EpilepticSceptic

Ahhh, the old never ending FUE vs. FUT debate ! IMO FUE is NOT as new as many here would like to believe. Yes, it is newer than FUT; but it has been around for a good number of years now. The first forum I joined was HLH, and that was back in 2004. At that time the prevailing opinion of most forum members was that in 5 years FUT would be an outdated procedure, and that FUE would have abundant proof of successful outcomes and that the price would be driven significantly down. It never happened -- as a matter of fact, the opposite happened! I can name 3 clinics/docs who were IMMENSELY popular at that time on HLH, but who all took MAJOR nosedives as a direct consequence of their miserable failures at attempting to do FUE on a large scale: Cole, DHI, and Armani. These were clinics who switched their entire practices to FUE, not just as an adjunct to strip surgery. IMO the evidence after 5 years suggests overwhelmingly that FUE is a big crap shoot for the patient. Many here will argue that these clinics/docs were simply too unskilled and beligerent, but they DO (at least Armani and Cole) have some very impressive FUE results on a MINORITY of their patients. Are we to believe that they did good quality work on some, then just decided to hack up the others ? Or is it that the technique will just not work for everyone ? I waited out 5 years not once bothering to look at any of the forums, after 1 solid year of research. Why ? Well, I wanted to see if FUE truly did advance and become more consistent, and maybe even less expensive. To say that what I found was extremely discouraging would truly be an understatement. One needs to see patients in person as a MAJOR part of one's HT research! If you haven't done this then IMO you are about 25% done with your research. What I found looking at patients in person was that (when a virgin scalp and done by a top doc) the strip scars were suprisingly insignificant -- so much so that it made me laugh at the level of fear i had associated with it, which I later realized had mostly to do with OTHER PEOPLE'S OPINIONS on forums. I've seen guys who had a #2/3 buzz and you still had to go searching for the strip scar to find it; in normal everyday circumstances it was such a non-issue that it was laughable to me. Then again, these were tricho closures on virgin heads done by whom I consider to be the very best docs out there, and the patients had great laxity. If you don't have good laxity then FUE might be the ticket for you.

HA HA ! Look up the blog of "LondonLad" on the HLH forum if you want to see some serious face swelling -- elephant man style ! And he flew home looking like that!!!

Well, this is a beaten horse around here but since you are so receptive I'll explain it once more. MPB is progressive. Even on finasteride you are likely to lose some additional hair as time progresses. If you have a transplant now, the Dr. Will have to plant the permanent hair AROUND the other healthy hair. But what looks to be healthy hair today might very well be gone 5 years down the road. So what will your head look like then ? It is VERY possible that, even though the permament hair looks natural because your doc was top notch, the balding PATTERN of transplanted hair mixed with new bald spots may NOT look natural, even perhaps freakish. And the only way to fix it is to go back in for a second, and sometimes even 3rd transplant. Some call this "chasing your hairloss". This is why younger men are considered high risk for HTs, because much of the hair that looks good today may be gone by age 25/30. If you go from where you are right now to Terry Bradshaw bald by age 30, then you may never have even been a good HT candidate to begin with -- and you might have an expensive looking moustache on your head that was a "hairline" just 5 years prior, and no donor hair left to "fill in" the bald spots behind it. Do you see more clearly now ? It's a complicated affair, mon frere!

I agree, and this was a very informative reply! I too feel that conventional HTs, taking anti DHT meds, and stem cell injections all combined will be the likely "gold standard" approach for hairloss sufferers. I'm betting Histogen will be available in Asia within 5 years.

JJ, Yo man, I'm real happy for you bro! I saw your other thread and congrats on the surgery with Dr. Hasson and team. The best thing to do now is just sleep alot, eat well, and just rest up your body as much as possible. You first need to HEAL before you can plow your foot down on the gas pedal in attempts to speed up growth! Just do what your body tells you to and don't try and fight it. I got insatiably hungry and also slept for long hours and just generally did a whole lot of nothing. That included meditation, deep breathing, walks in the park, and 3 hour jacuzzi tub siestas. Keeping the scar area clean is important too, using that special shampoo. Concerning the E oil the clinic recommends to heal the scabs, DO NOT use high concentration (28,000 IU) vitamin E oil !!! I (luckily) made this mistake on day 15 when I had run out of the bottle of the lower concentration. The high concentration is like crazy glue on your head and almost impossible to get off for days! You obviously DON'T want that on your grafts when you are 1-4 days post op, OR your scar either cause it could cause bacteria to penetrate into the wound !!!!!!!!!!!!! I think H & W should update their instructions to warn about the high concentration E oil. I just got lucky, cause the first bottle was like 12,000 IU and had some other goodies in it too. I wouldn't mess with any minox right away either. Just take those antibiotics until they run out first, then maybe think about adding some MSM to your regimen. Definitely keep on the proscar. You got some dark days a comin brother as well! You feel like a rock star walking out of there and looking at all that new stubble up there, and in 7-10 days (in my case) it was even growing and getting longer with better pigment by the day. Then, it's like you go from that to INSTANT BALDNESS -- overnight. You may find your pathetic pre existing forelock , that at least gave you some coverage, is suddely almost non existent; they call it shockloss. You you look at the sink to see all of those hairs at once gave up the ghost, stuck in that frickin E oil, and you run your fingers thru your scalp to find that a myriad of hairs are sticking to your hand. Then, you look in the mirror to see an image you could hardly ever have imagined before-- YOU as a bald man! And now just waiting, in pergatory, for those babies to sprout. It's a real rollercoaster ride and I see what the vets were telling me now, they are wise!

Is a 4000 FUE session in 2 days possible ? Sure, no problem. You can come over to my house and you won't even have to go to Turkey! We can do the operation in my bathroom. I even made my own 5mm custom punch tool from some spare parts hanging around in the garage, and I can't wait to have a human lab rat to test it out on. BTW, I only charge 5 cents per graft, just enough for me and my buddies to have some beer money for the weekend. You'll have to sign a waiver form that states the grafts may not grow due to YOUR physiology, but don't worry because that hardly ever happens to anybody that walks thru my door. Oh wait, what's that -- you've decided on that clinic in Turkey ? Wow, I don't think their service will be too much better than what I have to offer you.

PP2, From the content of your post it is obvious that you have very little knowledge of what getting a HT entails. It is NOT the quick fix permanent solution that you (and many others your age) want it to be! It is a very complicated matter that you need to spend at least 1 year researching just to get your feet wet. You have aggressive MPB, that is obvious from your photos. There are many money fiend hack docs that will tell you what you want to hear, then steal your money and leave you butchered for life and looking like a circus freak. The few ethical doctors out there will tell you that you are way too young, and that you need to stay on finasteride for at least til age 25 to see if it works for you. And even if it does work and they say you are a HT candidate, you will still need to stay on finasteride for the rest of your life -- or until some new advancement comes along.

RE001, That looks like fairly aggressive MPB to me brother. I'd say you are a NW 2.5 right now in the front, but with significant crown loss.When I was 22 my hair was a solid NW1.5/2 without any hint of crown loss, just a bit of temple recession. By age 25 I was a NW3. By age 30 I was a NW3v, and I started on finasteride. Without the finasteride who the hell knows where I'd be today ! Your crown loss is worse (wider) than mine and I'm 41. Plus you have recession of the "rim" hair on the sides, and even a little into the bridge area. On me these areas are pretty solid, and I still needed 4500 grafts. Your forelock is better than mine was pre-HT, however you've got 19 more years of loss to go to catch up with me. Without meds that will almost certainly be enough time for MPB to finish you off. I commend you for shaving down your head and showing your pics! When one does this there is no way to hide from the truth of their MPB level. Many on these forums won't do what you did, and they like to pretend they are not as advanced as they are -- which will only hurt them in the long run. Why should anybody be afraid to be honest on a hairloss forum ? Anyway, IMO finasteride is your only hope right now. Otherwise you'll likely be looking into the mirror at a stranger in 3-5 years who looks like an old man at age 25/27, wishing he could turn back the clock and get on Fin. Or if you can live with the shaved look you have right now then just be happy with that and get on with your life. IMO without the DHT blocking meds you'll never really be a good candidate for any kind of HT until cloning is available. I know, it sucks, but it's the harsh truth. You don't want to become another miserable anti-HT repair patient! Look around and you will find many who did not heed the warnings.

IMO a HT should be the final option after trying the meds first, long term! Stay on Fin, Niz, & MSM for a few years to see if the loss can be stabilized. I think minox is snake oil that does more harm than good in the long run, but that's just my personal experience. Take good clear photos as you go along because it's human nature to lie to yourself about hairloss, but the photos will not lie. Most guys I see on these forums seek HT first before ever trying the meds. They are also usually in their 20s or early 30s. To me that is a backwards approach, and most top docs would likely agree. The male mind wants a quick fix approach without any hardship, and unfortunately MPB doesn't work like that. Many want to see a HT that way, but come to find later (when it's too late) that in most cases no meds equals disaster where the patient would have been better off just going bald. That's my opinion as a stone cold realist; sorry if it sounds negative. Hopefully cloning or HM will be available in Asia within the next 5 years and we'll have some more options besides the meds.

Here's one more case that really impresses me. He's a Dr. Feller patient. Hair Restoration Site for Arockstarwannabe To me this is a great example of how hair characteristics and hair style can be used to create a major improvement in the person's overall look and perception. Look at his final post "GOT MY MOJO BACK". Tell me that chicks are going to have a problem because you can see his scalp thru the hair ? Look at his pre-op pics and tell me that the improvement isn't night and day ? And this patient is not 1 out of a million either, there are many more like him who don't bother posting results on HT forums. For the right candidates a modern URFUT HT can be phenomenal!

D, I think you still need to see some patients in person. Sometimes pictures can be very unflattering. Case in point, go to this link: Hair Transplant Photos Hair Transplant Gallery - Hasson & Wong. Sessions: 1. Grafts: 4200 This is the star patient I met at the clinic. Look at the pics where he has gel in the hair. Yes, this dude's hairline still has thinning going on, and you can still see his scalp all over his head if you are standing directly over it (with the gel in). He doesn't have the density of a Brad Pitt or George Clooney, but he doesn't need it! In his pics without the gel some might say "man, that hairdo looks kind of weird or wiggish"; but in person it just looks natural. This dude looks pretty damn hip and cool in person, and I don't get the feeling that too many chicks are upset that he doesn't have Brad Pitt's hair density. It's hard to even imagine that he looked like that balding guy before in those pre-op pics! Look at his before pics and tell me that this HT wasn't a MAJOR improvement on his looks ? It's the facial framing that really makes the biggest impact on the right candidate, not the hair density. I didn't really fully understand this until I met patients in person. Granted, this patient has a 5 star result and not everyone can expect an outcome this good. But to say that his hair is only fit for a 40+ year old is a joke IMO.

RE001, Well, IMO you are definitely approaching this the right way. Look around on the various forums and 99.9% of the time the miserable, disgruntled patients who say HT was a failure for them ("prison sentence", "locked in", "treadmill", "worst mistake of my life", etc.) were guys in their 20s who jumped in too soon without any foresight; they wanted to conceal any hint of balding, and hence the strategy they pursued was flawed from the very beginning and they wasted alot of their donor hair. Many were never good candidates to begin with, and probably should have avoided HTs completely. Some were even warned by older HT vets, but they were immature and thought that by age 30-40 they wouldn't care about their appearence anymore (lol). At 41 I am almost old enough to be your dad (YIKES!!!). But hey, I am very young at heart. I remember age 22 vividly like it was yesterday, and I had to deal with this MPB crap in a time when there were no viable treatments or solutions. You young bucks are alot luckier today than you realize. That's why when I see these 20 something year olds ditching Fin because they get a little watery semen, I laugh because they still can look in the mirror (with concealers) at a NW2 head of hair. MANY will be looking back in a few years and cursing the day they ever stumbled accross sites like "propeciahelp.com" -- but it will be too late by then!

D, Have you met any HT patients yet that went thru a URFUT megasession ? I'm asking because you can't just judge results by photos alone. Sometimes they look worse in person, and sometimes they look considerably better. Actually, HD video gives IMO a MUCH more realistic view of what HT results look like in person. What I saw on video and what I saw in person looked the same, only more impressive in person. None of the H & W patients I met in person have "pluggy" hairlines. Jotronic, who was a NW6 repair patient, is definitely thinner than some of the other homerun cases I've seen, but I still wouldn't describe it as anywhere close to "pluggy". Had I never needed a HT myself and never spent any time on forums researching the new techniques, running into Joe on the street would have just made me think "that dude still has his hair, but is just thinning a little." That's a hell of a lot better than being bald, and there are equivalents in nature to the thinning hair look. The star patient I met that day (who had 4200 grafts and similar loss level as myself) just blew me away and was nowhere even remotely close to "pluggy" looking or "thin" looking! The dude had a full, natural looking NW2 head of hair that made him look more like a 30 year old than a 42 year old. Yes, it wasn't Brad Pitt thick, but it DID NOT look like a hair transplant! It was the first time that I said WOW from seeing a HT, and it was the same for Doug who is a H & W patient, and also works the front desk. These 2 guys weren't ever heading to NW 6/7 territory because, like me, proscar has been working for them long term and they are older than the average HT patient today. They are, IMO, at less risk of aggressive and rapid future loss than guys in their 20s, or even 30s. But yeah, any guy heading to NW5/6/7 territory in his 20s should probably be advised away from getting HTs -- at least not too quickly before exhausting all other options. I fear there will be many more stories in the future of guys who headed to NW7 by age 30, and now deeply regrets the HT he got when he was 22. No digs meant towards the OP for me saying this either, but I just think guys in their 20s should be the most careful about HTs. Anyway, the point is that HT is a numbers game; if you got the numbers and the loss is stable, then you need less grafts and 4000 can be dense packed into a relatively small area. Thus, it is CRUCIAL to know you have pretty well arrested the loss; and IMO you have to be able to verify this over a long enough period of time if you truly expect your odds to be good of the HT being a successful venture for you! Part of planning the HT IMO is not just selecting the best doc to have your surgery with, but also knowing alot about your own characteristics as it applies to the many diverse aspects of what makes a "successful" HT. And these can be both mental and phychological. Then again, who am I to preach as I still remain yet another experiment that hasn't fulfilled itself as of yet. I saw you mention in another post that you have a "risk taking" personality. Well, welcome to the club because that is exactly how I feel about myself! Even after all the research I have done, and all the time I spent planning this so pragmactially and conservatively, I STILL feel like I'm jumping out of an airplane for the first time not knowing with 100% certainty that the parachute will indeed open up! I'm 99.9% certain, but not 100%. You CANT be at the 1.7 month mark; and hence you are in a whole new domain of thought, feeling like some sort of crazy experiment! It's pretty far out man, having a strip of flesh carved out of your head and having the hair redistributed. You have to be a risk taking personality to endeavor into this arena in the first place. :cool:

Good for you brother, and I wish you the best! IMO until a person with MPB has shaved the head and learned to "live with" that look for awhile, they are not yet ready to jump into the HT arena. Once you have adjusted yourself psychologically to being cueball kojack bald, then your HT goals will suddenly be alot more conservative, and you'll be happier just to have more hair instead of perfect hair. All the real HT success stories I see are guys who have paid their dues in the MPB pit for awhile, so simply getting more hair is like getting out of jail.

Mr.NK, Well, i saw your blog and it seems you even had an area of necrosis on your front that lasted for 3 months. You said you thought it was maybe due to the repeated tech injections of anesthetic. My doc was the only one allowed to administer anesthetic to me, which requires great skill to do properly. Also, this doc has another patient at the 8 month mark I believe, and who has had very sub-par growth. His name is LittleWolf.

Yeah, well there's nothing like being thrown into the MPB fire pit at an early age I guess. I went from looking like Rob Lowe to Richard Nixon (Bozo The Clown) in 4 years, from age 21 to 25! It was the ULTIMATE lesson in the superficiality of women, people, and the western culture in general. And the hairline looked shit probably as early as age 22 because it was already obviously thinning -- and there was no such thing as Toppik or Propecia to do anything about it, just total and complete helplessness and submission to it! You just HAD to deal with it and adjust to avoid jumping off a bridge; mine is basically like the Cinderella story, except so far there has been no happy ending. So I said *** it and shaved it to the bone! That was in 1995 when most peeps still would look at you like a "skinhead" nazi gang member. But I did it anyway, and to some extent I will have to admit that the whole experience did change my psychology and direction in life, but for the better IMO. When you are used to getting lots of attention (especially from women) when you had perfect hair, suddenly you notice them treating you differently and then finally shying away from you completely and, like a detective, you sniff it out and know for a fact that it was nothing else but the hairloss. You confirm it from so many seperate experiences, and how they differ qualitatively though YOU acted basically the same as before. Some shrink might try to tell you otherwise, but the harsh truth is that hairloss MAKES PEOPLE LOOK DIFFERENT, often much OLDER !! Even if the person has good chiseled facial features, a Richard Nixon forelock at age 25 is going to CHANGE PEOPLE'S PERCEPTION OF YOU! And the mind remembers how they treated you in the pre-MPB days, because just a few years ago you had the NW 1.5/2 hairline! On another note: some of you guys around here who talk about not wanting to be on propecia for life, I can't help but notice are still getting away with a NW2 appearence using concealers. So what could you know about real baldness ? It's easy to talk about something you haven't experienced yet, and to haughtily theroize about how well you will be able to handle it when it comes (like the reaper) for you. Trust me, once the ability to even pull off the illusion of a hairline dissapears, you WILL be looking into the mirror at a VERY changed face !!! You may even feel you look like an alien from outer space at the really low moments. Moments like this can push any level headed person to bizarre behavior in how they attempt to deal with it. That's why anybody on these boards who ditches fin because they have a little watery semen needs to (IMO) shave the head to the bone TODAY and see how well they can deal with that look -- which will be a "prison" sentence for life once MPB takes its' final toll! :cool:

I have an even better suggestion: dissappear from the forums for 5 years, then come back one day to see who has fallen, who is still standing, and who sprouted wings and flew far above the rest. Judge in terms of consistency, inability to find unhappy patients, a quantity of detailed online documentation of successful outcomes, and the ability to meet patients in person without the doc/clinic knowing about it. This is what I did, and it was part of an overall research strategy. If your criteria is like mine, then there just might be 3 docs remaining on your list after you scratched out the rest; and there will be one left that appears to be light years ahead of the other two. Even still, something could go wrong -- it's just the risk you take.

Everything looks pretty normal to me, surgery-wise that is. I think Dr. Feller is right that when all is grown out it will not be a triangle, unless (until ?) the crown becomes slick bald skin behind the plant. Those native hairs in there right now look like they'll be giving up the ghost within a year or two. My biggest question for PD is why were you thinking even 3000 grafts would be enough for your level of baldness ? I would think you'd need at least 8000 for any HT to stand for the long term, and then keeping a strict proscar regimen to avoid the sides dropping. And when I say "stand" I'm not talking about Brad Pitt's hair density either, I'm talking about a general thinning look throughout that still looks natural. You look like you could even head to NW7 down the line, in which case 15,000 grafts would be needed just to look "normal". So to say you just wanted a one pass stand alone HT and no more down the line just doesn't make any sense IMO. You say you researched for years, but how could you have missed this one ?

D, I'm thick in the doldrums right now (nearing 2 months post-op), so there's nothing much to show. I plan on getting the blog up around month 3 when things should start popping. I am seeing lots of stubbly hairs coming in already, which seems to be early growth. I have photos of every day post-op until day 15 when the dreaded sheds started; the grafts were already growing too, which made the shed a real drag!!! Since then I'm just taking shots at the 1 month post-op marks. All indications so far are that it will be a great success. The scar is a non-issue already and appears it will be pencil thin (I can actually see the pencil line under the right light). I think the only real way to know how good/bad of a candidate you are is to visit a top doc who you know has ethics and doesn't really need your money cause he's so booked up already. I know, it's expensive to make a seperate trip just for a consultation; but what's another $500 if you're ready to fork out $15-20K ? They can examine your head and tell you if there's any donor thinning and also see indications of final balding pattern if it is there. My doc has been known to turn many away because he felt they were chasing an uphill battle, and he didn't want an unhappy patient down the line. So once he looked me over and gave me the green light I knew I was good to go. If you don't have confidence/trust in your doc, then there's no real way to proceed without fear.

D, Guys like Steve Jobs, Ben Bernanke, and Lloyd Blankfein are just like celebrities -- one out of 10 million. Hence, it is pointless to compare the average joe balding guy to them and say "see, they did it so you can too". Yeah, anybody can become the president or a multi-billionaire from a humble background -- but how many do ? I said there were "similarities" between being bald today and being black in the 1950s; certainly it was infinitely worse to be black back then, but I contend that our society has never lost it's need to discriminate. You can win the battle of mind, but you will still be judged by 99.9% of people based on appearence. Truly winning the battle of mind is not really caring what others think about your appearence at all, because the physical body is impermanent and doesn't even belong to us anyway. I know this because I practice Buddhism, and the self-realized masters won't even look into a mirror anymore because they have 0 interest in being distracted from Zen. I think alot of guys on these forums really haven't "walked in the balding shoes" long enough to be capable of any real deep insight. If you are a diffuse thinner and with Toppik can pull off the illusion of a NW2 head of hair whilst in public, then IMO you haven't walked in those shoes. The only way you will truly know how it feels (as well as how others will treat you) is to ditch the Toppik, cut/shave the hair real short, and step out into the spotlight with nothing to hide. I did this over 15 years ago, and lived with the balding look totally exposed for that length of time. Hence, I am extremely well adjusted psychologically to it. In my 20s and all through my 30s I did not feel the desperate need to rush into some mill somewhere and "do something about it", like most of the jaded HT patients you see complaining on these boards. Emotional issues if my HT fails ? Well, after spending near $20K to have my head cut open, a large strip of flesh removed, and my head poked like a pin cushion I guess anybody would be down if things did not pan out. However, if the worst case scenario was that I just returned to my pre-HT state with a pencil thin scar around my head, then I would just chalk it up to a hard lesson learned. I've lived with it for over 15 years anyway, no Toppik or attempts to conceal it. Plus my doc/clinic stands behind the work and is the only one I know who has a refund policy for those very rare cases where the grafts do not grow.

First off, since I haven't yet posted my blog you guys have no idea of my pre-HT situation. I was nowhere near "bald" pre-HT! My balding pattern was particularly cruel as a young guy, because I looked like Richard Nixon by age 25; the temples receeded very aggressively over night into slick bald skin. I was an advanced NW3 from age 25 to age 35, and by age 41 was an early NW4. This is just how my family genetcis work, very slow pattern balding where the rest of the hair remains very healthy (the opposite of diffuse thinning). With toppik I could look like I almost had a full head of hair, except for those damn slick bald temples. The good news is that my balding pattern makes me an A+ HT candidate! I had 4496 grafts dense packed into a relatively small area. I did my research for over 5 years, and hence I EXPECT my HT to be a success. The odds are slim (IMO) that it will not be. I'm not chasing the extreme uphill battle that most who get HTs are.

Dude, I used to think the way you did when I was in my early 20s, and even up until 30. As a matter of fact, as a performer I overcame pretty much any insecurity related to hairloss; I got buff, got some tattoos, shaved my head and really dove into my music career full force. On stage I am the center of attention and the proverbial alpha male, and not too many other dudes (no matter how good looking) could compete with me. And for MANY years I held the attitude that men who worry about hairloss are just insecure dweebs who have very little to offer from the inside. Now, let me say that this indeed served me well for a long time -- and still does. It IS true that people will respond to you based on the confidence that you project from the inside, but to a certian extent. Now I realize that I lived in denial for many, many years of what hairloss denies a person in life (YES, even a confident person with great charisma!!). It is called "discrimination", something that black people who lived in the 50s understand very well. At a certain point I could no longer deny that women I was attracted to were attracted to me on stage, but off stage they wanted guys with hair. They were VERY attracted to me as a performer, and they wanted to hang out with me often in a casual manner. But when it came to attempts at fooling around they wanted to be my "friend". When I would inquire about what was wrong with me, they would tell me that I was too OLD for them to be intimate with. Then when I would show them my ID that proved I was not as old as they thought, they would just look at me astonished but it still made no difference. Now, before you go accusing these women as being the shallow, superficial types, let me come to their defense! I have never been attracted to shallow women, and this is what was MOST painful about these experiences! Time after time I would attract some very beautiful and very deep girl who really turned me on because she was so sweet, smart, sexy, and spiritual; and time after time when it came to attempts at getting intimate the AGE issue would rear its' ugly head once more! Women are very social animals, and they are VERY worried about what others think of them as they stroll through the crowd. This DOES NOT mean that they are shallow, which took me some time to learn. It used to make me bitter until I matured and realized that, to them, balding is a DEEPLY ingrained sign of unattractiveness. Over the years many have admitted they were turned on by me, but they worried about what friends/family would think because I looked so much OLDER! And there was only one reason I looked older -- hairloss, and nothing else!!! Since age 20 I have always looked 10-15 years older (in the eyes of most women) than I really was. Now at 41 it has balanced out, but that still did not make me forget about my hair. I actually have the skin and body of a 30 year old I am told; so if this HT is a success then I will be reversing a scenario that has been the opposite for over 20 years. I will actually be looking YOUNGER than I really am for the first time in my life. When you are 22 you think you are strong enough to handle anything. This is why the military likes men aged 18-30, they are incredibly naive. Once you go through enough rejection that you are able to relate exclusively to "discrimination" associated with your hairloss, then you WILL want to do something about it. Imagine being a black person in the 1950s with a very high IQ, beautiful body, handsome face, etc., but you are denied equal opportunity ONLY because you are black! You see others who have half your intelligence getting all the good things from life, yet you are denied those things because of something you have no control over. How long would it take for you to rebel against that oppression and seek a solution ? IMO today balding/baldness is in some ways similar to being black in the 1950s or being a woman in the 1890s. It's "discrimination" based upon a social stigma that is completely meaningless, but is reinforced on a daily basis by the media and the mass cultural perception.

Thanks bro for clarifying that! I think I know who your doctor was and that the procedure was likely an FUE "megasession". It is likely that your grafts were damaged during the extraction process, and this is why the ones that did grow have such a poor quality. FUE is very difficult to practice, and only an elite few surgeons can pull it off; and even those surgeons will tell you that you can't do FUE "megasessions" and that FUE is inferior to strip as far as graft survival. Of course I'm sure that your doctor (who shares the same name as a famous fashion designer) did not tell you this. This doctor has done this to many others (Balboa, Chanyouze just to name 2 other posters on HTN) and he is also known to have very aggressive and pushy sales people. He is also known to convince patients they have no rights because of some bogus "agreement" he gets them to sign pre-surgery. He's a money fiend butcher, plain and simple. Years ago on the HLH forum he used to have a great reputation as a strip surgeon; but me and some others back then noticed he was front loading NW0 hairlines on 22 year old kids with 5000+ grafts -- and we WARNED people about him! Now years later the truth has been revealed after so many have been needlessly butchered by him! Sorry to hear about your situation, and I sincerely wish you the best in seeking repair.

I don't really notice anything like that from my recent surgery with Dr. Hasson, and this was after having 4496 grafts packed super densely into a relatively small area (NW4, small head & bridge intact, NW2 hairline, no temple point work). My head felt like a pin cushion during the HT, there were so many incisions being made! If I look really close with one hand mirror in another larger mirror (under bright light), I can only find 2 such very tiny areas up front where it seems indented inward in a circular like fashion. It looks like hairs are popping up there already, and maybe once that happens it will resolve itself. But other than this it looks like normal skin everywhere else; and it has looked that way (minus the pinkishness) from day #15 when alot of the grafts started to shed. I think people just have different skin with different healing characteristics. It would be nice if there was some reliable scientific method of discerning these particulars PRE-surgery!

flatpro, I wish you the best with your recent HT, but I think saying that Rahal does "better" hairlines than Dr. Hasson or Wong is utter BS! The only reason his hairlines on some patients may look better is because he dense packs them to the extreme which ANY top HT surgeon can do. A Dr. Hasson or Dr. Shapiro hairline using as many grafts as Rahal does would look equally awesome -- for the SHORT term! Long term ? Who the hell knows !!! I looked at your blog and see that he packed in 4300 grafts into what IMO is an absurdly low NW0 hairline. You are 23 years old and it looks to me like you could even end up a NW7 eventually -- or at least a NW6. For your sake I hope you have another 10,000 grafts available. The problem with young guys being dense packed with NW0 hairlines today is the issue of TOMORROW! Remember, HTs are permanent. There was another Dr. (who shares the same name of a famous fashion designer) who was also popular amongst the 20 something crowd, and he also gave NW0 hairlines to young lads destined for NW6/7 territory. There are other forums where you can go the "repair section" and you'll find out about what became of these people 5 years later. I chose my Dr. (Hasson) not just for skill, but also for ethics. I researched for 1 year and then dissapeared from all the forums for 5 years. This was a "strategy" as part of my research. When I came back there were 4 top doctors whose reputations remained intact (Hasson, Wong, Shapiro, Feller). The rest of them ALL took nosedives, and for obvious reasons that were easy for the skeptical, educated eye to see back then. It just took a few years for the ARMY of disgruntled patients to manifest. I wish you the best, but my gut tells me you'd better pray that cloning becomes a reality in 5-10 years time or just being bald will seem like a distant dream.