Regular Member KP Posted January 26, 2002 Regular Member Share Posted January 26, 2002 Same post as the experiance forum.. but wanted a Dr's take. I recently met w/ Dr. Harris in Denver. Gave me a prescription for Proscar, and we talked about "if" I had surgery. There was no pressure from him, but warned this is a committment. Even though I'm 30 and still have a lot of hair, there is no way of knowing how much hair I would lose in 5, 20, 50 yrs. I'm a Norwood 2+. In summary this is what he said to expect post-op ---> in my case of 500 grafts,frontal hairline, to fill in my receding power alleys: I would have some minor swelling and asked that I keep ice packs minimum 15 mins per hour 1st 4 days. Some inital redness. After 7 days because of small # of grafts, I should look like no surgery has been done. Stitches will dissolve and donor area will be undetectable. Some of my existing hairs might have shock fall-out, but those are ones that would probably be gone soon anyway. Any comments on my consultation / past experience for this small # of grafts would be halpful. (My concern is undetectabilty post surgery) thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regular Member KP Posted January 26, 2002 Author Regular Member Share Posted January 26, 2002 Same post as the experiance forum.. but wanted a Dr's take. I recently met w/ Dr. Harris in Denver. Gave me a prescription for Proscar, and we talked about "if" I had surgery. There was no pressure from him, but warned this is a committment. Even though I'm 30 and still have a lot of hair, there is no way of knowing how much hair I would lose in 5, 20, 50 yrs. I'm a Norwood 2+. In summary this is what he said to expect post-op ---> in my case of 500 grafts,frontal hairline, to fill in my receding power alleys: I would have some minor swelling and asked that I keep ice packs minimum 15 mins per hour 1st 4 days. Some inital redness. After 7 days because of small # of grafts, I should look like no surgery has been done. Stitches will dissolve and donor area will be undetectable. Some of my existing hairs might have shock fall-out, but those are ones that would probably be gone soon anyway. Any comments on my consultation / past experience for this small # of grafts would be halpful. (My concern is undetectabilty post surgery) thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 27, 2002 Share Posted January 27, 2002 KP, I will tell you from experience, Dr. Harris is right on. I had around 40 plugs put in when I was about 25 or 26. At that time, I still had hair on my head, but was receding in the hairline area. I continued to lose my hair and the plugs showed up, extremely visible. Its been that way for over 10+ yrs now. I hadn't gone back to have anything done because I just kept losing my hair and the plugs looked like crap...didn't want my whole head looking that way. I'm now 42. I believe I've lost about what I'm going to lose (with the help of propecia). I'm going in for 2800 FU's with Dr. Harris in two weeks. He's going to fix my frontal hairline (cover up the plugs) and work on the top crown a little. If FU's existed back when I started, I probably would have continued. Which means I would have had to make the commitment to continue the process as I lost my hair. But, FU's werent around so no way. I wish they were around. I would have looked alot better during my 30's which was an important part of my life. But, I'm going to try and make my 40's better. You know your family history better than anybody. If you think or know your going to lose more hair, then you better understand that if you start the process now, your going to have to make the committment, just like Dr. Harris said. If you can afford it, based on the results I've seen, it will be worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regular Member KP Posted January 29, 2002 Author Regular Member Share Posted January 29, 2002 Do you feel the propecia helped thicken your current hair? How long til you noticed any results? Did you notice it helping your frontal hairline? Talking w/ the Doc, he told me that the amt of hairloss you have in the future is not attributal to family history, and can never be know (understood that beforehand as well) Full head of hair today could be gone in x yrs... and only time will tell. Do you understand this to be different? Also curious if you checked any of his patient references (i plan to and doubt our ref. are the same people), and if any negative/ or "I wish he would have told me to expect this" type complaints were realized? I have seen several posts of patients expecting X after surgery (i.e. quick recovery, undetectable surgery etc), and getting Y results (redness for months, existing hair shock fallout etc). I was a little surprised of his comments to me re. undetectable surgey after a mere week! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 29, 2002 Share Posted January 29, 2002 I've been on propecia for about 2 years. I do not believe that I've lost any more "significant" amount of hair. I knew going in that Propecia most like would not regrow. I was just trying to prevent more loss. I'm about where I was at 2 years ago. Everybody I've talked to recommends using it to prevent more loss. I wish it wasn't so expensive. I'm as concerned as you are about the recovery period and what I will look like. Seems like everybody has a different story. Both Dr. Harris and MHR in Denver have mentioned the redness. Both mentioned 7 to 9 days for the FU scabs to dissapear. Both mentioned the swelling potential. Plus what I've read on the HTNetwork. It seems as though what it comes down to is whether I really want this or not and to accept the first 4 weeks or so as it may be. My two biggest concerns are 1)The noticeable redness and 2)The small little FU's until they fall out. I'm getting alot in the front. I can't believe people will not notice. I have a couple of references from DR. Harris that I will be calling this week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regular Member KP Posted January 30, 2002 Author Regular Member Share Posted January 30, 2002 FYI. I just bought proscar per Dr. Harris Rx (to chop into 4s) http://www.thecanadiandrugstore.com very cheap there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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