Al - Moderator

A scalp reduction can be done to remove the bumps, but its going to leave you with a scar from the procedure. It just won't be a raised bump like it is now, but the scars may be even more noticeable, so you may end up wishing you didn't do the surgery. Also since it appears that you have multiple small bump scars you would end up with multiple reduction scars. Then there is the question of whether the scarring you have is still active and getting worse because if it is then eliminating it now may only last a short time before it comes back again.

The site started up in 2013 and named that way because surely there would be a cure by 2020. Don't wait around all our life for a cure to come along. Do what you can now.

You just have to let it grow in for 9 months or more and see how it turns out. It doesn't look too low to me, but I realize that everyone has their own opinion of where their hairline should be.

3000 hairs is only in the 1400 to 1500 range of grafts. This is not enough in my opinion. Looking at the latest pictures I see you do have some hair in the frontal area. I would think around 1800 grafts to fill in the front with another 1200 in the midscalp pushing back towards the crown would be a good first session. You will need another procedure later, but with the donor area looking like it may not be very wide due to the retrograde hair loss, I don't know if trying to get more than 3000 or so in a first session is a good idea due to the possibility of depleting the donor if the grafts must be taken from a smaller area than usual. If you are also using body hair grafts then you can increase the session size by that amount.

You are in the middle of the worst part of the recovery. Months 2 and 3 are when you feel like you've been waiting a long time and still see nothing and you may even look worse than when you started because of some shock loss. Everyone goes through this. Once you get to around month 4 you start feeling better as you see a lot of hair growing in and you begin to be able to comb it. Just hang in there.

This was standard years ago when small FUT sessions were the norm. These days most small cases are done by FUE. If the patient goes back at some point for another FUT, the Dr can start the next FUT strip from the end of the first strip and continue around to the other side of his head. I had lots of these small FUT strips back in the day.

The difference is probably a matter of where they think the hairline placement should be. They are also just estimates and those numbers can vary a bit once they are actually doing the work on you.

Maybe I'm weird, but I found this to be the most interesting part. I never heard of any Dr doing that before, but it's a great idea.

Looking much better

It is curly for two reasons: 1. because it was naturally curly when it was growing in the donor area (he says his donor area is curly, so I'm assuming that is true) 2. Transplanted hair usually is more curly or wiry the first 1 to 2 years until it softens up and straightens out more.

What could be happening is this: After the hair transplant, all the transplanted hair sheds and then it all starts a new growth cycle in the same time frame when it starts the regrowth. Your hair growth cycle lasts about 2 to 3 years, so it is now all at the end of the growth cycle and shedding at roughly the same time. Over time the cycles will naturally vary from each other much more and you probably won't notice it in the future. If this is what's happening then it should stop shedding soon. You also could be starting a seasonal shedding as well which may make it seem like some of the earliest hairs that fell out are falling again. I obviously can't say for sure that this is what is happening to you, but this does happen in some cases and since you say the hair is growing back normally then this is a possibility. Let us know how it goes over the next few months.

You should be able to get another FUT of about 2500 to do another pass through the area that was already transplanted. You may be able to get away with 2000 over the previous area and then add 500 to lift the sides of the crown up slightly. Then I'd go for a 3rd session of 1500 FUE or BHT to fill in the crown. That would put you at 7000 grafts which is what an area your size will usually require to get good results.

$25,000 for 2,000 grafts!? That's $12.50 per graft!

That's a lot of area to cover for 3000 grafts. You will probably need another pass of about 2500 grafts throughout the entire area to get good coverage.

I have heard from various places that some generics do not work so well, so if you did change a few times that is certainly a possibility.

This is basically what happened to me on finisteride too. I took it for about 11 years when I finally stopped. For the first 2 or 3 years I think I did get a bit more hair. The next few years I was able to stay about the same. The last 3 or 4 years I was definitely losing ground. At the time I stopped I had less hair then when I started 11 years earlier. I'm also a NW 7. I think this happens more dramatically in higher NW cases. Finisteride can only hold off your genetics for a short time.

Looking good.

This exactly. I'm the same age as Gatsby. Being young and bald in the 1980's would have made me look like a neo nazi skin head. There was no way I was going to do that. Nobody else shaved their heads in those days. There was no way I would have ever gotten a date from any women even half decent. It's no where near as bad today, although it still makes you look much older unless you actually are over 45.

I agree because even a buzz cut on someone who has a full head of hair still shows a framed face. It's completely different than a slick bald head and no facial frame.

All that and the fact that if you are doing enough business that you can't really handle any more then why would you want to advertise much anyway? In the case of the 60 year old Dr he may be wanting to start slowing down and doing less work as he tries to slide into semi retirement, so again, why advertise for more work if you don't need it or want it.

It looks like the frontal band is packed rather densely, so I agree with the others that it may be in the 3200 range. However I would have preferred it to be a bit less densely packed in order to get some grafts into the center section. It should have been a half circle rather than a U. I think you will end up needing another transplant to fill in the middle. I hope I'm wrong and it's just the lighting as there is a glare on that section and it looks like a bump from the anesthesia, so maybe it's not as bad as it looks there.

Looking at your pictures it appears that you aren't someone who would ever want to shave his head. If that is the case then you may be a good candidate even though you have a large area to cover and your donor may not be that great. The reason is that if you are going to be doing a comb over anyway then any amount of grafts you can get in the front half will make it easier to comb the hair over the top and get better coverage, so even if you can only get 2500 to 3000 grafts it will at least help you get some coverage. I would stick with thinly covering the front half first with a maximum of about 3000 grafts, so you don't over harvest your donor area. I would probably also choose to go for a thinner frontal half coverage rather than a thicker frontal third. The reason is the same as I was mentioning, that even light coverage will help your comb over look better and with a larger area covered it will, of course, help cover a larger area. I would wait to think about the crown later once the front transplant grows in and you can see where you are in terms of both donor availability and if you want to add more to the front half at that time. Definitely think about using beard grafts as that will increase the amount of donor hair you can use. Good luck!

Arocha does have a lot of results getting posted here regularly. He has a more conservative approach than some other clinics, so he doesn't get the extreme "Wow!" before and after effect that some mega sessions from other clinics may get, so the praise factor simply doesn't get as high. Most people want to see huge differences between the before picture and the after picture before they will get excited about the results. That's just human nature. If you are looking for a conservative approach that will save a lot of grafts for possible future use, then Arocha may be a good choice. It all depends on where you are in the balding process and what you are looking for.

Why would he want one transplant? Everyone I have ever known started off wanting no hair transplants. They only start wanting the first one because they lost some hair. Even after wanting the first one, nobody ever wants to have more than that one transplant if they don't have to. I never thought about getting a hair transplant until I felt I needed one. So if he feels like he wants one hair transplant, what is going to stop him from wanting another hair transplant if he continues losing hair? If we could all get to decide how much hair we are going to lose we would all choose to lose none and nobody would ever get hair transplants. Obviously it doesn't work that way.

Excellent looking crown work.