Dr. Diep: FUT 5397 grafts on April 22, 2015

[orwell]

As I write this I'm already sixth day post-op, my FUT procedure being on April 22, 2015.

 

After reading a bit on this forum I originally wanted to do FUE because the idea of having a strip cut out of my scalp was kind of scary to me. I've never had any surgery or major injury and the most stitches I've ever had in my life was four. But I came to realize that since I needed so many grafts I would need at least two FUE procedures, probably a year apart. I decided that I just wanted to be over and done with it and get on with my life. At my age, 56, I didn't want to be dragging this out three years or more. Further, I didn't expect that a scar would bother me that much as I've never worn my hair very short. I was roughly a NW5/6 and given my age I think I had the advantage that my balding amount and safe zone were fairly well known at this point.

 

I chose Dr. Diep (Los Gatos, CA, USA) because I saw pretty good results from videos, pictures and reviews. Dr. Diep is experienced in both FUT and FUE so I didn't expect to get steered one way or the other. Another bonus was that I live only about a half hour away. I had a free consultation in late Dec. 2014. Dr. Diep is booked about 3.5 months in advance so I had a bit of a wait.

 

My experience has been all very positive so far. I can describe my procedure day in more detail if anyone is interested but at first I'll try to be brief. Due to the large number of grafts the procedure took over 12 hours. I arrived at the clinic by taxi at 5:30am and got home around 10pm. The time actually passed pretty quickly, though, because I was asleep for most of it. I was asleep for the strip removal and sutures. I woke up at various times throughout the day, once for a while at 1:00 to eat lunch. You are sort of in and out for the whole day. I woke for good at about 7pm and so chatted with the technicians a little while they finished the last hour or two. Near the end, the doctor came in two or three times to check the work. They had gotten me something to eat for dinner but I didn't eat it. There was really hardly any pain that I remember so no need to worry about that. When you are done, they provide all the materials, instructions, and medications you will need for the next week. The night of the procedure I was able to sleep OK and had no pain, only slight soreness in the donor area. I've been sleeping right through every night after. I haven't needed to use any of the pain medication. For the first three days post-op I was allowed to go in to the office and they washed my head for me and applied the anti-bacterial ointment to the donor area.

 

Dr. Diep and his staff were always very professional and made me feel very comfortable on procedure day. I did not feel rushed or that my case was not taken seriously. They answered all questions I could think to ask. I'm not sure what more I could expect.

 

P.S. Pardon my poor pictures; I took them myself and I know nothing about taking pictures. I keep forgetting to turn on the macro setting.

Edited April 28, 2015 by orwell

[orwell]

A couple things to note. My hair is actually blond with a bit of gray. It's dark brown in these pictures because I was asked to dye it dark a couple days before the procedure, which I guess helps them see things better.

 

The front hairline is I guess what you would call a "mature" hairline. It's further down in the middle. While this may seem to be a little widow's peak-ish (and I didn't want that to look too pointy), it actually follows what was my original natural hairline based on the little hair I had left there. My father went bald earlier than me and had what we called an "island", lol.

 

It seems Dr. Diep likes to make the front more dense compared to the back because that's what most people will see when they look at your face, and so you might notice that in the pics. I am OK with that. I guess I'll see how it goes after a year or so.

Edited April 28, 2015 by orwell

[spyk777]

Thank you for sharing your experience. Happy growing! Keep updating.

[Cant decide]

Good luck with everything.

[TakingThePlunge]

This is going to be a total transformation! Looking forward to following it to the end so I hope you'll continue to update us. Best of luck!

[NM156]

Happy growing!

[ontop]

yep Dr D been doing some good work under the radar.

 

Good luck can't wait to see how things turn out for you.

[Tav1]

orwell - are you 100% on those dark scabs on the frontal portion? Keep track of them and in touch with your Doc for any follow-up as appropriate. I had my HT around the same time as you did, had a few scabs like yours, and unfortunately, one became necrotic. Not a scare tactic - just a 411.

[orwell]

orwell - are you 100% on those dark scabs on the frontal portion? Keep track of them and in touch with your Doc for any follow-up as appropriate. I had my HT around the same time as you did, had a few scabs like yours, and unfortunately, one became necrotic. Not a scare tactic - just a 411.

I assumed that these were just spots where there was a little more blood that dried there. That's what it seems like. Now those are reduced a lot and I just don't want to force the scabs off too soon. I will go in tomorrow to have the sutures removed so they can check things.

 

I am more worried about something else. On the sixth day I noticed some white substance (pus) around the suture line on the right side of my head. I emailed a couple pictures into the office and they called me back in about 2.5 hours and said it was infection. They called in a prescription for me to get extra antibiotic, which I picked up a couple hours later. They said they would like it to get cleared up by the ninth day (tomorrow) which is when the sutures come out. But so far I don't see it diminishing yet if the amount of pus is any indication. It's been pretty constant. I'm not sure how common these infections are or how serious this one is, but they gave me the impression it was not that bad. I'm not sure how it could have happened and I've been trying to clean it as best I can.

Edited May 1, 2015 by orwell

[Tav1]

orwell - I have no first-hand experience with your strip issue as I had FUE, but regardless will send you a private message. You can find it on the upper right side of your internet screen.

[orwell]

OK, so I just got back from having my sutures removed at Dr. Diep's office. As it turns out, I did not have an infection. Apparently a little pus is alright and part of the healing process according to the doctor. He said everything looked good. If it were really infected there would be much more pus and it would be greenish yellow, smell bad, and hurt more. So perhaps I overreacted a bit but I wasn't expecting any at all so that's what made me concerned. I just want to add: kudos to the ladies removing my sutures since they were very careful and it didn't hurt.

Now that I'm past the hard parts, I can settle in for the long wait and get excited.

[ontop]

Happy to see the good Dr on top of things for you, that's just priceless in my eyes where you can call up with your concerns & they call in meds for you on the fly.

Can't say the same if a pt left his or her country for HT.

 

Glad that things is going to plan for you so far.

 

Keep in touch & relax esp the first few wks anyways.

[orwell]

Just wanted to throw up a picture at 11 days post op when the scabs have come off. Some of the small hairs have come out but a lot are still in. It's pretty cool seeing some hair in those places even if it is only temporary.

 

I was going to also put up pictures of the strip area but those are kind of ugly yet. Actually the one side is better and is more flat. But the other side is more of a gully there. I'm not sure yet if that's OK and if it will eventually heal alright.

[orwell]

I wanted to post pictures of my donor area for a couple reasons. For one, mine doesn't look as nice and neat to me as I have seen in other people's cases. But I can't say how much time had past in the other pictures I've seen so maybe what I have now is normal for 15 days.

 

I've also been concerned about the right side because it's not very flat but rather feels like quite a crevice. Whereas by contrast the left side is flatter and also has less redness. I was meaning to show the difference by pictures and ask if anyone thought it was normal. But after taking the pictures I discovered that you can't really see much difference from them unfortunately. (Again, it's kind of hard for me to take them myself and so I do a pretty poor job, sorry about that.) I'm wondering if I can expect to see more flattening out of the area.

 

Another comment to throw in: In hindsight I wish I would have cut my hair shorter before the surgery. I had left it a bit long (up to 2 inches) so it would cover. But after surgery you need to spread anti-bacterial ointment on the donor area and it's a little like vaseline and gets all mucked up in your hair. The longer hair made things a bit more difficult to deal with for the first couple of weeks. So I'd recommend not having you hair any longer than necessary to cover.

[Aady123]

Hi,

Can you help with the per graft cost...I am also looking to give it a try..

[orwell]

Hi Aady123, I sent you a message.

[orwell]

I’ve been pretty negligent in updating. Sorry about that. I’m currently just a little over 7 months post op so here are some (again) poorly taken pictures, lol. Early September the back and sides were getting long so instead of going out to get it cut I just took a razor and set it to a 1-inch guard and did the back and sides myself. I was kind of surprised that it didn’t look all that bad for my first time doing it. So that was the point I stopped wearing a hat. But I have never cut the top yet since the procedure last April. Yeah that’s getting long now too, but not a normal 7 months’ worth. It’s been growing more slowly on top and I assume that’s because a lot of energy instead goes into repairing the scalp. I don’t mind it longish because it covers more area that way. But it’s getting time to go out for a pro cut.

 

The view from the front looks good and I’m pretty happy with that. The doctor puts more grafts in the front which makes sense. The top and crown are still fairly thin. I’m hoping that might improve by the time I get to 1 year and after. I would post a picture of the scar area but can’t even find it anymore with my hair the length it is.

 

I mentioned before that the scar area was kind of lumpy and not even in a couple places. It’s fine in the back and the front sides but it’s only in between, the back sides, that are a bit uneven. That’s still true but I think it’s getting slowly better and more flat. Maybe it’s a long-term healing thing. I don’t think it should concern anyone else for a couple reasons. First is that it’s probably just some weirdness in my particular case. Maybe my scalp was thicker above the strip than below it, I don’t know. Second, I don’t care about it. It’s very minor, not visible and doesn’t otherwise affect me.

[matt1164]

Any updates?

[thisguy1]

Interesting to see this one too if he comes back - really big procedure on high NW and FUT by a doctor who does mostly FUE nowadays.

[JON86]

No way would I go fut with this clinic. Fue yes great results but no way fut. Scars look bad in a bunch of patient posts here and on other sites.

[zyzz]

No way would I go fut with this clinic. Fue yes great results but no way fut. Scars look bad in a bunch of patient posts here and on other sites.

 

I remember all the negative FUT results..

 

But even w/ FUE from this doctor, I would no longer consider 1mm punch sizes state of the art and I think all qualified/talented doctors should have the skills to use smaller punch sizes w/ low transection rate.. 1mm vs .8mm and below is a pretty significant difference in white dot or scar visibility when you're talking about thousands of grafts extracted.

[orwell]

I'll try to post something next week after I get a haircut.

 

For me, the scar was not as big an issue because my hair is always long enough to cover. Part of the reason I wanted FUT was because FUE would require two sessions a year apart (head shaved each time). I just wanted to be done with it. Also, FUE costs twice as much. I'm not sure if there is any consensus these days with the difference in yield, but it seemed to me a year ago that it was at least controversial, and I think that Dr. Diep believes FUT gives better yield. (I know people will argue that. I'm past that now.)

[orwell]

Here's a couple more pictures at 11 months. Pretty much the same as it was at seven months, I think. The haircut is shorter than I like but maybe that's just as well.

 

It didn't seem to me I followed the typical pattern. It didn't seem like the hair fell out at one month. I could be wrong, maybe I just wasn't keeping track well enough, but I felt like it just all stayed in. And so at six months it was there. Whereas I had read that at six months you're supposed to be at only 50%.

 

So, not much different than before. The crown area is still thin but I think I need to expect that---there are only so many hairs to go around. One pic is a closeup of the hairline if you care about those things. I'm not sure what more info I can give. (I know I'm pretty bad at taking pictures myself.) Actually I cannot find the scar anymore visibly...I was just checking using a couple of mirrors.

 

I expect to go back to visit Dr. Diep for a one year followup next month. So if there's anything significant to mention after that I'll post it.

[matt1164]

Looks pretty good from where you started. Are you considering another procedure?

[orwell]

Good question, the thought did enter my mind. But for now, I'm just so elated to have this hair---to be un-bald, lol. I don't think a bit of thinning in the crown is so bad for my age. But maybe in four or five years I'll think about it again. If I did it would be FUE because I wouldn't need that many. Only a little to add some density.