new member: 4 1/2 months progress + pics

[youngsuccess]

Hey guys:

 

I don't know how many times I've come to these boards for advice; I decided it was finally time to sign up and share my experience. I'm 24, and I recently had procedure done involving 600 grafts to the hairline. I'm sorry I don't have a decent before pic right now, but you can clearly see the recipient sight, as it is thinner and a little pinker in the 3 months pics. I had the grafts distributed evenly across the hairline, but from the pics you can really only notice my right side because on the left, the oriention of the natural hairs above point down/to the side and obscure the new hairline. I understood the risk involved in seeking to restore a youthful hairline; however, the hair directly above is thick enough that it seamlessly flows into it. I also raised my eyebrows slightly for pic "4months#2" in a bad attempt to give the Rock's "People's Eyebrow" (yeah, I'm a wrestling fan), so the widows peek isn't as far down as it may look in there (although it is just low enough!)If I had a particular purpose for joining (other than to ask questions and just share/empathize with everyone), I guess it would be to offer some hope/advice to the younger guys out there who are contemplating a ht. I've attached some pics: a few are from month 3, and the other two were taken at 4+1 week (holy $#%(^! Major improvement in this 5 weeks!) I've had excellent results so far; however, I have a question to start with:

Despite my evident progress, I think that about 30% of the transplanted hairs never were shed. I did notice some new ones popping through around month 3, but I really think the cosmetic difference so far has been due to the combination of a FEW new sprouts and the original trasnplanted hairs that were never shed. Can I expect to see more growth in months 5-6? Pretty good so far though right? (I am attempting to attach the pics now; I apologize, as they are pretty small. I don't really know what I'm doing... it seems like I can only do one at a time...this may take a while to figure out...

 

P.S.

I am aware that basically I just had a maturing hairline. I hope you don't rush to judgment and assume that I am vain. I have no extensive balding in my family, have been on propecia for a year (to correct/prevent minor thinning before it starts) and feel that I overall have taken the right measures to ensure that this won't be a disaster down the road some time. If I can dig up a decent before pic though, I think many, especially the younger guys, will understand why I did this.

[youngsuccess]

Another 3 month shot:

[youngsuccess]

4 months, 1 week (didn't realize I cropped these pics so small; I'll post larger ones next update):

[youngsuccess]

4 months, 1 week (not bad...not bad at all)

[hairbank]

Hey youngsuccess-

 

Welcome to the forum and thanks for posting your pics. It's a little difficult to see exactly what you had done..........was it all across the hairline or just in the temples? Don't worry about the vanity thing..............we all care about how we look or we wouldn't be here in the first place !

 

Yes - you should expect growth starting as early as 2-3 months, then continue throughout the course of the year. Some grow earlier than others, there's just no way to predict it. If I were to guess, I'd say you'll have notice to most cosmetic changes by 9-10 months but the crown does take a little longer.

 

600 grafts is very few and won't cover much with any appearance of density so i hope it was a pretty small area you covered. Just be careful in planning for the future. Family history is an indication of hair loss but NOTHING can predict it.

 

Best of luck, keep posting updates if you can.

[youngsuccess]

Thanks Hairbank,

 

Basically the hairline was lowered a little less than 1/2 centimeter, and 600 is definately a low number of graftrs relatively for hts but it was the perfect amount to fill it in densley but naturally. I wish I could juxtapose the images in one thread, that way it would be easier to see the area that began to fill in. I definately did not look balding before, maybe just slighlty receding if one looked hard enough. But I did look older and the missing definition of the hariline did change the way my face looked overall. It is getting back to almost exactly where it used to be now! The problem for me is that posting the pics is a covert operation: there is only one computer in my house that has the photo programs on it; I can't even upload them on my laptop yet. I did find a before pic though, so hopefully at an opportune moment tonight I will be able to run to the other computer and upload and rearrange the pics into one file the pics (plus make them larger). Our scanner isn't working though, so I'll have to take a pic of the before photgraph with my digital camera and then upload it (I won't post it if the quality is total crap though).

[youngsuccess]

Okay, here is the new series of pics, and I increased their size. The before pic sucks, as I did have to snap a shot of an existing photograph; however, I tried to make it sharper and drew arrows to indicate the areas that were focused on. The middle-right thinning is especially obvious because of the shiny spot (that was on my head, not the photograph).

[youngsuccess]

3 months:

[youngsuccess]

Donor area after 3 months. A lot of the pinkness faded by this point. The hairs are growing back now, and only a little more fading to go before it's completely undetecatble

[youngsuccess]

4 months, 1week. Still slightly pink, but fading fast. Additional stubbly hairs popping through. Hairs have yet to mature fully, but looks ten times better than it did before.

[Bill - Seemiller]

Youngsuccess,

 

Your before picture is puzzling to me. It looks like your "before" picture is a picture of your highschool hairline or something. Considering your before picture has a thick head of hair and a low hairline, it doesn't seem that you needed a hair transplant .

 

Anyway...if you have any other before pictures RIGHT before surgery, tht would probably be more helpful.

 

BUT, it does appear there is a difference between the 3rd and 4th month...things are starting to grow nicely.

 

Bill

[youngsuccess]

Bill,

Thanks for the comments- I've been reading these boards for awhile now before I signed up, and always respected your opinions as you are an articulate guy with lots of surgery experience. The before pic is me at 22. This was a maturing hairline that I admit would be hard to detect if you didn't know me or my hairline previously. My doctor has the before pic right before surgery, so I'll get it from him at my 6 month checkup. I understand your reaction that I didn't "need" a ht; however, if you really think about it, nobody "needs" hair on their heads. Maybe 100,000 years ago some early form of man needed it for warmth, but today, isn't any hair transplant done for cosmetic improvement and how the patient feels about how his/her hair looks?

 

As I said in my first post, I want to be here to offer younger guys like me support after I've seen guys post pics seeking advice on hts and they get laughed off the board by people. Most of the time, I do think the guys discouraging us from hts have good intentions and do have compelling arguments against it. But you have to understand the young guy's plight. Someone in his early twenties may think, "I want to correct this now. This is a significant period in my life when I am going to be judged more severely by others on my looks as I:

1.Graduate College

2.Get my first real job and get settled into some kind of regular career of sorts

3.Want to be my most attractive as I enter the adult dating scene

A guy this age may think, "Why should I wait until I'm 47 with a wife, kids, and a stable job to fix my hair?"

I mean no disrespect towards anyone and think that a hair transplant is just as important to someone at 70 as it would be to a 30 year old, as we all know what it's like. BUT to our detractors, I guess that would be our argument. And yes, hair loss is unpredicable as well as the field of hair restoration. Personally, I have great donor hair, no signs of hairloss other than maturing hairline, no family history of baldness, financial stability enought to comfortably pay for propecia, so for me personally, I thought I was a good candidate for an early procedure. I don't think I'm going to need another ht, but if the drug wearss off and my hair starts thinning elsewhere in ten years from now, I have tons of good donor hair left and the prospect of new advancements in this field. I took a risk, I know, but I think I made a good choice. I in no way intend to start telling 18 year olds to run out and get hts. I've just seen guys my age post pics, and I can see what they're talking about, even if nobody else can.

[Bill - Seemiller]

Hey youngsuccess,

 

thanks for your post. I'm glad you've found my advice and comments helpful in the past and hopefully I can do that for you now as well.

 

If I gather this correctly, you aer 24 now and the photos is when you were 22. What I meant to say is, in your picture where you are 22 years old, there is very mimimal loss, only a slightly receeded hairline. However, in your after pictures, it seems more obvious that you had some loss between 22 and 24. this is why I wanted to see your pre op pics from before the surgery. This will give a more accurate picture of your situation. This is why I said you didn't seem to need an HT according to your before picture...simply because your before picture was not indicative of your current situation which pushed you over the edge to get an HT.

 

The topic of getting an HT at a young age is an AGE old discussion. The fact that you had a small session in the hairline is definitely much better than if you had 4000 grafts in the hairline. I think young people especially those with miminal hairloss should be really conservative when considering surgery. I'm glad to see that you are traveling down that road rather than being too liberal. Just keep in mind that once you start down the HT road, if you lose more hair, you will have to continually follow up with surgeries to "stay ahead of your hairloss". Now...I quote that because that philosophy can be a little dangerous if you aren't careful. There are risks of shockloss (especially permanent shockloss) of transplanting hair into the thinning native hair area. This is why using Finasteride is very important to try to strengthen existing hair and stop or slow down future loss.

 

Anyway, I look forward to seeing your immediate pre-op pictures and seeing more of your progress.

 

Bill

[youngsuccess]

Bill,

 

Oh yeah permanent shockloss is a scary thought. It is probably the one area that isn't adressed when you're first looking into hts, as most info claims that shockloss is not permanent. My doc finally cleared it up for me, stating that if grafts are placed amongst sparse or even moderately thick hair that is predestined to fall out, you could loose it permanently. Good thing my grafts were placed in a new area without preexisting hairs. I'll try to get my hands on that before pic when I go in again in at the 6 month follow-up. Also, going back to my first question:

so at like 6 months I've read that it's safe to assume (if you've seen decent growth) that you are 50-60% done. Is that just in terms of thickness/density and maturation, or does that mean that 40-50% of the hairs haven't come through yet (more ambiguity!)? Thanks again for your insight.

[newhairguy]

Heya youngsuccess!

Nice to see you and this thread. I just had 1000 grafts all along the temples and hairline (a tiny bit up top and i am SO afraid thats gonna cause permanent shockloss now... I hope not )

 

Many many ppl think i was foolish to do this, but i'll tell u what, i was getting so upset looking in the mirror, particularly after a shower... it was affecting my whole life. I too realize I may be playing catch up with further loss to keep up the look of my new hairline (about the same as my hairline at 20), and that is OK. I accept that 100% Vain? Sure, most of us are a bit. I am 31 now and still get carded at MOVIE THEATERS! lol! And i always wear a hat. its disturbing. I appreciate all you have had to say, as well as the thougtful and insightful responses by Bill and Hairbank... two of the best guys on this board for sure I read a lot on here b4 going through with this thing, and i know many are NOT in favor of younger/ low-loss patients doing a HT, but if mine is successful, all I can say is I will feel on top of the world, and that is why we do this, is it not? Looking so forward to going to a pool with no self consciousness again!

Kudos my friend. I hope other young ppl will talk about this and the stigma attached will be lessened (IDK about you but i for one have told NO ONE about the procedure! In fact, i stayed at a relatives house the first night following, and claimed i had signed up for a clinical headache study! lol! Said they paid me $150, and then crashed out for about 14 hours! So the family thinks i am nuts, but if they knew what i really did, i think the fallout would be far worse.)

Cheers!

[youngsuccess]

newhairguy,

 

Cheers! Actually I didn't tell anyone either; the only person who knows is my mom (she drove me and picked my up). I too stayed at my family's, telling the rest of them I was sick and needed to get away from my roomates. I was a true schemer: basially, I had it done on a Thursday morning before a Friday on which a already had off from work, and over the weekend called in to let them know I would be out Mon. + Tue (never abuse sick time, so no big deal). This way I had 5 days to relax and recover before I had once again enter the world. The night before I had the procedure, I went home early telling friends I felt a major sickness coming on, so no one was suspicous when I didn't come around over the weekend. I luckily had almost no swelling, definately none by the time I went back to work. At the time I was also wearing my hair like Shaggy from Scooby to do cover op the recession, so it wet right over the crusts and I was home free (although majorly paranoid some ass was going to walk by and mess up my hair noogie-style in friendly, jocular fashion, exposing the truth or possibly damaging the grafts! but that didn't happen) I also whore hats for a couple years prior to surgery enought to where it wasn't weird to see me in one for a few days of the week, but not as suspiciously as wearing one everyday. Luckily we grew up in an age in which wearing baseball/snow caps for style was a popular look.

 

You might be perfectly fine with not experiencing permanent shockloss. The other contributing factor with pemanent shockloss I think is having super dense packing in the area to the point where natural follicles are damaged, and I don't think that a thousand spread throughout the hairline places enough in a small area to cause that kind of damage. But don't quote me on that I have also heard guys who claim that they were moderately thinning all over the top, and than had grafts sprinkled throughout their scalp which resulted in p.sl. I was reading a thread on here about it the other day: some claimed it was okay to conseratively approach native hair, just not to overkill it. Everyone is different, and being on Propecia before the procedure can reduce the chances of something like that happening. Good luck! Any pics?

[newhairguy]

no pics... i am still so red and afraid its not gonna be right! lol! But every hour at this point (been almost exactly 72 hours now) it seems better and better. Pain is finally manageable too.

I have longish surfer hair and part n the middle, its covering up well but since i also had the center done there is an area where its just not concealable. But again, i am a hat wearer and have been my whole life, so its just expected i will have one on. Nothing conspicuous in my case

I am already feeling like i should have had the doc go even a little more aggressive in the hairline, not lower so much as rounding out the temples. But it will be good, and I can see now that the scabs are slowly disappearing that the coverage will look good with my traditional hairstyle. But what i want is to be able to wear a fringe again! that would be sweet We'll see.

Gonna start on rogaine soon too, seems lots on this board recommend it for new grafts. the shockloss is still my nightmare but i have realized its not something anyone can predict at all. So i let it go.

If anyone cares to chime in... how wide are most of your donor area scars? Mine is like ear to ear! Not quite, but wide... i guess he went wide and thin to reduce tension.

I have class today, and i do NOT look forward to the possibility of noogies, that's for sure! Lol!

[youngsuccess]

newhairguy,

 

Understandable about wanting the perfect hair above your temples, but if the hairline in the middle of your head is decent, that's what really compliments your face. Check out these two pics of Jude Law, who has kind of a lot of bare area above his temples. One shows his hair a little pushed back, exposing the left corner; the other shows him with hair styled over the temple recession, looking cool. So here's a guy with great hair but I guess just a natural recessed look that is easily disguisable. The second pic shows the cool styling cover up: I think this actually probably looks more distinguished and stylish than someone with the werewolf hairline.

[youngsuccess]

Cool hair style, using hair from the sides to sylishly, not "comb-overy" cover the area above the temples. There's a million different variations of this look, from Jude Law to Johnny Rotten back in the late 70s (although I doubt he did it to hide temples). English dudes introduce the world to some pretty cool hairstyles.

[youngsuccess]

Damn man, look at this one. This is with his hair slicked back, really exposing the sides. Compare this one with the good look above it- goes to show you what cool styling can do.

P.S.

Not some Jude Law fanboy; just always thought he was a good exaple of a guy with cool hair that isn't conventionally appealing as far as hairlines go.

[Bill - Seemiller]

Also, going back to my first question:

so at like 6 months I've read that it's safe to assume (if you've seen decent growth) that you are 50-60% done. Is that just in terms of thickness/density and maturation, or does that mean that 40-50% of the hairs haven't come through yet (more ambiguity!)? Thanks again for your insight.

 

At 6 months you can still expect new growth, however, the percentage (generally speaking) I believe is weighted toward maturation and thickness. HOWEVER, you can and most likely will see new growth after 6 months, but admittedly, if you are an early to average bloomer, the majority of the new hairs probably have at least started to grow. BUT, don't discount the maturation process. Some of the hairs that started to grow by 6 months may be white and fine and not even seen with the eye...once things mature, you can look a WHOLE LOT DIFFERENT than you did at 6 months. I hope that helps.

 

Bill

[Bill - Seemiller]

I want to point out that the above is true mostly for those who experience growth early or on the average. Later bloomers can expect a lot of new growth after the 6 month mark...it all comes down to the individual. I'm making this disclaimer because it is VERY difficult to make a generalization since hair transplantation and growth is very particular to the individual. So...those reading that aren't fitting in with the "schedule" I defined above...don't worry...it's not true in all circumstances...it's only what can be defined as a generalization.

 

Bill