Al - Moderator

Since your hair hasn't changed in all those years then it could be that you are simply on the lower end of the range of natural full density and haven't lost any hair.

Yeah the itchiness along the FUT scar line is normal, but is a pain in the a**. It's just the nerve endings healing and reconnecting. It can last a few months, but it slowly fades away. For me the itchiness turns into random tingles after a while before completely going away.

It's interesting that the Dr did the crown first and did the front last. Usually the front is done first because if you run out of grafts it's better to have a bit less in the crown. It looks like this went fine, so I'm not trying to worry you. I just found it interesting and I'm wondering if that's his standard plan on large cases like yours.

That is a very nice, natural looking hairline.

Since you are afraid of side effects from oral finasteride and you have already started a topical mixture that includes finasteride, then I would stick with that for 6 months to see if it works. If after 6 months it is working for you with no side effects then you can just stay with it. If it seems like it's NOT working at that time, but you aren't getting any side effects then perhaps then look into oral finasteride which may provide better results.

Running and weight lifting you can do after about 2 weeks, but I would wait a few months before swimming due to the chlorine and other chemicals in the water.

I was reluctant to have grafts removed from my beard at first too because I was so afraid to have visible scars on my face, so what I did was I went for a session of just chest grafts first. I figured if I ended up with scars there nobody would ever see it in normal day to day interactions because I'd always have a shirt on. Once I saw that I didn't have any real noticeable scars on my chest I felt a lot better about taking grafts from my beard. I just thought I'd throw that out there if that may be an option for anyone else.

I used a neck pillow just like the one in the picture below: It's the needle to inject the anesthesia that is more painful than on the scalp. Once that's done you don't feel the actual extractions because the area is numb. But yeah the numbing part is really rough! For me, after about 10 days it healed enough where it was mostly just some redness and I could get away with people seeing it and not noticing. It looked more like a bit of a rash. I personally have very sensitive skin under my chin area and I sometimes get some redness there just from shaving, so a bit of redness in that area on me wasn't unusual for anyone who knows me to see, so nobody really knew I did anything. After that it is a gradual clearing of the redness over a few months, however most of it is under the chin area and not noticeable anyway. After the first few weeks you really have to be looking for it to see it. @Gatsby has a few pictures of his sideburn redness where he had extractions done on his sideburns. You can see that on his thread.

Unfortunately for me I have an even larger bald area than that guy, but I'm still hoping to eventually get to a decent head of hair.

In the few small studies done in post menopausal women, it seems that 1mg of finasteride per day did not show any improvement, however 2.5mg to 5mg did show some improvements in some women, so women who want to try finasteride should probably take 2.5mg. That seems to be what you read somewhere. However even on higher doses I don't think there is very much improvement anyway and it may not be worth it.

I agree if you have enough body hair. If I was starting over I would still do the hair transplant at 22 (I was already hitting NW 6 at that age), but I would use up as much body hair as I could right from the start. Beard and chest hair grow forever, so I think it's a much better donor source then most people think just for that reason. 90 year old men who are totally bald can still grow a long thick beard. Use that if you have it.

40!? I would have been a NW 7 for at least 15 years already if I waited until 40.

As long as you don't try to get an aggressively low hairline and stick to something like the hairlines you have drawn on you then I don't see why you should keep waiting years to get it done. I also think it will take a bit more than 1200 grafts, but even that will be more than what you have now, so if you are on a budget and don't mind possibly going back in a year or two to fill it in if you feel you need to then there shouldn't be an issue. Just keep in mind that there's a higher chance you will feel it's not dense enough with only 1200 grafts rather than 1800 or more

Looks great for only 2200 grafts. Getting a high hairline dramatically cuts down the number of grafts needed.

Yeah it will definitely fill in more if you are not even at 4 months yet. You are just at the point where it really starts coming in. The next few months you should see a lot of improvement.

If you aren't seeing any problems then as you said "Hell no you're grafts are fine"

If you are planning a hair transplant then I would forget about SMP for now. You can think about it again later if you feel you need more density after the hair transplant and don't want to use up any more donor hair with additional transplants.

You should be doing normal showers at this point. You can usually start normal showers at about 6 days after.

I'm not commenting against Dr Epstein here because apparently he did what the patient asked for. My comment is about the patient and those like him. What is the point of going through a hair transplant just to go back and get it all removed to hopefully end up where you started??? If you are OK with the hair you had then why go through with a hair transplant??? This boggles my mind and this guy isn't the only one. We see a number of people post on here just after the transplant asking how to reverse it. Please think about what you are doing before going through with surgery! This just doesn't make any sense.

From looking at the pictures you don't need a hair transplant. You only have some minor recession. This is exactly what I said earlier. Some guys look at other procedures that were done on young men and think they can get a hair transplant done also, but the hairline they are trying to "fix" is probably already lower than any hairline being done on the other 25 year olds they are looking at.

You can certainly use beard hair from below the neck if you have a lot there. In fact those are probably the best grafts to use because the hair will match the rest of the beard correctly.

Yes. I was just going to say that as well. That's what I would want.

Of those two I would pick #2 because the curved down corners that is shown is #1 always looks fake and is an easy way to spot that the person had a transplant. A lot of guys want #1 because it looks like they are getting a lower hairline, but what they should be looking for is one that looks real and natural.

You have a lot of redness in there, so it's possible it could be something else going on. Check with a dermatologist.

Tap water is different everywhere you go. It's probably a good idea to filter it anyway even if you didn't have a hair transplant, so just go ahead and get a filter.