large are the plugs and how much hair is growing from each one? Large plugs with lots of thick hair growing out of them are best removed or some hairs FUEed out and placed elsewhere. Thinner or smaller plugs may be better camouflaged with additional grafts placed around them. How much area do the plugs cover and how much more area are you trying to cover. You say you don't have much donor left, so this will matter. Are the plugs placed an an area or a way that they need to be moved? For example is the hairline too low and need to be raised? If so, then just remove the entire plug and they will cut them into multiple grafts and place them where needed. Pictures would give a better idea of your situation. I had many plug type grafts done years ago, ranging from 2.5mm to 3.75mm in size, but they have thinned out some and there are a lot of them all over, so for me I feel it's better to just fill in around them to get a more full appearance.

I think some of it depends on how long you have been dating her. If she's only been your girlfriend for a few months or less, then I wouldn't tell her because she probably doesn't really know or understand how you feel about it and at that early in a relationship it's probably not really much of her business yet. If you've been dating for more than maybe six months or so, then I think you really should tell her because she has put in enough time in the relationship that you should let her know what's going on in your life.

Why not do this the opposite way. Do the hair transplant first. 1. Get a good idea of what area the other Dr will be cutting away. 2. Do a FUE procedure in that area using an extra large punch size, maybe 1.5mm to 2mm, so there should be little to no transection. You won't need to worry about punch scars because the entire area will be removed later anyway. 3. The techs cut the large grafts down to normal size which are the implanted into he patient's scalp. 4. Patient can go home and wait until he is healed and then have the extra skin removed by the other Dr. at his convenience.

I don't agree with that at all. I have very obviously crappy results from other clinics, yet I get people telling me I should get a hair transplant. They don't tell me that because they can't tell I had one. They say it because they can see that my hair looks like crap.

What do you consider to be addicting? I've had 26 hair transplant surgeries so far, but I don't consider myself to be addicted to them at all because I'd love to finally get it finished and not have to do any more, but it's not up to me. I would love to have one or 2 large sessions of 3000 grafts each and be done with it.

You have to realize that they were somewhat forced to follow the previous SMP hairline in order to cover it up.

Did he give an indication as to how many grafts he feels a touch up would be? 500? 1000? Is he willing to do some additional grafts on op of that at a discount? For example, if he agrees to do maybe 500 for free plus an additional 1500 or so at half price then it might be worth it. Otherwise you're right. It isn't worth taking the trip for a few free grafts. You'd be paying more than what you would pay by having it done closer to you. You should discuss these things with him if you haven't But on the other hand I know it's hard to let someone do 2000+ grafts if you don't feel confident that he can do a good job on you especially after already using up 5400 grafts. You don't want to waste any more.

I always felt the same way after mine. I didn't go out, didn't want to be in pictures, wore a hat everywhere. I also get people telling me things like I should just shave my head (it would look even worse with all the scars I have) or if it bothers me I should just get a hair transplant. Ughh!! They seem to think it's so simple to fix and can't understand the problem. The girl I was dating before having my HT knew I was going to have it done. We broke up a few months before I actually did it. Three years later after many HT surgeries and I hadn't seen her she asked me why I never went to have a HT.

There are some people who had a hair transplant and then later decided to shave their head anyway. You may want to try searching for some of those to get an idea of what a shaved area after transplanting into it would look like.

scar5, I have you beat easy. I have 7 or 8 scars going from ear to ear. Why is your name scar5 if you only have 4? Exaggerating a bit? Or was it in anticipation of doing another surgery to correct some of the old ones? Olmert, No. You can't cover multiple scars. See my pictures below from 1998.

Want to go way back? I paid $18.50 per graft in 1989, but these were 3.75mm grafts with maybe an average of 6 to 8 hairs per graft. I then had some smaller grafts probably in 1991 and 1992 ranging in size from I think 2.5mm to 3.5mm, but still paid the same $18.50 per graft because they charged per graft, not by how many hairs or how large or small the grafts were. I think I probably got around 3 to 6 hairs from a lot of those smaller grafts. The actual price went up to $21.50 per graft, but I had paid $200 down payment on future procedures to keep the same pricing.

Perhaps, but there is still more to it :-) With fue it's also all of the small circular scars that begin to show through that gives the area the moth eaten look. This can especially happen in certain lighting and/or viewing angles when the thousands of shiny, white, slightly raised fue dots can be seen through the thin amount of hair that's left. However with strip even if the area is just as thin as fue, it would still have an overall normal and more natural look to it because you won't see any white dot scars showing though. So it may be thinner than before having any HTs, but everyone's hair density is different, so it won't be so noticeable to anyone. Just to note: I'm not for or against either one. I think both have their place and it depends a lot on the patient.

Suppose you get 6000+ fue done over the course of several years and are at the point where your donor area density is looking thin. It will be thinning throughout the entire donor area. Suppose you had 6000+ strip done instead. You are asking why isn't the thinning the same since you would be stretching whatever area hasn't been touched, so it should look mostly the same as the fue. My theory (and just about everyone else's who says you can get more from strip) is that you don't get as much stretch from strip to equal the same look as the removed hairs from fue. Why not you ask? Suppose that after you did the 6000+ fue you were then able to remove a third or so of all of the fue scars and bunch them up into a long thin line from ear to ear. This is what you would have if you did strip. A lot of the thinning is condensed into that single long line of scar that usually isn't noticeable when your hair is combed over it. Now if you had a strip scar and wanted to buzz your head then you may end up getting 800 to 1000 fue to cover the strip and then you are back to the same as doing fue only. Is that understandable?

Over 25 years and still waiting.

My father had a very full thick head of hair until he was in his 60s. Me, I was a NW6 by age 22. Just because he has hair and some of his relatives don't doesn't mean it's fake.