Al - Moderator

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.

Seasonal shedding is normal and happens to a lot of people. As long as it grows back then you are fine.

He is balding far down the back of his head which puts him more into the NW 7 category even though he still has some side hair.

At day 8 you can't pull out the grafts at this point, so you should be showering with the shower water flowing normally over your head. Stand under the shower water for several minutes to soften up the scabs. Then shampoo your hair and gently rub over the scabs. Don't pick at them or use your fingernails. They should start coming off. It may take until the 2nd shower for them to really start coming off. The first one may just get them ready to go. Don't worry if you see hairs coming off with the scabs. That is normal. The transplanted hair will probably almost all shed.

Melvin, If you remove half the hair under your chin, nobody will ever know. You will still look the same.

You can use an aloe vera gel. I would try using it a bit before you take a shower and then shampoo it out in the shower. That may be just enough to stop it from getting dry after the shower, but not need to be in your hair all day.

Looks like a graft that got bent backwards while being inserted. It happens. I believe they will usually grow, but may take a bit longer.

In the photos it looks like most of the transplanted hair is still rather short, so you may be a slow grower. That may indicate that you have a good amount of improvement to come in the next few months.

You have some excellent beard hair, especially if that is at only two days. You should be able to get a few thousand grafts from that and if it grows that fast it will probably be very good on your scalp.

I got over 2300 beard grafts without going up into my cheeks. I still have hair in the entire area, but most of it that's left is slower growing shorter beard hair. I used most of the good ones up. I think I probably have another 200 or so good ones left.

Are you are talking about how to mentally prepare for the procedure? There are a lot of things that can stress a person out just thinking about a hair transplant such as the thought of shaving your head for the procedure, how do you go back to work, what do you tell people, how do you handle looking even worse than you do now for several months during the "ugly duckling" phase of shedding and waiting for new growth, etc. It's a lot to deal with. I think generally the people who handle it best are the ones who are at the point where they are so frustrated with their hair loss that it's actually better to think about the hair transplant than it is to think about how to deal with not having the transplant. If you are not at that point yet and you are really having a hard time stressing about how to handle it all, then perhaps you should hold off a bit longer. You don't HAVE to get to that point, but some people have a much harder time dealing with unkowns. It tends to be those who are less adventurous and happier with more of a routine and knowing how their day is going to go who have this problem. Sorry I know I haven't really helped you much with what I said. What I will say, and I mention this a lot, is spend some time looking at pictures of lots of hairlines, both transplanted ones and non transplanted natural ones. Look at older pictures of your own hair line when you had more hair. This way you will get a good idea of the type of hairline you are looking for. This matters a lot! It's what you will see every day in the mirror, so you have to get a design that you can live with. Too many people go in for a hair transplant thinking the Dr is one of the best, so he will know what to do, but the Dr doesn't know what you specifically want or what you used to look like 10 years ago. Most hair transplant Drs have a certain hairline style that they most often do and are known for. The Dr may do excellent hairlines with great density, but as an example, if you want more of an M shape hairline or widows peak and he always makes straight hairlines then you are at the wrong place even if the Dr is one of the best because once you get home and see the hairline and you don't recognize yourself or it isn't what you imagine then you will already be thinking of a "repair" to "fix" the hairline. Most people are trying to get their hair back to something resembling what they once had because that is what they know and are most comfortable with. This goes back to the less adventurous type of person I mentioned earlier. These guys need to be able to look in the mirror after a hair transplant and see something that looks like their old hairline, so they can see a younger them. If you can get that it makes the entire ugly duckling phase much easier to deal with because you know you are headed in the direction you want to go. Some of the more adventurous people will be more willing to go with whatever hairline the Dr creates and see how it turns out, but some people can't handle that. Make sure you know which type of person you are.

I don't feel any tightness in my scalp after many small FUTs and 5 scalp reductions done a long time ago. If multiple scalp reductions don't cause long term tightness then I doubt any FUTs will.

True & Dorin do FUT, FUE and FUE using body hair (BHT). If you had FUT before and not sure if you should do another FUT or if it's time to go with FUE, then try consulting with them. They would most likely be a better choice to suggest what they feel is best for your current situation since they do all three, so they don't need to be like some other places that may try to convince you that the one type of procedure they do is the best choice.

Looking at all of your pictures it looks to me like a lot of the individual transplanted hairs are still a bit thinner than your native hair, so I think it should mature and thicken up a bit more over the next few months.

Natural hairlines usually aren't straight. Here's another similar hairline by the same Dr that turned out great. I realize some guys prefer a very straight hairline and that is why I always say you should really look at a Dr's hairline style before making a final choice of who to go to.

This is why you need to stay away from the hair mills that sometimes do 5 to 10 patients per day where the techs are doing all the work. You never know who is actually going to be doing your surgery. Just because you know of someone who had a good result, it doesn't mean you will get a good result because he may have simply gotten a good tech working on him that day. You don't know if the techs have been working in teams together for a long time or if they are just brought in as part time workers with hardly any training and paired together that day without ever knowing each other before that day. Something similar is also true with general practice Drs or some plastic surgeons who only do hair transplants on a part time basis as a side business or add on business. They hire part time techs to come in on days that they have a hair transplant surgery, so the techs can be different each time or they have only worked on a small number of surgeries and don't have a lot of experience. You are much better off going somewhere that has a relatively stable team who has been working together for a number of years with a lot of Dr participation in the surgery, not just "overseeing" while the techs do all the work.

I was hoping to go to Williamsburg VA, but will probably not get there this year. It doesn't look like I can get much time off work for a while.

I'd say the biggest thing is to make sure you get vaccinated because here in the US it sounds like we are leaning towards checking for vaccination for international travel from other countries. Right now they are requiring that you get tested for Covid within a few days before travel.