Revisit HT after 2 and half years and plan for another session?

[KaYKaY]

Hello,

I went through HT back in June 2009 with Dr. Puli Ravindra Reddy of Pacific Medical center.

I used the prescribed medication for about 7 months and stopped for obvious reasons.

Now looking back, I am back to where I started.

 

This is my original thread.

http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/139143-hair-transplant-june-25-2009-hyd-india-4.html

 

This is my blog

Hair Restoration Site for KayKay

 

Please refer to attachments for latest pictures.

 

Well, to make story short,

I am in India now and yesterday I visited Dr. Madhu first.

He said that Dr. Puli Ravindra reddy used whatever technology was available first and did a good job to use the available grafts to spread evenly across the entire top and hence my spacing was little far apart. and he said that the way he should be doing is concentrate on one area in first sitting first and then on the rest of the area for second sitting. He said, most of my original hair have fallen off and all I am now left with is the transplanted hair. He recommended not to go with second session as the doctor took the high dense healthy hair from donor area during the first session. And Dr. Madhu suggested me to use the medication (Finpicia and Minoxidil) for rest of the time.

One interesting thing he mentioned is that the survival rate during the first session is act 95% and with second session, it goes to 60-70%.

 

Then, I visited Dr. Puli Ravindra Reddy. He looked at my scalp, donor area and recommended me to go with another session and he can squeeze me in. He said he can extract another 3k grafts easily and place the new ones in between the existing HT area to make it look dense and he can cover my crown area as well.

Another interesting thing he mentioned is that medicine is to help stimulate the original hair and to avoid its fall and it has no effect on transplanted hair. So, I don't need to use medication after this HT. Is this true?

I will be here for another Month and contemplating on wether I should go for second round or not.

 

So, fellow members. What are your thoughts on this. Your opinions does certainly help me make an informed and right decision.

TIA,

KayKay

[Blake Bloxham]

Kay,

 

I highly recommend Dr. Madhu. He's a great clinician and also very dedicated to the art and science of hair restoration. Furthermore, I think his advice is the most logical - focus on densely packing smaller areas, looking at multiple sessions, and focusing on enhancing the results with proven preventive medications.

 

As far as your second question is concerned, transplanted hair is removed from an area of the scalp that is (highly) resistant to the hormone responsible for male pattern baldness (DHT or dihydrotestosterone). Finasteride (the active compound in drugs like Propecia and Finipecia) blocks the conversion of Testosterone to DHT, thus preventing susceptible follicle damage from the harmful hormone.

 

However, because the transplanted follicles are resistant to the hormone regardless, these hairs should not fall out. However, native hairs are still susceptible, which is why utilizing preventive medications with surgical restoration optimizes the results.

 

Good luck. I truly hope this helps!

[Guest mariewoltz25411697]

I think you should go for a second HT. You seem to have enough donor hair. You should continue getting better till your donor hair depletes.

 

I don't think Ravinder Reddy is a good choice. In my opinion he doesn't do follicular unit transplantation. He does mini and micro grafts. In your case, do you see grafts with more than 4 hairs? Some times may be 6-7? These big grafts are not follicular units and don't look natural. I think this is the primary reason he doesn't precisely give the graft count. He covers the whole area with less density. Most of the Docs wouldn't do it. They cover smaller area with higher density so that you wouldn't have to worry about it later.

 

In your pics good density at 6months was probably due to Finasteride helping hair growth. The transplantation as such didn't give you good density.

 

I am surprised that Madhu said only 60-70% yield for second HT. That is not good. Can anyone else explain whether that is true?

[simplycomplicated]

Hello,

I went through HT back in June 2009 with Dr. Puli Ravindra Reddy of Pacific Medical center.

I used the prescribed medication for about 7 months and stopped for obvious reasons.

Now looking back, I am back to where I started.

 

This is my original thread.

http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/139143-hair-transplant-june-25-2009-hyd-india-4.html

 

This is my blog

Hair Restoration Site for KayKay

 

Please refer to attachments for latest pictures.

 

Well, to make story short,

I am in India now and yesterday I visited Dr. Madhu first.

He said that Dr. Puli Ravindra reddy used whatever technology was available first and did a good job to use the available grafts to spread evenly across the entire top and hence my spacing was little far apart. and he said that the way he should be doing is concentrate on one area in first sitting first and then on the rest of the area for second sitting. He said, most of my original hair have fallen off and all I am now left with is the transplanted hair. He recommended not to go with second session as the doctor took the high dense healthy hair from donor area during the first session. And Dr. Madhu suggested me to use the medication (Finpicia and Minoxidil) for rest of the time.

One interesting thing he mentioned is that the survival rate during the first session is act 95% and with second session, it goes to 60-70%.

 

Then, I visited Dr. Puli Ravindra Reddy. He looked at my scalp, donor area and recommended me to go with another session and he can squeeze me in. He said he can extract another 3k grafts easily and place the new ones in between the existing HT area to make it look dense and he can cover my crown area as well.

Another interesting thing he mentioned is that medicine is to help stimulate the original hair and to avoid its fall and it has no effect on transplanted hair. So, I don't need to use medication after this HT. Is this true?

I will be here for another Month and contemplating on wether I should go for second round or not.

 

So, fellow members. What are your thoughts on this. Your opinions does certainly help me make an informed and right decision.

TIA,

KayKay

 

Hey Kaykay,

 

Even before you posted this...I had gone through all your posts before...

 

Around 4 months before, I was in the process of selecting a surgeon for my first H.T. and I consulted only the two doctors which you have mentioned.

 

However, on this forum, you were the only person, whose posts gave me a good picture about Ravindra Reddy...as in..Your 6 months result looked quite good....

 

Anywayz, after researching a lot and putting lot of thought into it...I decided to go with Dr. Madhu...Thats a different story all together..

 

Coming to your this post, I now understand that Finax and Minoxidil played a major role in your too good results at 6 months mark and as you stopped it, whatever you had gained through those medicines disappeared gradually...

 

Medicines and Transplanted hairs are anyways mutually exclusive to each other...I mean, they are not related to each other....So at this stage, without medicines, I am sorry to say, but it is just the quality of the transplant, which you can blame on..

 

You can definately go for 2nd Transplant, but as you have already have one transplant, I would suggest to be over cautious with your 2nd H.T. and not go to any non-reputed doctor and risk your H.T. again and consider only Dr. Madhu in India, who is quite reputable and consistent with his results.

 

I beleive you are from U.S., so if you are some how not convinced in India....You can always consult other top doctors over there and see what they have to say on it..

 

Meanwhile, as Dr. Madhu suggested, I would also strongly suggest to start Finax & Minoxidil to save whatever non-transplanted hairs you now have or for even re-growth to some extent if you are lucky...

 

Regards...

Edited November 24, 2011 by simplycomplicated

[KaYKaY]

All,

Thanks for your responses.

Well, Dilemma is...

For going with 2nd HT, Dr. Madhu suggested not to and Ravindra suggested to go with it. So, go with HT and be done with it.

For using medications, I would probably need to use them as long as I want the dense hair, probably for next 15 years or so.

Not able to decide which way I should go. :-(.

Or give a try with meds for 2 more years and decide after 2 yrs during my next visit.