1500 FUE post op (pictures)

[jobegood1]

Hi,

 

I'm 24 yo male and I've been thinning and lately balding since 20. I've done research on hair transplant for now 3 solid years and I decided (after meeting and seeing post op patients) to go with a big famous clinic in Paris. I'm in my very early stages (36 hours post op) but overall my experience has been fairly good. The extraction was very easy, got tons of 3 hairs and 4 hairs follicles (even 5 and 6) and the implantation went smoothly too (I slept). My friend who is now exactly 10 days post op had a mega session with the same doctor (1400 fue) and his donor area is almost completely invisible. I'm anxiously waiting for the days to pass and my scalp to become normal again. I'm also quite freaked out about how my forehead is swollen at the moment i'm writing but it "should" get back to normal very soon.

 

I'm posting pre-op pictures and I would gratefully accept any constructive remarks and solutions to get rid of my swollen forehead (note that my friend got his head swollen and it went back to normal in 2-3 days).

 

**Update: just woke up this morning and almost no swelling on the forehead or elsewhere)

[hairshopeing]

Congrats, looks very neat!! Who was the dr or clinic??? Alot of people use cold compress on the forehead, not the hair or ice I believe!! I personally frank loads of water and stayed in bed for most of the first 3 days at 45 to 90 deg angles and had very little swelling and I believe it was down to that!!

[jobegood1]

Thanks,

 

Due to publicity I'm not authorize to say the name of the clinic (my previous post was removed) but the doctor's name is Giorgios Gounnaris. The swelling is less shocking but has settle in the mid area of the forehead and is much more well spread that last night (my forehead looked very bumpy everywhere). I don't have any cold compress but the swelling will go away after a couple a days anyway right?

 

I'll post a 7 days post op picture next Thursday for donor zone and transplanted zone. After this I'll create a blog and will attempt to do an update with pictures once a month.

 

Also since the the tools utilized have a much small diameter than regular tools there is a chance (from what the clinic said) I might not experience any shedding of the new transplanted hair. I've read somewhere that out of 20 HT patients 19 will experience shedding. To what extend you think the clinic can be right? Not having this 3 months dormant period would just be fantastic !

 

Thanks

[Slickers]

I've not known any cases where the majority of transplant hair hasn't shed. That said there have been references to it so maybe others can direct to some. I'm 2 months post op myself and I'm sure there are tiny hairs in my hairline that simply haven't shed but in the grand scheme of things they are minimal. I wouldn't be counting it on lets just say that.

 

Please keep posting. I've seen your clinic make great strides in rebuilding its reputation in recent years and the results they're posting on other forums look very promising. Best of luck with the healing and growing.

[Levrais]

Hi Jobigood,

 

The swelling is normal and should be gone by around day 5. I put ice on every few hours to try to speed things along a bit when I had my ht but it will go away either way. I have heard of a few RARE cases where the grafts grew without shedding and like you I hoped that would happen in my case. Since the odds are against it though, try not to be disappointed if yours shed as they will grow back.

[jobegood1]

Here's a little update,

 

7 days post-op

 

Swelling is almost completely invisible. Scalps is itchy in donor and transplanted areas.

 

Donor area mini-scabs have almost disappeared now waiting on the transplanted zone scabs to go

 

 

I tried to upload high quality pictures for members to see

 

Note that the donor area picture is a tiny bit blurry, it's roughly completely healed but the redness is much more apparent with a flash or bright light.

 

Is it looking "good" for 7 days post-op?

 

Best,

Edited July 25, 2013 by jobegood1

[stinger99]

lookimg great. seems like a fairly large area was covered for just 1500 grafts. no?

[agenteye]

Hi Jobegood-

 

Welcome to the forum, and congrats on your recent transplant.

 

You got your restoration done in Paris? Do you live in Paris, or are you just visiting? You mentioned that your friend had a "mega-session" of 1400 grafts, but you had even more grafts than he? I didn't know if the 1400 was a typo or not, as you made it sound as if he had more grafts than you did.

 

Your hair/head looks to be great at 7 days....everything appears as normal. I haven't heard much about this surgeon or this clinic, so I will be curious to follow your progress and see how everything plays out for you.

 

I wanted to say that from the first two photos you posted, you look really good with a shaved/bald head. If that were me, I would have just shaved my head and saved my money on the transplant. But when you don't have a great shaped head, the transplant is the better option!! =)

 

Anyway, congrats again.....and please keep us all updated on your progress along the way!

 

Best,

 

Mike

[jobegood1]

lookimg great. seems like a fairly large area was covered for just 1500 grafts. no?

 

lookimg great. seems like a fairly large area was covered for just 1500 grafts. no?

 

Stinger, I will post the pre-op pictures but I did have a little of hair (in btw 3v and 4 norwood scale). You can only see in on the immediate post -op pic but the hairline is extremely conservative.

 

I was also told that, ultimately, it's number of hair (single, doubles, triples, etc) that counts and more importantly the ratio hair to follicle (which in my case was 2.42) that would determine the density and illusion of fullness.

 

I've been a fervent user of Toppik for 2 years now but it has been incrisingly difficult to manage something natural with it since I have less and less hair. (picture I attached is 2 months old, keep in mind that I really am a 3V; I just know how use Toppik really well)

 

I'm going to have to use Toppik on the crown area anyway until I get a new HT; my hope is that if I don't have achieve the density wanted with this transplant a little bit of toppik will make it appear completely full and luscious.

[jobegood1]

Hi Jobegood-

 

Welcome to the forum, and congrats on your recent transplant.

 

You got your restoration done in Paris? Do you live in Paris, or are you just visiting? You mentioned that your friend had a "mega-session" of 1400 grafts, but you had even more grafts than he? I didn't know if the 1400 was a typo or not, as you made it sound as if he had more grafts than you did.

 

Your hair/head looks to be great at 7 days....everything appears as normal. I haven't heard much about this surgeon or this clinic, so I will be curious to follow your progress and see how everything plays out for you.

 

I wanted to say that from the first two photos you posted, you look really good with a shaved/bald head. If that were me, I would have just shaved my head and saved my money on the transplant. But when you don't have a great shaped head, the transplant is the better option!! =)

 

Anyway, congrats again.....and please keep us all updated on your progress along the way!

 

Best,

 

Mike

 

Mike,

 

I'm from Paris but live in California. I honestly wanted to go with a big name and I was following Doc John Diep work for a long time.

There is a bunch of reasons why I decided to go to the clinic in Paris.

-Convenience and secrecy, my life (friends, girlfriends) is in America

-I encountered a patient that just came out of a FUE and talked with him

-A famous HT doc in France did a HT last year and again a week 2 weeks before me. The clinic encouraged my to see his results which were impressive

- Someone that I know did an FUE exactly 10 days before me and told me it went well

 

The guy in question got what the clinic call a Mega session which is in fact about 3500 hairs max, now I think his extraction and hair ration was a bit under the average so he got less than 3500 hairs.

 

My mega session was a little bit under 1500 grafts and around 3400 hair. I was injected around 11 am and the surgery ended at 5.30pm (45 min pause to eat between extraction and implantation)

 

I've always refused to shave my head (although I always rock a buzzed cut) and yes I was pleasantly surprised.

 

I'm now on the 8th day ( 2 days before I HIT THE GYM!!) and I'll post a 14 days post op picture of the donor and transplanted area

 

Update: here's a the donor area 8 days post op (today) right after shower and shampoo and blasted with natural light so pretty much donor area at its worst !

Edited July 26, 2013 by jobegood1

[JohnnyDrama]

I was also told that, ultimately, it's number of hair (single, doubles, triples, etc) that counts and more importantly the ratio hair to follicle (which in my case was 2.42) that would determine the density and illusion of fullness.

 

 

Exactly. A lot of people overlook this when judging results. A ratio of 2.42 is very good. I'm getting 2000 FUE to my midscalp region in a few weeks and I hope my figures are high too as I was told by several docs that I have very good groupings.

 

You had 5 and 6 hair follicles?? Wow, I think I have only seen one person who had a single 5-hair fu in his procedure, and I have never seen a 6-hair documented!

[jobegood1]

I had 5 5 hair follicles and I think one or two 6 hair follicles.

 

I think these are tricky because in the early days of HT Docs would harvest in priority follicles with the largest amount of hairs and then transplant it directly to the hairline (when in fact a natural hairline is only composed of 1 hair follicles) which led to very unnatural results.

 

My father was 5A until 50-60 (he is now a 6) but he had incredibly thick brown hair. I do have very thick light brown hair so I hoped I would be a good HT candidate. 10 min after the beg of extraction the doc told me extraction was really easy and I had at least 4500-5000 grafts that could be harvested.

 

I'm 24 yo and about 2 years ago I was at your stage of hairloss, I think that even with a lower hair ratio (I think they say starting at 2.2 is a good hair ratio) your result are going to be great.

 

Your still fairly young and therefore in your early stage of hairloss; remember that when you decide how low you want your hairline. Again my HT was super conservative (my hairline was like 2 inch lower when I was 15!!) because I know I need a good 3000 grafts for the crown and portion of the top and a good 1000 to add density on the hairline and close the temples a little bit.

[JohnnyDrama]

I'm 24 yo and about 2 years ago I was at your stage of hairloss, I think that even with a lower hair ratio (I think they say starting at 2.2 is a good hair ratio) your result are going to be great.

 

Your still fairly young and therefore in your early stage of hairloss; remember that when you decide how low you want your hairline. Again my HT was super conservative (my hairline was like 2 inch lower when I was 15!!) because I know I need a good 3000 grafts for the crown and portion of the top and a good 1000 to add density on the hairline and close the temples a little bit.

 

I'm 30, so ya, still relatively young in the hair loss sense. On meds 3.5 years though so I'm happy that I've reached the 30 year threshold at least with a virgin scalp.

 

Sounds like you and your doc have a good strategy in place.

 

My own pattern of loss is in itself very unusual. It is diffuse but more common in women. I essentially have a very similar hairline to what I had in my mid-early 20s, it just appears far thinner because there has been so much thinning in my mid-scalp.

 

Dr Bisangas plan is to put 1700-1800 grafts into my midscalp (hoping that these should be largely made up of 3-4-5 hair grafts). Then 200-300 grafts (1 and 2 hair fu's) to strengthen my hairline. I don't want to lower my hairline at all, just thicken it up in places. I may also be getting PRP administered!

[jobegood1]

I don't know about your donor area but from the hundreds of pictures and stories I've read, your cases (diffuse thinning) usually have the best outcome!

 

Have you consulted a dermatologist expert in hairloss? and what about your father and grandfather from both side of the family? Did they have diffuse thinning too?

 

I've read that your type of thinning can often be due to stress/anxiety or/and a lack in protein/vitamins

 

Typical male pattern baldness is due to "too much male hormone" (testosterone) and often follows the norwood scale.

 

For the money your spending on an HT I would def visit a dermatologist (covered by most insurance plan) that will exactly tell you what type of hair loss you have.

[JohnnyDrama]

Oh I've been to dermatologists and GPs down through the years. There is strong MPB in my family, none of which had my type of loss. Having consulted four top HT docs in March of this year, they all said I have Ludwig loss pattern, as opposed to Norwood. There isn't any real explanation as such why, I just think a small percentage of men are capable of getting this randomly. I'm not sure if stress and or diet would have had much to do with it either as for the most part I'd be ok in those areas.

 

I have been on a very strong drug for cystic acne before, called Roaccutane. It works wonders on the skin but a side is that it can effect hair. Once in my teens and again 18 months ago. I think it has certainly played its part.

 

Each of the 4 docs said I had very good donor, and should have at least 5000 safe FUE grafts to harvest from scalp. So I should have 3000 for future after this procedure.

[jobegood1]

Here's a little update 13 days post-op:

 

Donor area completely healed, tiny red dots still visible when flash or bright light is blasting scalp

 

Recipient area has still a lot of scabs, so much that it has created a general sort of crust-like second skin. I know that at this point graft can't be dislodged but I don't really want to scrap it off myself (unnaturally); I'm going to apply vitamin E oil tonight and wash my hair tmrw (the scabs are supposed to slide off..)

 

So far minor hitching on the recipient area due to all the scabs and super dry skin

 

Something about shedding: the clinic I've been to claims the shedding rates (less than 50% of shedding occurring) are lower since while extraction they preserve the grafts into an hypodermic solution (used for organ preservation) while other HT practitioners utilize a petri dish with nutrient solution.

 

To be continued

 

Also: Do you think I should take off these little dead skin/scabs asap since they might "suffocate" the new growing hair and also prevent the scalp from breathing properly

Edited July 31, 2013 by jobegood1