Al - Moderator

Retrograde alopecia (hair loss in the nape area and spreading upwards) is common. It's not a safe area. It could be safe in some people as not everyone will lose hair in the nape, but until you start losing hair there, you don't know if it will happen on you or not. If you are losing hair upwards past the bottom of your ear level than that is retrograde thinning. I personally lost almost all of my hair more than halfway up my ears.

If you had any significant donor shock loss then it could take 6 months or more to fully get back to normal.

It's always a bit subjective and everyone has different balding patterns, so it's not always easy to pinpoint a specific NW level on everyone. In this particular case, if you look at him from the front it does appear that he had high sides, but when you see his side view that's when you can really see how low the sides have dipped. I've seen some other patients be labeled by clinics as NW 7 when they are clearly not, but I think this person can be labeled a NW 7 in my opinion.

I just posted one in another thread with pictures of Bobman and claiming it's shampoo that regrows hair.

He had large grafts. They are not folicular units. It may look OK in pictures, but it has to be very pluggy if looking at it in person if the most of the hair grew in. He says he had some grafts that contained 10 hairs and 800 grafts that had 5 hairs. This is a very outdated technique. I had 3.75mm grafts done in 1989 and those contained mostly around 5 hairs per graft just like his with some grafts having 3 or 4 and some having a bit more than 5. This is not something you want to have done today.

I think he is semi retired. I don't think he is doing transplants anymore (I could be wrong).

Look at what I found on Facebook. It's @Bobman's photos with an ad for a company selling shampoo that they claim will regrow your hair. If their shampoo is so great then why do they need to lie and show pictures of a hair transplant? This stuff really bugs me because it makes people believe the stuff really works.

Best of luck to you. This really hit home because I've been going through the same thing for 35 years and counting. What has always kept me going is the thought that someday I will get there as long as I never stop trying. I spent years listening to successful people say things like You only really fail if you stop trying, All successful people are successful because they are determined to be successful, If you want something bad enough you will never stop trying to get it, You have to believe it's possible or else you are wasting your time, Everything that has ever been done was something that wasn't possible to do before it was first done, etc etc.

@NorwoodSeven Here is a case that's basically what you are talking about. The front is transplanted and the patient wears a hair piece behind it to get full coverage with a real hairline.

Wow That is looking awesome!

Are you on any medications that could be causing hair loss? I'm asking this because medications that have side effects of hair loss may make you lose hair all over your head which would make the donor area be thinning.

The reason it looks worse right now is most likely due to some shock loss. Wait a few more months.

If you have good credit you can usually find credit card offers that will give you no interest for a year and sometimes longer. You just have to make sure you pay it off within the "no interest" time frame.

Yes. You are being too gentle. Shampoo your hair like you normally would, rubbing your fingers all through it.

You are probably being too gentle. At this point you are not going to damage the grafts by washing of your hair, so don't be afraid to rub them a bit. As others have said, put some conditioner on the area and let it sit for a few minutes and then wash it out. You are at the time frame where the hairs will start shedding, so if you see hairs coming off with the scabs, don't worry. That's normal. Most of the transplanted hair will shed.

You have a lot of area to cover. If you go with a low hair line then you may not ever be able to fill in your crown. Get a high hair line on the first surgery which will enable you to get hair further back into the mid scalp. Then on the 2nd transplant you will have a better idea of how many grafts you have left and how many you need to fill in the crown. If you can get enough grafts on the 2nd transplant, that's when you can decide to tweak the hair line and lower it a bit. Make sure you get coverage first before going too crazy in the front.

I think your best bet right now is to just wait it out for the next few months at least until you get past the 12 month mark. Lingering redness will usually mostly clear up on its own over time and cobblestoning. if it isn't too bad, will smooth out a bit over time as well. Certainly talk to Dr Mwamba to see what he says, but it could just be that you need a bit more healing time.

I've seen some great FUT scars from Dr Blake Bloxham at Feller and Bloxham.

The deign looks good as it's not a straight line. I'm guessing you are thinking it's too thin. You have a lot of hair growing, but it's still see-through. Some guys have thick caliber hairs that provide great coverage and some guys don't. It may not be possible for you to get to a point where you have thick, non see-through coverage. Can it be improved? Sure, but should you keep throwing more grafts at the hairline? I don't know.

At 19 days your scalp is still healing. Since it seems to go away during the course of the day, you can probably just let your scalp continue to heal and see if it is improved over the next few weeks.

It's going to take several months to start growing because it has to shed and then start growing again as new hairs. If you are just looking for the stubble look in a beard then it won't take 12 months to get that look because it doesn't have to grow to any real length, however the individual hairs may be thinner for a while and gradually thicken up to 12 months or more, so you could see a somewhat decent beard at 5 or 6 months which will improve over the next 6 months.

If you are able to keep that patch of hair on your top center with finasteride then that will help reduce the amount of grafts needed, so stay on it if you are able to and if it seems to be working for you.

I was assuming the graft he showed plus another one he mentioned was the only issue, but yeah to @JBrookes if you is getting redness or pus or other issues then definitely let us know and post a pic if you can.

It may have been placed too deep and the skin healed over it, so it was never able to fall out earlier as most grafts do. That doesn't determine what will happen now. It could be either a dead graft that never took and is just getting naturally pushed out of your body or it could be that a new hair is starting to grow and pushing that old one out. If you are only getting one or two of these then I wouldn't worry about it. I'd be more concerned about how the overall growth is coming along. Nobody is going to get 100% growth of every transplanted graft. Even if you get 99% growth on a 2000 graft transplant, that means that 20 grafts won't grow, so don't worry about one or two abnormal ones that you see. Also, touching your head at this point is not going to make a difference. Just go about your daily life as normal.

No. You should be wanting to look like a man, not a boy.