Garageland

Hi guys, the 4 month stage has been reached, pics are in my weblog

Some observations, i started on proscar and had some shedding on the crown for the first 4 weeks, this how now slowed right down.

I am pleased with the progress so far, i just looked at my pre op H&W pics and i am shaping up nicely at this early stage, from the front on i am very pleased, the bridge area, where i had no hair before, is still very thin as is the crown, this i understand comes in slower than the frontal area, i can feel new sprouts coming in all over so i am hopefull of a good result, i am growing my hair as long as i can to see how it looks and intend to brush it back like it is now.

All the pics are taken with no flash on

One thing i am really pleased with is that the texture of my hair and styling it is much better, it used to stick up all over the place, now i can brush it neatly back, without needing to use any wax, i put this down to the weight of the hair laying on top of each other.

Every morning i would get up and my hair would be sticking up and the only way i could get it to brush back was to wash or wet it....now i can get up and just brush it back......job done.

Also even at this stage the new hairs coming infont of my old grafty hairline has really softened it already when i look at my hairline i don't cringe anymore and see plugginess.

Can't wait to see what next month brings

I'm afraid everyone is different, some seem to do a lot of their growth early on whilst others see minimal growth at 6 months, this is why they say don't judge it till you are at your 1 year stage.

Basic- i am 4 months, your are in the stage where it is just about to kick off (hopefully) i can feel lots of new hairs coming through now, they are dark hairs but they don't seem as thick as my existing donor hair, not everybody gets those white fine baby hairs that some people seem to talk of.....i guess this is what seems to look like early growth.......the fact that your new sprouters are coming through thicker.........i can only guess that it is to do with the coarseness (is that a word) of your hair shaft in the first place.

Either way the hair does mature and thicken up from what it first appears like.

Good growth to you both

Congrats Glock, thanks for your story and pics, always like to see nw6's getting full coverage.

Love the 1979 pic, i too used to moan about how much hair i used to have.

Looking forward to seeing your progress.

Good growth

Hi Jay T, ditto to the advice given, i had a area of shockloss around my scar, not as big as that but enough to worry me.I emailed Joe with a few pics and he put my mind at rest and said it would grow back.

At 3.5 months it is filling in nicely and i can still feel new hairs coming in.

At 8 months it should have come back, courve is the best for a scar but you will need hair to brush over it to help conceal it better.

Good luck and let us know how you get on

Congrats to Dr Feller, he deserves this very much, i have enjoyed his contribution to the boards of recent, he is not only a great surgeon from what i have seen but he also has a tremendous way of expressing himself for all to understand.

Hi Bal, i will echo what the others have said, perfectly safe, by the way i saw your 6 month hairline pics and was very impressed, do you have any up to date pics of the hairline, as you are now 10 months in?

Good luck with the new procedure, and congrats to all the docs involved for getting together and arranging it for you.

Interesting point, but i wouldn't say everyone combs their hair back, i lot of people still uses the combover look from one side to another to add a look of density when hair lays on top of one another.

To be able to brush your hair back and show off your hairline is a real credit to the work you have had done

This is an interesting debate, personally i feel that this hair count is a good idea but will ultimately lead to problems.

Take the two examples posted by cooleyfied

Cooleyfied had 778 more hairs than gorpy for instance

Cooleyfied paid for 807 more grafts than gorpy

These extra paid for grafts were at less than 1 hair per graft!!!

So are we to assume that Cooley splits their grafts to produce more one hair grafts as one poster said ripping people off?

No we are not, it is down to the patients characteristics.

I can see it now, patients bemoaning as to why they got so many single hair grafts, etc etc.

We should be looking at results, i can't hear any H&W patients feeling ripped off with their great hair and transformation.

Don't get me wrong i would be interested to hear how many hairs where actually moved on my head, but if the final result is great, then will i ultimately be thinking, hmmmmm if only i had a few more 3 hair grafts

Hi i used aloe vera gel for 2 weeks applied twice a day, other than that i was able to let air get to it as much as possible by only wearing a hat when i went outside.

The tip of not looking in the mirror is really hard for the first few weeks and than after that i got used to it, i still have a good look every few days though.

Amazing month by month transformation, i'd settle for your month 4 pics as my final result.

You must be getting really excited as to what the final results are going to turn out like?

Good luck with the procedure, you will feel alot happier once you are all done

Mr Perfect, everbody grows at different rates, i don't think there is a standard as such, but people can report some new sprouts as early on as 3 months, whilst some people seem to take as much as 5/6 months to see any noticeable cosmetic difference.

Unless you are slick bald on top to begin with its very hard to tell what is new growth and what is exsisting hair, as the work these days is so natural.

Be patient i am sure things will start to improve soon.

Mark H, good luck with your procedure, 4k should go a long way, why not go for a little peak if thats what you want.I didn't want my hairline to suddenly look different otherwise yeah i might of gone for one.

Spex - cheers, 3 months is when it all starts kicking off, i can feel loads of new hairs coming through.

Hi RCB, there are a number of ways to solve your problem, removal of grafts etc to be bald again, but why spend all that money getting to where you where before ie bald and unhappy.

I know that a bad ht is far worse than being bald in the first place and i understand why some people go down this route, i have lived with a bad ht for many years now.

Your situation sounds similar to mine, corn rows, pluggy look, which started off looking ok until my natural hair receeded and left me with just the unnatural pluggy hairline.

Take a look at my blog and my original post entitled 'My hair transplant history from uk to canada in 10 years'.

I felt this was the way to go for me personally, and at just over 3 months i am buzzing with excitement at having already lost most of my pluggy look.

Good luck and research all those options

Hi Mark H, good spot, i did have a very small widows peak in the old days, but not for the last 10 years or so, we went for as much as a jagged hairline as possible considering my hairline was too low for my norwood pattern, anything else would have been a waste of precious grafts.

If i was starting from scratch i might well have gone for the peak as my brother still has one.

Hi Bushy, thanks my friend i certainly hope i do, i have very similar type of hair to you so if i can get a result somewhere even close to yours then i will be happy.

As for the crown i have had grafts placed all over the top of my head so half the crown was done.As for propecia, i think i have experienced some small sheds with this, but have read this is very common and is actually a sign that it is working.

Looking forward to seeing your 4 month pics.

Ok guys i have uploaded 3 month pics onto my weblog, i just had a look at my 2 months pics to see how far i have come in a month and i am pleasantly suprised, no flash was used in these pics.

I started on propecia on the 18th july, i still have some numbness above my scar and some shockloss on the right side but this has improved from the 2 months stage.

I can see and feel lots of new hairs coming through, so all is good, i feel as i did pre op but with maybe a 5 - 10% overall improvement, my bridge area pre op was non existent but in the mirror it doesn't look quite so thin.I do feel already that the pluggyness of my preop self has been slightly approved already.

I have a long way to go yet, but i am feeling optimistic at this 3 month stage, onwards and upwards.

Any questions, happy to answer

Hi Glock, price was a concern of mine aswell so i hear where you are coming from H&W work a pricing structure of $4.50 for the first 2000 and then $2.50 for every graft over that, so the more you get the better the price per graft it becomes.As for cost pick up the phone and give Joe a call say there are two of you and your pricing issues, 15k will get you some good numbers by the way.

As for scalp exercises, it basically about moving the skin at the back and sides of your head up and down, the more movement is called laxity, is the more laxity the wider strip that can be taken resulting in the higher number of grafts that you need.

If you spend ten minutes a day pushing the skin upwards where you strip is likely to be you will improve your chances of getting a higher number of grafts and reducing the chances of your scar stretching as it will allow for a better closure.

I suggest get going today with the exercises, i noticed an improvment after about a month.

Hi Glock08, everyone has offered up some very good advice here, with your level of baldness you really need the high numbers, your donor density and hair characteristics look good from the pics.Hasson and Wong are the masters of firstly great looking transplants and secondly getting high numbers, lots of guys are regularly getting 5000 plus in one session, if you have the laxity/ density then they will be able to do it.

I just got back from getting 4850 grafts after 3 previous poor strip surgeries in the 90's, like you i am an nw6 and needed to max out, everyone else quoted me between 2-3k.

You may want to go back and do the crown at a later date but if you get good numbers first time round you might decide that it is not a problem beacuse you won't look bald front on and that is the most important thing.

The down time after surgery is the hardest part and i believe if you only have to go through this once or twice then all the better.

Start scalp exercises straight away they really do help, and forget about going to the closest doctor, i flew for 10 hours to get to Hasson And Wong.

Good luck

Hi at 9 days post op your head is pretty safe from the grafts falling out in the wash.The hairs shed in lots of different ways some come out just a hair no root, some will come out with the root (hair bulb), some with dry skin attached, no need to worry the follicle is surviving in your scalp.

At day nine you need to be washing your hair normally, so expect to see lots of dried skin, etc.

All the best

I too have new growth at 2 months, not lots but definately some visible sprouts, i can also feel lots of tiny spikes with my fingertips.The peach fuzz is new ht hair, which will thicken up in time.

Hi and thanks for the reply, i am very interested as i have a wealth of unwanted body hair so yes the idea is a wonderful one if the results can come somewhere near that of a normal transplant.I am glad that the decision was all yours and your weren't pushed into this as an experimental case for the doc, as you say if the results aren't totally to your satisfaction you can always rely on your head as a donor source.

Good growth to you

Hi Top shiny, thanks for the update, i will be following your case with interest but i still can't help feeling that you could of got 3000 grafts at least from your head, you are a virgin donor there right?.

Your donor looks good dark thick hair will give you a good coverage, maybe norwood 6 don't make the ideal ht patients but as long as your expectations are not sky high you can end up with a reasonable head of hair, there are some cases of nw6 that have got great heads of hair.

Was it your idea or the docs to go along the line of bht without trying the normal route first?

Can i ask out of the 700 test patch that you did, were you given any idea of what the yield was? are you planning at this stage to go back for more in the future?

I think you are a very brave man and really wish you all the best but personally would harvested as much as i could from my head and then tried body hair if i needed to.

Mr Joe, yes it is fairly common, not everyone gets it but a lot of people seem to suffer it in some form, i am not worried by it as i know it will grow back, its just amking things difficult for now.

Hi all, i have reached my two month stage and have updated my weblog with lots of new pics, i have also updated some old pics of my hair pre any hairloss to show of my old Morrissey quiff and also pics after my first 450 grafts session in 1996, altough you can't see any of the work carried out as it is all camoflauged by my existing hair, it goes to show why i haven't been really concerned about my unnatural appearance until the last 4-5 years.

I have been buzzing my hair to a 3 at the sides and longer at the back to keep it in line with the length on top, this has made normal looking front on, i suffered a lot of shockloss particularly on the right side i noticed lots of hairs coming out from day one to about week 5, this shockloss on the donor has now stopped and i am awaiting re growth.

I started running on week five and football (soccer) week 6 , this was my first time out without my hat and used courve for the first time, as crude as the stuff is (basically makeup) it did hide my scars, i was very conscious of it running or coming out but it was all fine.

I am still wearing a hat when i go out although my hair is nearly at the point where it is like it was pre op, it looks like it would do now after a short haircut (my pre op pics hair length was longer than normal to conceal scars).

I can see new hairs lower than my old hairline sprouting which is really great news, if you look carefully at my photos you will see this, as an unusual experience some of my old ht hairs change colour from black at the tip to very pale and back to black again near the root, this can be seen in some of my pics, maybe this is a shock related thing?.

I am taking 300mg of msm daily and feel this has helped my hair grow back quickly, it is quite a good length for 2 months and i am happy with that, all in all i feel very positive about the upcoming months and very excited as to what i will look like in 10 months time, on a down side my shockloss concerns me particularly on the right side where i am having difficulty hiding my scars.

Please feel free to ask any questions

I have attached a pic which shows my hairline in detail