Al - Moderator

Some men don't need major changes to their hair to completely change their feelings and outlook about their hair loss. Even a small improvement can sometimes make it much easier to style your hair without trying so hard to cover bald areas and sometimes more importantly is the feeling that you are no longer worried about losing your hair and how bad it's going to look next year or the year after. Just the idea that you did something about it that made an improvement is a great feeling for some men. It can be even better when it doesn't totally change the way you look when you see yourself in the mirror. You still look like you, but a little bit better version of you.

If right now you schedule the next surgery for several months from now then by that time you will have waited the extra months. At that time you can adjust how many grafts you need and where you need them on the morning of surgery. If you are going back to the same Dr then he will know what was done on the previous surgery. If you are going with a different one just be sure to tell them in the consultation that you feel like you are still getting some growth from the last one, so you may need less grafts than it looks like now.... or you could get the original number they estimate and end up with an even better result that you think you will. Nothing wrong with that!

Looks so much better now.

I dye my hair dark brown about once a month. That was my natural color when I was younger before it started going gray. Now that I've had a lot of beard and chest grafts I can see the color differences between the body grafts and the head grafts if I don't dye it. Dying it all once color makes it less noticeable that I've had body grafts done.

If you have 100,000 hairs on your head and they each grow for an average of 4 years, then that means 25,000 hairs will fall out per year even if you have no hair loss. That averages out to about 68 hairs per day which is why it's said losing 50 to 100 hairs per day is normal and is not necessarily a sign of hair loss.

Have you started taking Minoxidil or Finisteride recently? Those can cause a hair shed soon after first starting on them. Are you taking any other medications? Some medications can cause hair loss.

Yes. If you max out on FUT strips then you can still usually get some additional good FUE grafts.

Getting back to Dr Slaughter for a minute. It looks like Dr Slaughter trained for a while under Dr Beehner and is now basically taking over Dr Beehner's practice at Saratoga Hair Center, so Beehner can retire. If this is the case (It seems that way from the web site) then Dr Slaughter is probably a decent choice in general, but is simply a newer unknown Dr especially since he was not previously the main Dr at Saratoga Hair Center. You would probably be OK going with this Dr as Dr Beehner is still associated with it. That's just an opinion based on a quick look through their web site and info. I'm not recommending any specific action to either go with him or not.

Within the first 3 or 4 days it could look worse than it actually is if you have some swelling.

Ive had a mix of beard and chest hair, so it's difficult to say how well the beard hair has grown vs how well the chest hair has grown. My guess and my feeling is that the beard hair has had a better survival rate. The last session I had last month was all chest hair (actually abdomen hair), so I may be able to get a better idea of how well that hair grows in another 6 months or so, but even then it's all transplanted in between existing hair, so it may still be hard to really know. Overall there's definitely been improvement and several people have commented on my hair recently asking if my hair is growing back or what I've been doing to make my hair grow back in.

Even if you have a two step plan to address the front in the first procedure and then the crown in the second procedure I still think you should wait a minimum of 10 months and preferably at least 12 months. If you are doing FUT then you want to wait until you get enough laxity back for the next FUT. If you are doing FUE then you want to make sure any shock loss in the donor area has fully grown back in. You also want to let the frontal area from the first procedure fully grow in, so you can see if you want any touch ups in that area to thicken it. You don't want to end up going back too soon to fill in the crown and then discover 3 months later that you wish you added a few hundred more grafts to the frontal zone.

At 3.5 months you are right at the point where it starts for many people. I suspect you will be seeing some hairs popping through over the next week or two.

Years ago I heard he had a hair transplant. It looks like he has the classic FUT scar here. It also looks like he has a decent amount of hair, so I wonder why he shaves his head.

I thought I'd comment a little more people commenting about how they prefer FUE because they want to have the option to shave their head if it doesn't work out. Every time you come up with a goal that you know you want for yourself you should be mainly focused on how to reach that goal. If you spend too much time working out a "plan B" secondary fall back plan then that secondary back up plan will subconsciously become the main plan/goal without you ever realizing it and you will never reach what was the real main goal to begin with because you are spending more time working out how to achieve the secondary goal rather than the primary goal. This happens to a lot of people with lots of things in life, not just with hair transplants. While it's certainly fine to think about what you will do if X happens, don't start spending too much time and effort planning what to do in X situation or how to do it or else you will end up making certain that's the one that happens. Don't lose sight of your real goal.

1. I don't believe FUT is riskier. Is there a possibility of the scar stretching? Yes, but with FUE there is the possibility of the dot scars stretching and looking larger than normal and thus looking like the donor area has been depleted even while not taking too many grafts. I've seen enough cases like that to feel the risks of both FUT and FUE to the donor area are probably about the same as far as how often it happens. But even if the risk of the FUE donor depletion look is less than the risk of FUT scar stretch it's still usually easier to fix a FUT scar that has stretched than it is to fix a moth eaten depleted FUE donor area look. 2. If the patient has beard and body hair to use there is no reason why they can't use that after doing a FUT, so I'm not sure why that makes a difference.

FUE uses a much larger donor area than FUT, so I won't argue the fact that technically you can harvest more grafts using FUE, however the entire reason for getting a hair transplant is to get hair growing on your head, hopefully for many years to come. While you may be able to get more lifetime grafts with FUE wouldn't it be better to need less grafts because they were taken from a safer area with FUT rather than a less safe area and thus falling out after a few years with FUE? I'm not against FUE because it certainly has it's place, but I've said before that FUE is great for the short term, especially these days with hair styles that have the back and sides very short, but long term FUT is usually the better option because (done right) the grafts are taken from an area that will last longer than some of the FUE grafts. For someone who has a relatively aggressive hair loss I really think they should consider FUT or else they may find themselves in a situation where they have to either continue to go back and do more FUE to replace old grafts or shave their head due to continued loss of transplanted hair that was taken too high up or too low in the donor area. I know a lot of guys choose FUE with a "plan B" of being able to shave if it doesn't work out, but if you are really OK with shaving then I think you should just make that your "plan A" and be done with it. Again, I'm not against FUE, but I do feel like a lot of guys need to spend more time thinking about what they want long term with a hair transplant rather than just thinking about how they can style their hair in 10 months when it grows in.

Very nice result. Natural looking hairline that isn't too low with good density.

This is an excellent result. He is looking like a completely different person and there's no way you can tell it's a hair transplant.

Excellent result at just 5 months. I hope this man goes back to visit you at around the one year mark because I really want to see how full that crown gets.

I think most clinics will do free cleanings during the first week or two. Just make sure you ask ahead of time so they can schedule a time for you to come in. You don't want to just pop in unannounced and expect them to be ready for you... especially with this Covid situation going on. I personally prefer going back the day after the procedure for them to take a look at it and do the first cleaning. The last time they found a graft that was popping out and they were able to put it back in. After that it's not too hard to take care of it yourself.

I slept in a recliner chair with a neck/travel pillow and that really helped. Someone mentioned sleeping with your arms inside a T-shirt rather than tied which sounds like a good option if you are afraid you may scratch your grafts.

it's hard to really say for sure without seeing any pictures, but generally speaking it is common to get some pimples at around the 4 month mark or so when the new hair is starting to grow. If it doesn't seem like you have an infection then you may be able to simply wait a few weeks and see if new hair starts growing in those areas.

If you don't go too low with the hairline then you may be able to hide the work with your existing hair if you're willing to comb it forward or possibly a side part with sort of sweeping forward style. It certainly looks like you have enough hair to pull these off. The trick is to change your hair style before the transplant, so nobody will really think you are trying to hide something once you actually get the transplant.

If you're going to go with vitamins then make sure it has both biotin and zinc.

It's a bit rough the first few months, but if all goes well you'll be getting a lot of hot, young, beautiful babes checking you out and wanting to date you after that. That's what you have to keep thinking about for the next few months 😀