Al - Moderator

Shedding is going to happen. You just have to know it and let it happen and not get too stressed over it. Mine usually starts in about 8 to 10 days, but there's a large variation in what is a normal time frame for shedding.

OK. Good to know. I was just responding to what the OP wrote.

How is the donor currently looking?

You're only 3 months post op. The hairline is probably shock loss. The sides I can hardly even tell there's an issue. No one would notice other than you and that can still get better as well. If you are looking to have every strand of hair on your head be perfect with the absolute best amount of density in every place, it's not going to happen. That doesn't exist on anyone whether they have a hair transplant or not.

It looks like your entire donor area is thinning. Are you on any non hair loss medications that can cause hair loss, such as blood thinners? You may have issues going on in addition to male pattern baldness. Be very careful about proceeding with a hair transplant at this stage because from the pictures it doesn't look like you have much, if any, useable donor area. If it's thinning, taking it out and placing it on top is not going to help you. It's just going to thin and fall out from the top after it's moved. You need to address the thinning donor area first.

I didn't realize you had 5 FUTs. I thought it was only 2. Great. That's pretty much what I was thinking when I said do another FUT to reduce the scar and get some grafts out of it at the same time.

You got some good crown coverage and the donor looks untouched.

That's good to know. Please consider creating a topic to show your progress and results.

By the way, I just noticed you were only at 3 months. That's a lot of growth for 3 months! I'm wondering if some of those hairs will gain some color as they mature.

The quickest, easiest fix is to simply dye your hair the same color as your natural hair color. Then you can still look for a long term solution (if there is one), but there's no rush at that point. Besides, as you get older, you are going to get more gray hair anyway.

Thank you for posting you experience so far. The work looks pretty clean. Please be sure to keep us updated on your progress over the next year.

Have you discussed simply doing another small FUT while trying to reduce the scar at the same time? I'd also like to see how well the transplant held up over the past few years.

Your crown hasn't changed in 13 years. Consider yourself lucky. Most of us can only dream of having a crown looking that good. A crown whirl is normal.

It could be dry, flaky skin. It's hard to tell. Try putting some baby oil on it and leave it in for 10 to 15 minutes. Are you using minoxidil? That can dry your scalp after a hair transplant more than it normally does.

This looks good for 3 months.

A two haired graft can be cut in half to make 2 single haired grafts.

There was a member @Portugal25 who was nice enough to create a price list a few years ago, but the prices and packages change so often I think it got to be too much trouble for him to keep it updated. It's not as easy to do as it sounds because some clinics have different prices depending on which package you choose.

Are you willing to post some pictures of your hair loss, your age, and what your expectations for a hair transplant are. If you haven't seen any great results on NW 7s by Eugenix then I'm wondering if maybe your expectations of a HT with your NW level is too high. I'm not saying that's the case, but without pictures it's hard to know what advice to give you.

I agree with what the others have said. If you're a NW 7 with bad donor then be very careful about who you go to and consider the possibility of not getting a HT at all.

I would not want techs doing the incisions. I wouldn't trust a tech to be designing the hairline and deciding on the angles that the grafts will be facing.

No no. You misunderstand me. I'm not questioning your intent and it doesn't matter if I or anyone else on this board is. What I'm saying is... to Dr Bloxham it probably comes across that way.... and that's the one that matters because you and he are the ones who have the most knowledge of your surgery, not anyone on this board. As I said earlier you should be asking him for a breakdown of the graft count. You want to know how many single, doubles, triples. That will add up to the total number of grafts done.

I'm not trying to depress you or make you feel bad. I think sometimes I come across that way if I start trying to explain things too much. I am certainly not a big fan of the hair transplant industry as a whole. However, long ago I realized that the best way to get rid of the butchers is to point out the better Drs and try to get people to realize that a successful HT is not as simple as just getting more hair on your head. It matters where you go. That's why I've been in this forum for so long and it's why I became a moderator even though I was butchered very badly years ago. These days I always try to look at both sides. I said in an earlier post that there seems to be a possible discrepancy in the graft count. Whether there actually is or not I don't know as I am only an outside person who has no actual details of what went on. So with that said, looking at it if I was a Dr doing 200+ procedures per year and a patient had a complaint about the cost and graft numbers, but added in that he didn't like the air conditioner or that the graft holding solution looks white, etc, etc, it would sound to me like you are just making complaints trying to get a refund. The actual graft number and cost part of the complaint gets buried in with the other stuff and it appears to not be a true complaint. That doesn't mean I think your main concerns are not valid. If you were simply doing a review and mentioned things about the air and graft holding then that's fine. It's all part of the review and we can think maybe that air conditioner setup is a bit tacky. But it you are making what you think are valid complaints to the Dr about the actual procedure, leave those opinion parts out. So your main issues are: 1. What was the actual number of grafts and were you overcharged. What you need is a breakdown of the grafts. They should be able to show how many singles, doubles, triples, etc. That's what you should be asking for. 2. Did the grafts grow well. You mentioned some thin areas, but to me it looks like it grew pretty good. I realize it's not as full as you'd like, but that's common and most people go back for a 2nd procedure to add density. The one side that you point out is thin looks like it's just a combing/parting issue and not really thinner, at least to me. 3. Who was the other Dr involved. This may or may not matter (although they should be able to tell you) because it depends on what he did and how much he did. You didn't really give us much info on that unless I missed some parts. So I can't say if it's an issue.

Your chest healed very well. Mine took 6 months to clear up.

I'm not on any side of this. I wasn't there, so I don't know any of the details. However I want to respond to a few things because I think a lot of what you are complaining about makes it seem like you are trying to find something to complain about or perhaps you just didn't understand what was going on at the time. You are not going to see it because it's happening while the techs are placing the grafts. What happens is when they push a graft in the pressure from widening the incision hole to implant the graft pops a graft next to it back out and they need to push that graft back in. Then reimplanting that graft pops another one out, and so on. It gets frustrating and time consuming to finally get them all in. Once they are all in they may apply a little bit of pressure all over your had to make sure thy are in tight. After a short time the blood around the grafts will start getting thicker and sticky and will hold them in place, so by the time you leave you will not be able to see anything that they were talking about. An 11 hour surgery seems to indicate they were taking a long time to get everything done and that could be part of it. That would be extremely long for 1700 grafts. It's even long for 2700 grafts which makes me lean towards the 2700 graft number. Again, I wasn't there, but to me the length of time indicates a much larger session than 1700. This is one where I think you are just mentioning something to try to find a complaint. The operating room needs to be able to be cool, but this is mainly going to be an issue in the Summer probably. It could be that the simplest way to keep that room cooler is to have an extra air conditioner. That doesn't seem odd to me. The fact that they didn't need to use it... well it was November in NY, maybe they didn't need to use it. Here's another example where I think you are just trying to find a complaint. Do you really think they said "Oh today we are working on bluebird, let's not do our usual graft holding procedures and just use a paper cup and not care." I mean really. They've been doing successful HTs for years. There are several different types of holding solution. Whatever one they've been using must be working for them. If you never had a HT before why would you think the color or cup they put the grafts in is odd if you have noting to compare to? As far as another Dr working on you, you didn't say what parts or how much he did. If it was a Tech and he didn't say he was a Dr would you feel the same? I guess that depends on what parts he was doing, but without that info I can't know if it was OK or not for him to be doing it rather than Dr Bloxham. He could have been doing Tech work. But even besides that, if it was an 11 hour surgery, maybe it's not a bad idea to get another Dr to help out a bit if he's free. When I was at True & Dorin before Dr True retired he would occasionally come in and see what was going on if he was finished with his patient or if he was only doing consultations that day and was done and we were still going. I never saw an issue with that. In fact I liked that another Dr was having a look.

That's a lot to take from the scalp. Dr Zarev is going to be jealous! 😄 Looks great so far.