Al - Moderator

Since you are 14 I'm going to take a guess that this is the first time you really took a good look at the hair on your crown and thought "Oh no! I'm losing my hair!" What you can do is take pictures every 6 months for the next couple of years, so you can make comparisons. But in the mean time don't worry about it because everyone has that. You don't see it on some people because they comb their hair back or style it different ways. You can try playing around with different hair styles if it bothers you.

Some points first: I'm in the USA and not the UK, so things may be different. This is just my opinions and story. I also went through my lawsuit years ago, so that could make a difference also. I also don't know the extent of your hair loss before the procedure or what the and result of the procedure is, etc. so this is all just comments based on what I've been through. I am also not a lawyer. I went through the hair transplant lawsuit and I can tell you it's not simple. I was a major botch job and I was also 22 at the time of my first hair transplant and my lawsuit still went 8 years and ended up being dropped because it was getting nowhere after all that time. Some big hurdles are: 1. it is considered elective surgery so no matter how much your hair loss is or was affecting you, it doesn't matter. It's considered part of normal aging. If you do something about it such as a hair transplant then it's on you to know the risks and if you want to do it or not. It's not up to the Dr to decide for you no matter how much you think he/she should have told you something other than what he/she told you. In my own case I was told I had an "excessive hairloss disease" (his exact quote) and I needed to have surgery as soon as possible and we scheduled it for one week later because it was so urgent to fix it before it got any worse to the point where they wouldn't be able to help me. Yes they really said that. But even so, it's still considered elective surgery no matter what the Dr says. 2. You went to a hair transplant clinic/Dr. No matter what you say you went there for, they don't need to be anything other than a hair transplant clinic simply because you want them to be. What I mean is if you want them to give you advice or prescribe you certain medications, but they tell you they don't recommend that or offer hat, they are free to do that. With finisteride and dutasteride specifically, there is enough evidence of various side effects that there a number of Drs who think it's not worth the risks and won't advise you to use it and they are free to feel that way. It is up to you to find a Dr who will advise you on those things if you feel you want another opinion. Also, the fact that hair loss is considered normal in men means you will get nowhere trying to claim that they should have told you to use medication for your hair loss as it is not medically necessary to do anything at all for your hair. 3. You went to a hair transplant clinic/Dr. No matter what you went there for, they are going to claim that they should be expected to offer you a hair transplant. For example, if you go to a new car dealer and tell them you are trying to get maintenance done on your old car and you're worried about how much longer you car will last and ask what you can do to keep it running, a new car dealer/salesman is going to tell you that if you are concerned about your car breaking down then maybe it's time to get a new one and he will try to sell you a new car. Whether you buy a new one or not is up to you, but if you are at a new car dealer you have to expect them to attempt to sell one to you. It's no different at a hair transplant clinic.... again because it's elective surgery and not something necessary, so everything you think a Dr should be doing or saying does not apply. 4. Just reading parts of your story, you are all over the place on what you want, so that will only hurt you. For example you say you want to remove the transplanted hair and just go back to where you were, but you also say you are so worried about losing more hair, so which is it? If it's not a concern and you just want to go back to where you were, then why were you there in the first place? The Clinic's lawyer will make you look like a fool with this. After all that I want to say I am not against you. I'm just giving you the reality of what you are dealing with. If you can threaten a lawsuit and get them to offer a refund or even a partial refund then take it. That's most likely the best you will get (I will point out though that I don't know your case specifically). They may offer a partial refund if they really feel you are serious about suing them because they know it will cost them money for their own lawyer, but don't expect to get much. They won't be offering anything because they think they will lose the case. It's just them trying to pay you less than their lawyer charges. My overall opinion is it's not worth it unless you have been seriously injured to the point of near death or some serious physical harm OTHER than on your scalp where the hair transplant was performed.

No, but if you can make it to mid 60s without ever looking like you lost much hair all your life then you pretty much beat hair loss. Basically 99% of men will have significant hair loss by that age, so it's not going to matter as much if you are thinning after that. Besides it's not like you would suddenly lose all your hair the day after you turn 60 something.

As Berba and yourself indicate I also think you probably had much less than 3000 grafts. In any event that's past. I don't think you are trying to deceive us, so lets just move on to the real issue which is what to do next. It looks like you still have very good donor, so I would just have one good session to fill in between the transplanted hair line and the natural hair line. It seems like that should be easy and you can probably hide the work if you don't shave your head and comb your hair to cover it, so you may not even have a noticeable ugly duckling stage. If that lasts for another 10 years then at that point you can go back for one more round to fill in a bit more and you are done.

Looks like you are growing pretty well.

Looks very good considering you had a major botch job to start with.

There is something I'm not sure I'm understanding. Are you saying you had 3 procedures with over 3000 grafts total and only got that thin line of grafts along the front for all that work??

I don't know. I never had mine checked. I started taking it because Vitamin D and Zinc supposedly help with Covid if you get it. Then I started looking into it and saw they raise T levels, so I kept taking it. At 55 years old I'm sure my testosterone is lower than it used to be and I do feel like it's helping because I seem to get better erections and a better pump when working out.

I see improvement from month 4 to month 5, so hang in there. You should get a bit more improvement at least. With that said, it looks like you had a lot of area to cover, so 4200 grafts may not be enough to get the kind of coverage you may be looking for. You will probably need a 2nd session. That does not mean it was a poor job because 4200 grafts is a lot for one session, but extensive hair loss usually takes a 2nd pass to make most men happy with it.

Shock loss above and below the donor scar is normal. It grows back. Wait a few months and see if it looks any better.

I drink a glass of Emergen-C Immune Plus almost every morning. It has zinc and vitamin D which both help raise testosterone.

It depends on how much donor hair you still have left on the sides and back and if you have a lot of beard or chest hair. If you do have some decent donor available and if you have some beard hair then I think your best option would be to add a small amount of single hair grafts in front of the hairline to cover the scar. Then mix beard and scalp grafts to the midscalp behind the flap and going as far back as you can towards the crown. If the flap hair is still very thick then you can also look into FUEing out a few grafts from that and use those to cover more area. I know what you mean about looking like Frankenstein. I used to say that about myself. I didn't have a fleming-meyer flap, but I did have 5 scalp reductions and multiple FUT strip scars starting back in 1989, same year as you.

Your hair looks totally full. It's a completely changed look from where you started. I bet there are people who you bump into that you haven't seen in a couple of years who don't recognize you.

The average FUE grafts done by a Dr per day in the USA is under 1500 grafts. They don't make anywhere near what you are saying. They also have to pay a team of techs and a consultant which probably averages $35 per hour for each one and more like $40 when you factor in the social security and medicare tax and cost of benefits the Dr has to pay. The anesthesiologist will be making a lot more than that. Then there's rent for the facility which can be over $25k per month. Plus there's utility bills, equipment, etc.

I have an ex girlfriend who lives in California and makes $300k working as an ICU nurse at a hospital. If the Drs are not making more than that then they are not being paid enough.

Yep. I'm a NW 7, but I still have a couple of those hairs.

It looks like the hair has grown in, but at 6 months it still needs a few months to thicken and mature. Wait until the 9 month mark and then take more pictures and compare those with the 6 month pictures.

There is only one picture, but from looking at that I'd say your hair looks very good. I think you should leave it alone. You don't want to risk getting an unnatural hairline from a hair transplant for what seems to be very minor issues that you have with your current, real, natural hairline.

You are getting good results on meds so far. I'd stay on it and just wait and see how that goes for a few more months at least. It looks like you have a good donor area, so a hair transplant may be a good idea to at least get a more defined hairline area.

Make sure you let your hair grow a bit before the consultation.

My beard hair grows faster than my scalp hair. There is a lot of variation between people.

Feeling tired and sluggish can be a symptom of iron deficiency, so it may not be low T. I'd also check for low levels of vitamin D and Zinc.

A lot of the difference could simply be the thought process of the Dr. After looking at the pictures one may feel like you don't have a large supply of donor grafts and it is probably not in your best interest to start down the HT route. Another Dr may see that you had SMP done and figures that even if he isn't able to get a large number of grafts, even a small amount done in the SMP area and kept in a buzz cut would make your SMP look much better. In cases like this it's hard to say which is the right or wrong answer. Some of the determination is going to depend on how your conversation goes with each Dr.

The way you describe it being done seems like there would be a bit less time that the grafts were out of your body than if they were extracted before making the recipient incisions which is a good thing, so I don't think this was going to be a negative factor. Without seeing before and after pictures none of us can tell you if it turned out well or not, but I'll make some general comments to you about crowns. It always seems to take more grafts than you would think to get good crown coverage. There are several factors to that which are the shape of the crown (it's a dome shape and not a flat surface, so there is more area than there appears to be) and the fact that the crown whirl makes the hairs grow out away from each other rather than all in the same direction. This doesn't necessarily mean the Dr should have done more grafts either. You don't want to put too many grafts into the crown and then not have much left to cover the front half if/when you need to do that in the future.

Years ago this forum was the first in the list, but these days you have to pay to get your site listed on the first page with most general search phrases. There's not much you can really do about it.