Al - Moderator

It's good to know that a full range of hairstyles are possible after having a hair transplant done by a coalition Dr.

I've always gotten my Proscar online from Quality Health Inc. It's the only place I've ever purchased it for the past 11 years. They sell the real thing made by Merck, not a generic. I think if you purchase the real thing you should be OK. http://www.qhi.co.uk/

The hairmax laser comb is expensive. If you want to try a laser comb, look around for a less expensive one.

Well the "doctor" who did most of the work on me turned out to not be a Dr which he admitted to me 5 years afterwards, so who knows what background any of the techs had.

It didn't exist back then, but yes I've been on it for 11 years now. Unfortunately I was already a NW 7 by then. When I first started my HT the area of baldness was about 4 inches wide across the top of my head by 6 inches long from where they made the hairline to the hair at the back. By the time they were done (and where it is now) it was about 7 inches wide by 9 inches long. It looks even larger than that because the scars are visible. I'm think I'm going to have a few consultations soon to see if anything can be done. I'm just getting really nervous lately when I think about it because I don't want to travel all around just to be turned down by 4 or 5 doctors like the last time. I'm hoping things have improved enough since then (10 or 12 years ago I guess) that something can be done.

You guys are so lucky that you didn't have extensive work done the first time around and haven't progressed to a NW 7. If I never progressed past NW 5 I'd have basically a full head of hair the last 15 years from the transplants. My problem was my hair loss was going faster than the hair was being transplanted. In the 9 months it takes for the hair to grow I was losing more than was transplanted. I wish I could just get a current procedure or 2 done and look decent again.

Thank you for your answers. Each individual scar is not bad. They are all very thin scars. The problem is I have many of them. I'd say 7 or 8 rows from ear to ear. It's hard to give an exact number because they are all haphazard and done in sections that were connected to each other. For example I'd have a procedure that made a scar on the left side. Then in a later procedure they would make a scar in the back that sort of added onto the first one. They just kept making new scars each time. I had 25 procedures total, so my entire donor area is scars with very little hair between them to cover them. The additional hair loss pattern over the years has made all of my existing hair very thin (individual hair thickness). Also the additional loss over the years has gone past the upper scars, so the transplanted hair on top has also been thinning and falling out. My uncle has almost no hair at all on the sides of his head and my pattern is the same which is why I had a HT in the first place, so I wouldn't end up being bald like that.

You have to understand that most of it is body hair which grows slower and shorter than head hair. I'd like to see the results in another 3 to 6 months. The big thing in this case is he covered a large area without getting a strip scar. I do think it would look better if he dyed his hair all one color instead of having the different shades from transplanting from different body areas.

I've found that a laser comb works better with Propecia. Laser combs help hair to grow, but don't do very much to stop the fallout. Propecia stops the hair from falling out, but doesn't do much for regrowth. Together you get both. The combination has been working OK for me. Since you already have a laser comb, you may want to try using it again if you decide to start using Propecia.

I would say hair restoration is not always the same thing as a hair transplant. Some companies that do hair systems call what they do hair restoration, but it's just a wig, toupee, hair piece, etc. They'll tell you it will give you your own hair back the way it was before you lost it, but the only reason it's "your" hair is because you bought it. Be careful of that.

I've been interested in transplanting underarm hair to my head. Wouldn't hair from that area be better than taking hair from an arm or leg? Underarm hair grows longer and thicker than other hair on a persons body. It's much more like head hair than arm or leg hair is. You also don't have to worry about scars in the donor area because who will ever see my underarms anyway? On top of that I think you can take it out by strip method rather than FUE.

I don't know if it's illegal or not, but I can assure you it does happen. I paid $150 per procedure to guarantee no scars and an increase in hair in my donor area since that area was beginning to thin as well. You're right they do that which is pretty much the same as a guarantee. The problem is it's a lie and impossible to do. Any hair that does not grow is gone forever. They can't ever replace it.

What is so wrong with what she is saying? All of us here are trying to get our hair back because we don't feel we look good enough without hair. So why is it so bad if a young woman says what we already say about ourselves? Almost every single guy under 30 (and many older than that I'm sure) who is here trying to find ways to get their hair back is doing it at least partly so he can date younger, hotter, better looking women. So we are just as shallow as she is.

I've been bald since before I was 20. At that time my blood pressure was always right about 140/90. Now at age 41 my blood pressure is lower than it was when I was younger. I work out almost every day now, so I think that's a big part of it.

Yes. Finally someone is understanding MY problem. My hair on the sides looks very similar to the picture shown. Unfortunately I did have a series of hair transplants years ago. The hair on the sides was very thin then too and spreading towards the back. Today I have thin wispy miniaturized hair everywhere including the transplanted hair on top which is also falling out (although I've been keeping it there with Proscar over the years). The scars on the sides are easily visible no matter how long I try to grow my hair because the hair around the scars is not enough to cover them. How do you repair something like this?

It's impossible to say without knowing the size of the area you were trying to cover. If you only had a small area then 1000 might do it, but obviously you'd need a lot more if the area was twice as large. Also keep in mind that crowns can take a lot of grafts to completely cover. It's probably not a good idea to put too many grafts in that area because you want to keep enough for future loss if you lose the front half of your hair. You may be better off just getting light coverage in the crown so it's not completely bald, but not totally covered either. It would also help to know your age. The older you are the more aggressive you can probably be.

In my opinion there's way too much negative info about them. If you look hard enough I'm sure you'll probably find a few patients who ended up with decent results, but it's pretty clear that many don't end up satisfied. Why would you want to take the chance of being that 1 person out a 100 that turns out OK? Just go somewhere else.

Well a HT didn't cure me. I went to a so-called hairloss specialist who said I had "an excessive hairloss disease" and a hair transplant would cure it. I ended up going to 8 different Drs. 3 of them did work on me. 2 turned me down completely. 2 were willing to do very minor work to try to create a part, but both said it's probably not in my best interest to even do that as it would just make the visible scarring worse and probably wasn't a good idea to make a new scar for so little work. I ended up much worse than I started. I would not have any scars on my head if I didn't have a HT. So now I am bald with scars instead of just bald. After going through that I didn't come on here telling every Dr and member here that HTs don't work and they are all lying and full of crap. What I did do is try something that I thought might help me get a little bit of growth or thicken some wispy miniaturized hairs and said I'd let the forum know if it works for me. I try it for a few months and get a bit of growth and simply because I say it's working for me I get Dr Feller saying I'm lying unless I can show HIM proof. Who is he that he needs proof that something works for me!? On top of that he says the cure to my problem is a hair transplant. So tell me, how would you feel?

There are several Drs in the recommended/coalition list here who require non refundable down payments, so while I don't like the idea of it, it seems to be at least somewhat of a standard practice. Thinman, since you already put a lot of money down and don't want to lose it, I'll give you advice if you do decide to have it done. I can't see your hairloss, so this is general advice considering your age. Go with a higher hairline than you'd like to have at your age. You'll be glad you did that later. Cover the front half and leave the back alone at this point. You can always go back a few years later for more when you get a better idea of how much loss you will have. Don't try to get dense packed with too many grafts because you want to make sure you have enough donor left over for possible future loss. Take a look at Azza's blog on here. He had significant loss at a very young age and had a HT. It didn't turn out as thick as he would like, but it was the proper amount of coverage to both get an improvement and leave donor for later if his area of loss gets wider.

Anyone who posts on this forum and says they had a HT between 4 to 6 months ago and claims it doesn't work because they haven't seen any results, you would be saying it's too early and they have to wait a full year to evaluate it fully. Anyone who posts on this forum and says they started using Propecia between 4 to 6 months ago and claims it doesn't work because they haven't seen any results, you would be saying it's too early and they have to wait a full year to evaluate it fully. Anyone who posts on this forum and says they started using Minoxidil between 4 to 6 months ago and claims it doesn't work because they haven't seen any results, you would be saying it's too early and they have to wait a full year to evaluate it fully. So... now you and 2 friends tried laser therapy for between 4 to 6 months and with you knowing that it may take at least a year to see results with anything that works have somehow proven that laser therapy doesn't work after just 4 to 6 months. Hmm.... Why aren't you giving the same time frame for results as you would give every other method?

Of course they are! Are you saying that all HT pictures posted by the Drs on here and on their own web sites should not count for anything because it comes from them and not a "real" patient? It was said that the manufacturers hadn't produced any photographic evidence showing improvement. I showed that they have produced the evidence asked for. Your response is that doesn't count because they gave you what was asked for. Is that the best you can do to discredit it? I notice you didn't say that you didn't see improvement in the "After" pictures.

There generally isn't much benefit of taking more than 1mg to 1.25mg a day. Every persons system is different, but if you are taking an amount that stops your hair from falling out then taking more than that is just a waste or worse because you'll be more prone to the sexual side effects. Propecia/Proscar doesn't really make new hair grow. It stops it from falling out, which in turn allows the hair to continue growing that would normally have fallen out, miniturize over a few cycles, and eventually not grow back. Propecia keeps the growth cycles going. Some people do get a bit of new growth, but it's mostly hair that was on it's last cycles and just beginning to go permanently dormant.

I don't agree that there is one certain place to take grafts from. My hair loss goes very far down the back of my head. If you were to take hair from the bump in the back and above then you'd be taking out bare skin. I had my HT done before I lost hair down the back. I do have a scar that's just above the bump and later lost hair past that area, so I now have a scar showing across my bald area in the back of my head. The scars on the sides are showing too because I lost hair down the sides as well. I would much rather have lower scars because I'd be able to hide them better. I can post pictures if you like.

You guys assume too many things and make comments on stuff you don't know anything about. He says he paid $11170 for 2065 grafts. That's $5.41 per graft. Slightly on the higher side maybe, but I wouldn't call that a rip-off. Sure he can get a lower per graft price if he had 4000 to 5000 grafts done, but how do you know he needs that many? Maybe he does, but we don't know at this point. If he's a NW 2 or 3 he may only need 2000, so what's the point of discussing 4000 plus until we know if he needs that many. I will agree that he should have/could have had the entire 2065 done in one session, but he didn't say if that was his choice or not, perhaps because of money issues. I can only go by what he says. So far he says he's happy with the first results. That's good news (and leads me to believe he probably doesn't need 5000 grafts). Now to answer his question about shock loss. It's normal to have some temporary shock loss to previously transplanted hair when you do a new procedure in between the first grafts to add density. Normally it will all grow back in a few months. Usually the shock loss hair will grow back a little sooner than the newly transplanted grafts.

I see improvement on some of these. Not going from bald to a full head of hair, but certainly in line with what propecia and minoxidil do. The site claims that they all used ONLY a laser comb and dod not use minoxidil, propecia, etc. http://www.sunetics.com/beforeafters.aspx