Al - Moderator

If you get a hair transplant: If you go with FUT they will only shave a strip of hair around the sides and back and then cut that strip out and use those grafts, so you won't have to shave your head for that. If you plan to keep your hair long for a lot of years then FUT is probably the better option for you. If you go with FUE they will need to shave a larger portion of the back and sides, but with the length of your hair you can probably still hide it pretty easily. Just make sure you let the Dr know you want to keep as much of your long hair as possible to cover the donor area. For the recipient area since you're just doing the temple areas I don't think you should have to shave anything there either, although possibly a very small amount along the hairline to blend the grafts in if needed. It depends on how thick or thin the existing hairline actually is. Take a look at Legend007 hair transplant thread to see how he managed to conceal his FUE transplant with long hair. You shouldn't need as many grafts as he did and your hair is longer than his was, so I think yours should be easier to hide.

A bit over 4600 body hair grafts split almost evenly between chest and beard. I have another session coming up in January. I'm hoping to get another 800 to 1000 grafts done. I am a true NW7. My sides have dipped very far down and what's left is thinning too. Without body hair grafts I would be completely bald where some the strip scars were (I had multiple strip scars). I also have some retrograde balding and I lost hair upwards from the back past the lower scars there as well. This is why most of the previously transplanted hair from the strip scars has fallen out. It lasted 15 years until the hair loss progressed past the scars, but it was never a good hair transplant anyway and never gave me any real coverage. Eugenics and Umar are already doing what I'm saying, although to a lesser extent as they usually use less body hair than I would, but they are doing it and getting good results so far. I think more places need to be incorporating body hair in the original planning. I took finisteride for about 11 years, but I was already a NW7 and still losing hair. Yes it was thinning out my chest hair, but I don't know about my beard. My thought was there was no point in continuing finisteride if I'm still losing hair and already a NW7 and needed to use body hair to get any improvements. I hated being on medication continuosly anyway and I'm so glad I'm not on it any more. I do think I lost some head hair faster since being off of finisteride, but again, what was the alternative? I didn't see any other choice. I'd rather have body hair covering my head instead of scars covering my head. Yes. A lot of it is gone now which is why I had no other choice than to go with body hair. But it did grow for a lot of years and thinned out just like it would have if it was still in the donor area and never moved. Yes. As time goes by it gets harder to tell the difference. The length has never bee an issue. It actually grows faster and longer than my head hair. I have a few scattered hairs that don't like to comb the right way or that still have a bit of roughness to them, but I don't know if that's because it was body hair or because of all the scarring I had on my head that it was transplanted in to. Years ago I had 5 scalp reductions so we are transplanting over all that, most of the previous transplanted hair is gone and being transplanted over those scars, some of the strip scars are being transplanted into, I had I think over 100 3.75mm plugs of scalp removed and sutured closed years ago to try to eliminate some spaces between grafts etc, etc, so I had a lot of scarring. The thing is though that you can't tell by looking that it's not real head hair and since a NW7 doesn't have much hair anyway there's not really any hair that you are tryng to match or blend in with, so if it's not the same texture as it was when you were younger and had hair does it really matter?

I had noticeable crown loss at 15 years old. By 16 I was combing my hair straight back to cover my thinning crown. At 17 I switched to doing a combover because my temples had receded too much to comb my hair back. At 18 I could no longer cover the crown even with a combover. At 19 it was obvious I was doing a combover as the temples had receded so much and left me with a center tuft of hair with very thin hair in the midscalp and a several inch diameter completely bald crown. At 21 I got a hair system. At 22 and a NW 6 I got a hair transplant.

Everyone has a crown swirl. It's totally normal. Some are more pronounced than others and in a lot of people it can be more off to one side rather than in the center. In some rare cases there is a double swirl.

Looking at the before pictures it looks like you have very soft and somewhat fine hair. If that's the case then the end results, if everything grows in right, may look slightly thin, but very natural. I like the scattered hairline.

Over the last few years I've become a big proponent of using beard and chest hair. A lot of people say you should only use body hair as a last resort, but I think it's much better to use it from the start for those who think they are headed to NW 6 or NW 7. What you don't want to end up doing is using all your scalp donor and then going to NW 6/NW 7 and having some of the hair that was transplanted fall out plus the area still expanding and then needing to basically redo your hair transplant with body hair. If you have a lot of body hair just use it at the start mixed in with some scalp hair. beard hair lasts basically forever, so you won't have to worry about it once it's transplanted. 90 year old NW 7 bald guys still grow thick beards. You want that hair on your head. It doesn't look anywhere near as bad on our head as most people think it will. If you can get 5000 to 6000 beard and chest grafts then that's that much less scalp grafts you have to use. I'm saying this from experience after having multiple hair transplants when I was younger only to end up a NW 7 and now redoing the entire transplant over with body hair.

The two procedure approach of doing the front first and then then crown on the 2nd procedure is somewhat standard with USA Drs when the patient is a higher NW. You won't look strange since it doesn't look like your crown goes far down the back of your head. You will actually look much better because the front will be much more full and you will have a hairline. There are people who lose the crown first and still keep thick hair in the front, so it will not look out of place. It only becomes an issue if your crown is more of the NW 7 type that has dipped far down the sides and back.

Looks like a very good scar so far.

Looks really good when buzzed down.

Your scars aren't very wide, so I'd go with FUE. With scar revision they will cut out the scar and close it up, but you will probably still be left with a noticeable, but thinner scar. You may hardly even notice much difference. If it was wider then Id try scar revision first to see how thin you can get it, but at the current width I would go with FUE.

I had a session that cost about $10,000. I saved enough for half and I paid the full amount with a credit card with 1% cash back. Then paid my $5000 to that card and then transferred the other $5000 to another card that gave me no interest for a year. I came out about even because there was a 2% transfer fee for the $5000, but it enabled me to basically pay $5000 over 1 year totally interest and fee free when offset with the cash back.

I slept in a recliner for about 3 or 4 days

If you were taking finisteride and it was working well for you then yes if you stop taking it your hair will start falling out after a few months and will eventually get to close to where it would have been if you never took finisteride. Sometimes you may not know or think finisteride was working because you don't see any gains from it, but it could have been holding on to your current hair. You only realize it once you stop taking it.

Honestly I didn't read it that way. I thought the guy was genuinely curious, especially with Champbaby's changing crown over time, since Anotherhairlossufferer just had a procedure with the same Dr. It's comforting to feel like you are not going through this alone. That's part of what this forum is for. At the same time I get that Champbaby didn't want to answer many questions until he has results from his latest procedure and he ended up saying he was staying away from any more answers until then. So from what I see I think everything seems good.

A 9 to a 6 is about right. He went from a Ken doll to Emperor Ming

No it hasn't. He just lost hair in the center. When he is buzzed down you can clearly see he had the corners transplanted along with a small amount along the front hairline back when he still had hair in the center. The transplanted hair is all still there.

think the best way to go is just shave your head, but with a plan of action. Wait until the Summer comes (or whatever is the hot season where you live) and plan a week or two vacation off from work. The week before you go on vacation let some people know that you are thinking of just shaving your head when you go on vacation so you don't even need to worry about combing or styling your hair. A vacation from everything. You could do this jokingly if you like. Then when you go on vacation, shave your head the first day. This gives you the entire vacation time for you to get used to the new look for yourself before needing to let too many people see it. Then you can start going out a few places or if you actually are away somewhere on a real vacation it would be much easier to go out since nobody knows you anyway, so they don't expect you to look a certain way. Then you start text a few friends that "Hey. I actually shaved my head like we were joking about." That way some people you know will be at least somewhat ready for that look when you get back to work and by that time you may be much more used to it yourself. When people ask you say you wee on vacation and it was so hot and you were just tired of getting so sweaty and just decided to shave it for the Summer. I know it's not an easy thing to do. I wore a hair piece when I was 21.

Posted in wrong topic. Sorry.

I was instructed to spray every 2 hours. As someone else said, regular spraying for the first few days really helps the scabs come off a lot easier and sooner once you start washing your head.

You are going to be NW 7 (and you could be classified as already there, except you still have some hair all over). If you are thinking about getting a hair transplant you would need at last 6000 grafts to get decent coverage. Your hair is light colored and matches your skin tone, so you can get away with thinner coverage than if you had darker hair. If you had dark hair you would need 10,000 to 12,000 or more grafts. I don't think you can get more than 3000 grafts from your donor area and possibly not even that many. If you can get at least 3000 grafts from your beard then you might have a shot at getting some decent coverage with a high hairline and recessed temples. Most likely though you would be disappointed with the results you may be able to achieve. You still have a bit of hair all over your head, so if I were you I would seriously look into microneedling and taking finisteride. That combination seems to be having some good results on cases like yours where there is still some thinning hair growing everywhere.

You're probably not going to want to go out at least the first weekend anyway due to some lingering soreness and some swelling and maybe not even the 2nd weekend while waiting for the crusts to come off. So it may not even be an issue.

It doesn't look too bad for 3 months.

I agree. Too many people and Drs continue to insist that the frontal third is the most important and you shouldn't worry about the crown because people see you from the front. I have always said that makes no sense. What you just described is a situation where the patient believed what everyone keeps saying about the front being the most important, yet you can see that it didn't turn out well to do that.

Before the BHT I didn't have enough hair to realistically pull it off. It would have looked fake. But now after enough BHT to get some better coverage all over I can probably look like I have a completely full head of hair. I'm tempted to try it the next time I go away on vacation, but I still wouldn't do it for my daily routine because then I'd be forced to do it every day and constantly worry if it's noticeable in different lighting than in my bathroom. My job includes meeting too many people every day, some of them regulars and some not. I definitely wouldn't want to ever miss a day of using concealer once I start doing it and look like I have a full head of hair one day and then look like I'm thinning all over the next day and then back to looking full again the third day. Too much worry. At least what I have now I know what I look like. What you see today is what you will see tomorrow, but now that I'm getting BHT it's slowly improving over time, so nobody sees any big, sudden difference. This works for me right now.

I agree. I took finisteride for about 11 years and my body hair was slowly thinning. When body hair transplants started being a thing, I knew I would get that done, so I stopped using finisteride. The hair on my head had started falling out again anyway even while still on it, so there was no real reason to stay on it any longer. Since then my body hair has increased (except in areas where grafts have been removed for transplanting, of course).