Al - Moderator

What would really be great is if there was a before picture of him wearing the hair piece so we can compare the hair piece to the transplant end result. That's something that would really very beneficial to see for someone who may be currently wearing a hair piece and thinking about switching to a hair transplant as this patient did. Nice work, though. Thanks for posting.

One thing you can do is post what clinic or Dr it was, so everyone is aware of a possible issue. I say possible issue because we don't know for sure. There are a few clinics who charge by the procedure rather than the graft count. They give you an estimate of how many they will do and set a price. Then you are leaving it up to them whether they actually give you that amount of grafts or not. I am not a fan of that at all. My feeling from the few cases I've heard about who have done this is that they will rarely do the amount they charge you for. It's a way of setting a seemingly low price per graft while actually charging you much higher than if you went somewhere else. I don't know what happened in your case, of course. I'm just posting some thoughts here.

I would try using nizoral once or twice a week and see if that stops the dandruff. The ketoconazol in nizoral may also help a bit with hair growth. I used to use nizoral years ago and I felt it helped slightly.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people who think that way. It's hard to blame them though since for the past 10 years or more FUE has been marketed as a scarless and non surgical procedure, so of course that makes you think it's not a big deal and you can have it done anywhere and if it doesn't work out, oh well, just shave your head like you were going to do if you didn't get the hair transplant. That's also why they look for the cheapest place. Why spend so much money and then if you're not happy you will just shave it anyway. All of that is wrong thinking, but with the way it's marketed, that's the message people have been getting.

Adding to what LaserCaps said, it looks like some of your hair in the back may be gray. When it's very short that can make your hair look thinner than it is because your eyes see the dark hairs while the lighter colored ones blend in with the scalp. Let your hair grow a bit and if you have some gray hair then dye your hair. It may look much fuller then.

I am not positive on this, but I believe he is training a Dr in Princeton NJ who is a Dermatologist and does various other procedures for lips, nose, eyes, etc. I imagine he is currently heavily involved at this point as he just started in NJ and would probably have to teach her for a while especially if he is only there a few days a month. What happens after that though I don't know. I'm wondering if he is trying to start a chain of HT clincs here that license the name or something since he now has 2 clinics in the USA. EDIT: Or he could just be renting an office at the Princeton NJ facility to perform hair transplants on his own patients rather than setting up an entire office himself. It would be much cheaper to just pay a small amount to use a space in another large facility.

No worries. You are fine. Pimples are normal after hair transplants when the hair starts trying to grow.

It was a different time. Shaving back then made you an outcast. Even just having 1 or 2 tattoos was frowned on. Such a big difference than how it is today. Just for fun... Here is me at 22 years old in 1989. This is in the chair getting ready for my first hair transplant. I wish I had more and better pictures, but there was no such thing as cell phones with cameras back then and I didn't want to be in pictures looking like I did. This one is black and white because it's a photocopy of the one the clinic took. The clinic used a polaroid instant camera to take all before and after pictures. By the time shaving your head started becoming acceptable in the early to mid 90's I think, I had so many scars by then that there was no way I would do it. This one is me in 1998 at 31 years old. (9 years after the first HT). You can see all the rows of FUT scars. I count about 8 rows of them.

Yes. Exactly. We talked about this in private messages too. If I was completely bald on top I would definitely not do SMP. I think it's too easy to spot as just a tattoo on your head to try to fool people and it isn't fooling them. I think it looks better in pictures than in real life. You need the 3D effect, so I think if you have at least a bit of hair all over it can look good and pass for actual fullness without anyone ever knowing. Now that I do have hair all over I am at least considering it, although I don't think I will buzz down. I'm thinking I may like it better with my hair at my usual length and letting the darker color of the SMP give it a more full look. I've seen this done by a couple of other posters in this forum. That would give me less of a change since I'd still be growing my hair and I think that would make it an easier transition. It's still my hair just looking better. The weird thing is that I think if I get to a point where I feel like I have enough hair for it to really work well then I'd probably feel like I don't need it. I don't know. Anyway, it is something I'm thinking about now where I wasn't interested before.

December 10. This is 4 days post op. I apologize if I'm posting too many pics for you. My beard area is a bit yellowish. I think this is from the Aquaphor I'm putting on it. It really reduces the itchiness and seems to help clear up the redness faster. You can see my beard looks like I can probably still grow a half decent beard even with about 3000 grafts removed. I can probably get a few hundred more grafts out of this still. I'm adding on top view too with my hair wet and pushed away so you can see what that looks like. I been using a Liposomal ATP spray on the area. I don't know if it helps with growth, but it does keep the scalp wet and really helps the scabs come off fast and easy. I also put another pic of the hairline work. I'm really curious to see how that grows in 6 to 9 months.

Some shots from 2 days post op of the beard. This is Wednesday, December 8

This is 2 days post op on Wednesday December 8. This shows what we did in the corners and a close-up of some grafts on the hairline. The hairline grafts will be interesting to see how they grow out because everyone says never to do that. I think it will be fine because I have already been parting my hair on the side through all BHT grafts and I don't have a big issue. It's not perfect, but it sure is better than not having hair to make a part at all!

This is on Tuesday, so 1 day post op. This is before going back to the Drs office Tuesday morning and getting the next day checkup. The picture of the top came out all blurry, so I'm just posting the beard area.

I have many rows of FUT scars. Back then a new scar was created each time. I also have lots of punch scarring all over on top because I had hundreds of 3mm to 4mm areas (don't remember the exact size) between grafts punched out and sewn closed to try to lessen the space between the grafts which just ended up leaving me with punch graft scars all over the top of my head between the grafts. I also ended up with 5 scalp reductions, although I think now just about all of those are completely covered in transplanted grafts. So with all that, shaving my head was never a real option I wanted to try. If you want to know why I didn't just shave my head early on, you have to understand that back in the 1980s shaving your head wasn't something that was done. That would have gotten me labeled as a neo nazi skinhead and be worse than having a horsehoe NW7 bald fringe all around. That was a different time, so it wasn't something I even thought about trying back in those days. Could I do SMP now? Maybe. It's something I think about. I did wear a hair piece before having the hair transplant and that was something I really hated. I just felt so fake. It made me sick constantly wondering if someone could tell and the worry that if anyone found out and told everyone then what would be the point. That wouldn't be fooling anyone. So I kind of feel like SMP is going to put me through the same feelings and it wouldn't be something I can just remove if I had to. That's also why I don't use any concealer.

Haha. Thank you both! I always had a young looking face. Unfortunately the very early extreme hair loss ruined the entire look. If I never had the hair problem I would have had all kinds of hot babes after me back in my 20s and 30s. Whenever someone says having hair does not change your life or solve all your problems I just cringe. Uhh.... yeah.. it would have solved my problems. It's not fun being 20 and trying to hit on a girl the same age as me or even a few years older and have her tell you she doesn't date guys older than her dad. Or when they literally run away screaming about the old guy who thinks he should have someone 25 years younger than he is. Or when there's a mother and daughter and the guy I'm hanging out with tells me he will go for the 20 year old and I should take the 45 year old because she is closer to my age... yet the guy telling me this was several years older than me. Or when I finally did get a date with someone the same age as me and I get told I'm robbing the cradle, etc, etc, etc.

Most hair transplant Drs are not scientists or biologists who do this type of research, so even if you have something that's FDA approved for use, making it work as something else isn't always so simple. It's easy to say just try it, but what would they even do with it, how much do they use, do they even know much about it, etc, etc. I think asking them to try things they have little knowledge about on their actual patients is something most Drs would not want to risk. Can they do some research and find out more about it? Sure, but the time it may take to really learn about it may be too time consuming and, as I said earlier, not really their area of knowledge. Where does a Dr who already has a months long waiting list find the time? Would it be great if someone with some knowledge did look into a few of these things? Sure, but then that's sort of what is already being done. That's why there have been tests on mice and some initial human trials of some things as well. Most hair transplant Drs will tell you it's better if the people who understand it are the ones who work on it.

There was a topic on this forum asking what time of year people thought was the best time to have a hair transplant. My answer was if you live in an area that has cold Winters, then you want to do it at the beginning of the Winter, so you can get away with wearing hoodies or hats most of the time you go out during the ugly duckling stage and nobody will suspect a thing. Besides that, it's so cold in Winter that you can tell anyone that you don't really want to go out because it's too cold and most people will accept that excuse as they have all used it before too. I went for a walk around Manhattan New York to see Christmas lights on Monday evening. This was only a few hours after the surgery. Look at this picture. Nobody would know anything and everyone else is basically dressed the same way.

You are welcome. More is coming tomorrow. Yes. I don't have any useable scalp donor From the BHT repairs, it's nearly 6000. Right now it's almost split evenly between beard and chest/abdomen. If you are asking about the total including the FUT ones long ago, I'd have to check my notes. I'll get back to you on that. But most of them have since fallen out anyway. My hair loss has progressed past some of the FUT scars. You can see one of the scars easily in the before photo of the back of my head. I'd say maybe 80% of what I have growing on top now is BHT. Some areas are 100% BHT and some are maybe 50%.

I got there at about 7:30 AM and was done somewhere between 3:30 PM and 4 PM. We were originally going to do another session of chest and abdomen, but I felt for some time that I still had plenty of beard grafts, so I let my beard grow for about 6 days. My beard hair under my chin is mostly gray (all the darker colored hairs were taken in earlier sessions since those are easier to see). The pocedure was on Monday, so I dyed my hair (beard, scalp, and chest/abdomen) on Saturday and again on Sunday to make sure they all showed up good. I wish I took more pics during the procedure, but here is what I have. This is at 10:58 AM almost halfway through beard graft extraction. We took a short break, so I could go to the bathroom and I think the Dr likes to stop for a bit every once in a while to give his hands and fingers a rest anyway. Here is the 2nd break maybe two thirds to 3 quarters extracted. The time is 11:35 AM. We didn't do very much since the last break, but I think Dr Dorin may have had a phone call. I can't remember. In any event he was called away, but the techs were still there to remove grafts and check them while he was out of the room. OK. Lunch time. It's 1:36 PM. Graft extraction is done and the techs are checking the remaining grafts and getting a final count. When you arrive in the morning they let you pick your lunch from a list of items. I chose the chicken parm sandwich. Other choices were some wraps, soups, a salad, etc. I can't remember everything that was on it. Then they have it delivered. After lunch Dr Dorin starts making the incisions for where to place the grafts. We got 610 grafts. I was hoping for closer to 800, but I'm looking on the bright side and thinking I haven't touched the chest and abdomen at all today, so I know I still have all those left to place in the back half next time. He placed a few in the hairline at my request due to a spot that I really never liked. In a bit he discusses with me where exactly to place the last few grafts as he covered the areas he felt were the most needed. I tell him to put them in the front center to try to thicken the frontal center tuft a bit, so he does that. Then the techs start placing the grafts. Once I got back to the hotel, which was a couple of blocks away, I took some pictures. These are all taken within two hours of the procedure back at my hotel.

Yeah we don't really disagree all that much. Personal experiences has a way of making people a bit biased and that's with everything in life. I agree that some people arent good candidates for BHT. What is needed is a good beard that grows quickly and preferrably not so curly. The better it matches your scalp hair then the better it's going to be. if you want to use chest hair you need chest hair that also grows long and straight. Not very many men have that, so I do think chest hair is not going to work all that well for most guys. I agree with you that if you don't need beard hair and it's not likely that you will need it in the next 20 years or more then don't use it. However, I do think for those men who are headed for NW 6 or higher it is better to integrate beard hair into the plan from the beginning, provided they have the proper quality beard hair to be useful.

My first hair transplant was September, 1989. I was 22 years old and I was between a NW 5 and NW 6 at the time. I'm 54 now. It was FUT, but the grafts were cut from the strip in 3.75mm sections, so I had 3.75mm punch holes removed from the recipient and the plugs from the strip placed in the holes. I also had a scalp reduction done at the same time. Yes I had a scalp reduction and a FUT strip at the same surgery. Amazingly my FUT scars aren't all that wide. So the first surgery was 60 grafts 3.75mm each and a scalp reduction. The orginal plan was to have 2 scalp reductions and 300 grafts in a total of 4 surgeries. The surgeries in those days were spaced 6 weeks apart, so 6 weeks after the first one I had the 2nd one. I should make an entire new topic just about all that! EDIT: Oops, so that's 32 years ago, not 33

I should add that I'm not doing this to make BHT look good or bad. I'm going to post about everything, good and bad, so you can decide for yourself. However I am just 1 example of BHT, so whether you end up thinking this is good or not, please search for other examples before making any decisions on what to do in your own situation. In most of my posts about BHT on this forum I say it works well and the hair softens and matches the native hair over time. While I absolutely do believe that, at least in my case, I will say I'm probably (more than probably) much easier on BHT than some others would be. This is because I haven't had much hair in so long that I really can't tell what it's supposed to match with and just having more hair in some areas where there wasn't for years, to me, is a nice improvement. However I can understand how others would be much more critical of what results should look like. So as I said, I'm just going to put everything here and let you all decide how you feel.

I decided to start my own topic. You can follow it from the link below. There's not much there right now, but over the next few days I will post a lot of pictures from after the surgery and then more going forward.

I only had 610 grafts taken from my beard area on this particular surgery. The grafts were placed in the frontal and mid scalp areas. I wasn't sure if I should create a topic for it since it is such a small procedure on a large area. However I've been getting lots of questions, so I decided to post it all here as I do think there will be some good information about using beard grafts and how well it heals. This is my beard the night before the procedure. I had already had nearly 2400 grafts taken from this area in prior sessions, so this is what my beard looks like with that many already grafts already gone from the beard. If you look closely you can see a lot of tiny white dots, but it's not noticeable unless you are really looking for it. Also notice that I can still grow a beard even after nearly 2400 grafts have been removed. Here is what my hair loss looked like the morning of surgery just before leaving the hotel to go to the Drs office. I know it looks bad. I had my first hair transplant approximately 33 years ago. I would be completely bald everywhere except for a thin fringe going all the way around my head. A lot of what is there now is body hair from my beard and chest. The goal for todays surgery is to get some thickness/density in the frontal half, so the plan is to concentrate on that area and strategically place grafts where we think they will benefit me most as far as overall physical improvement. More coming soon.

You do need to find someone who has experience with female hairlines because female hairlines are shaped differently than male hairlines. With FUT the Dr will only need to shave a thin strip that is wide enough to remove the strip of grafts, so that should be easily covered while it's healing if you have some length to your hair which most females do. If you do FUE then they will need to shave a much larger area of the donor. If you keep the hair above it long enough you may still be able to cover that as well, but it's not as easy as FUT.