4301 FUE with Dr. Lorenzo (2016.06)

[Pete-from-Farjo]

Congrats on your procedure. You definitely chose a great surgeon.

 

Excellent detailed write-up. But all that talk of chicken sandwiches has made me very hungry:D

[ontop]

You obviously done a good job in cleaning your scalp, well done.

 

I look forward to your updates on how you are progressing.

 

Best wishes.

[Rofler]

I will look at your results cause I want to make HT with Lorenzo too and now earning money for operation.

[redcut]

Small update... I can see more sprouting up on my right front side. Now I need to wait for the left side to catch up.

 

Dr. Lorenzo sent me the photos he took during the visit. I can post those if there's an interest.

[farmcat]

I would be interested in seeing them Redcut.....I started seeing some hair sprouting by month 3 like fine baby hair but it was significant by month 5.....and different areas definitely came in at different rates .....make sure to take pics for yourself around the same day every month to compare....when I got to month 5 I had pretty good growth and started thinking this is all I'm probably gonna get but when I compared it to my 6 month pics there was a huge difference.....I had pretty steady increases through about 9 months.....I think after that the hair seemed to still be maturing as far as losing some of it's curl, etc....then at 11 moths I went back for my second transplant and had my head shaved again.

[Rofler]

Redcut, do you use some medication? Finasteride, Minoxidil?

[redcut]

Redcut, do you use some medication? Finasteride, Minoxidil?

 

Finasteride for the past 18 months. I started Minoxidil the same time, then stopped right after the procedure. I wasn't really seeing anything earth shattering on my crown after foaming it for over a year.

 

I'm not sure of the Finasteride is doing anything either. Maybe it's preventing more loss. I might stop using it in a year after this HT is stable to see what happens.

[redcut]

I would be interested in seeing them Redcut.....I started seeing some hair sprouting by month 3 like fine baby hair but it was significant by month 5.....and different areas definitely came in at different rates .....make sure to take pics for yourself around the same day every month to compare....when I got to month 5 I had pretty good growth and started thinking this is all I'm probably gonna get but when I compared it to my 6 month pics there was a huge difference.....I had pretty steady increases through about 9 months.....I think after that the hair seemed to still be maturing as far as losing some of it's curl, etc....then at 11 moths I went back for my second transplant and had my head shaved again.

 

Reading your checkpoints is helpful for me, farmcat!

 

I'll make a point of taking pics each month. I've tried to find the same angles to more easily compare any changes.

 

Did everything for you balance out in the end? No patches that felt less than others?

[ontop]

If the Fin is not giving you any problems, I would stick with them, if I was you.

I see this all the time where guys invest in HT then drop there medications for no real reasons maybe just probably feeling a little to comfortable only to find out a year or so there loosing hair again, then jump back on the meds again & have regrets they quit in the first place.

just food for thought.

[farmcat]

Hey Redcut.....everything did pretty much even out over time....my right side (crown) is a little weaker than the left but when I looked back at my pics right after my original transplant I could see that it looked like it was transplanted a little less dense on the right side.....I have a large area to cover so Dr. Lorenzo might have been a little conservative to save grafts for the top....

[redcut]

To Ontop - yeah, I'm concerned about what will happen if I stop. I do have some of the side affects though, I'm curious what a 3-5 month halt will affect me overall.

 

To Farmcat - Hopefully your second trip is the final polish! I'm thinking about a second visit too whenever the planets and my wallet align (at least a year from now).

[T-TYPE]

personally I think Lorenzo produces hairlines that are too conservative for my taste usually but to be honest I think he nailed ur hairline just perfect. that shud end up in a really nice result when finally finished. don't forget u grow up to 18 months so ur way ahead of the game

[redcut]

Thanks T-TYPE! 3 months down, many more to go!

[redcut]

For anyone looking, here's my 3 month progress...

 

My existing hairline is still far more dense than the new areas, creating that harsh transition line.

 

My scalp is still noticeable red and still slightly numb in the middle.

[ontop]

Still ways to go but exciting times ahead.

[farmcat]

Hey Redcut,

 

Nice to see some early growth....It is starting like fine baby hair which is normal.....next three months will see huge improvements

[iq732]

Over the past few years my hair has been receding at a noticeable rate. I’m now 45 and spotted the start of it back in my late teens. It was very slow back then however.

 

I started seeing a big enough change about 10 years ago prompting me to change my hair style from combing back to combing forward. I also kept it short. I said I’d never consider anything radical and let nature take its course. Everyone in my family says its okay you look fine. My paternal grandfather had a full head of hair. My material grandfather was bald with nothing less than a Norwood 5a. I’m somewhere around a Norwood 3-4.

 

The only mainstream radical solution in the early 2000s was to do FUT. I didn’t want this because the scar it would leave. Plus I thought some day I’d just shave my head if needed.

 

A few years ago I realized I couldn’t have a clean shaved head. I have this small benign skin condition that sometimes produces random dry bumps. Right now I probably have a couple dozen on my body, but no one would know it because they’re hard to see. I know they’re there however. They started to appear under my hairline, stick around for a few weeks, and then disappear. I forget the scientific name because there’s a family of them – it could be seborrheic keratosis.

 

When I realized I was getting these on my already enormous XL skull it would look like a small moon with impact points all around it. This prompted me to look into hair treatment again. To my surprise FUE had become more widely practiced. This was growing in popularity because it leaves no scars!

 

I spent a couple years researching this. Trying to understand what I would do if I wanted to do it. I absolutely did not want to look like a doll head with plugs.

 

While this was going on, I started to keep my hair almost crew cut. It was only noticeable if I let it grow out (thicker vs. thinner patches). I started wearing ballcaps all the time. Once in awhile I wouldn’t and people at work would stare at me, sometimes saying “Hey you look… different without your hat on.“

 

This was just of many things that started making me depressed. I felt like I was losing my identity. When I walked into a room for years and years, it was sometimes "Hey it’s that tall guy.” It was typically however “Hey, it’s that redhead guy.” My mental image of myself was not who I saw in the mirror every day.

 

For a long time I didn’t do anything because of the vanity factor and the cost. My family is conservative. Every bit of money I get usually goes forward into some savings or investment. This would be completely opposite of that… doing something about my head.

 

Still it was depressing. Every day became a “bad hair day”. Did I want to live out the rest of my life as a bad hair day? Waking up with a poor image of your physical self can affect the rest of your day. And then never having any way to express myself through a hair style -- to look different from a day of hiking vs. a day in a suit at a special event. It would always be the same short as short can be cut with no style.

 

It’s like being told you have all these fancy clothes… dresses, pants, jeans, skirts, shorts… and one day you realize all you can wear for the rest of your life is that one tan pair of shorts. That’s it.

 

I looked up doctors across the whole world. I found their before & after shots. How much they’d cost. How much the recovery time was. I kept this all to myself and didn’t tell anyone. Well I did tell my wife somewhat. I was depressed a lot and I told her why… I felt I was losing my identity and choices. I didn’t look like who I always knew myself to be and there was nothing to do about it.

 

I found 3-4 possible doctors. These doctors were not your flashy California guys… these were some of the top doctors on the planet.

 

BTW, while looking I realized a ton of people have supplemental procedures to maintain their head of hair. The only ones I can quote are famous people because they’re the ones with the most photos on the web. Actors catch receding hairlines early so no one notices. People that have had them you know: Matthew McConaughey, Elon Musk, Gordon Ramsey, there’s more than you’d think.

 

I knew I was going to be selling my house soon, so I rationalized the money it would take for the procedure like winning the lottery and not rolling all the money back into re-investment or savings.

 

With the house sold, I paid off existing debt, gave a 3rd to my wife to do whatever she wanted with it (which included paying off her debt), put the other third into Savings. What remained was my small Easter Egg guilt-free.

 

Some would tell me to invest it right away to my retirement fund. Would I rather be happy retiring 5-10 years earlier because I had good savings and living every day from now as a “bad hair day” or would I want to make my life better now… while I’m still relatively young? I could enjoy the next twenty years or more with a variety of options, style, and even the different sensations accompanied with hair length.

 

I found a few doctors. They weren’t as expensive as ones in the US because they were in Europe. I told my wife I wanted to look into this. She was always a little resistant. Didn’t want me to waste the money on something that she though might not make me happy in the end. However she has had hair problems herself so she could sympathize.

 

I had to rule out doctors in Turkey because of the conflict in the surrounding countries. So I looked at Feriduni in Belgium and Lorenzo in Madrid. Feriduni was a bit more expensive while Lorenzo documented everything with his patients. So I could see dozens of before & after. Video too, not just photos. His results were what I wanted.

 

To make sure I was doing the right thing, I made an appointment with a fairly good doctor in the Bay Area. The consult said the procedure would cost $14k for 1500-2000 grafts. This implied two procedures for a 4000 graft result – the second one a year later (and more money). Plus there was no guarantee of the quality because I have yet to see as many examples as Lorenzo has.

 

I decided a year ago to put the plan into motion with Lorenzo. Reading more about him I realized he was one of the leading doctors using the FUE technique. He yields a vastly higher count of grafts, double what the California doctor said she could do. Plus the cost of procedures with him drops the more grafts you need and stays that way if you return to him years later.

 

A year ago I doubled down on supplements and took Minoxidil for the back of my head and a Finasteride pill daily (Propecia). I was aware of the side affects. I needed to know if it did anything for a year to help me decided if I was going to Madrid.

 

BTW, I didn’t know for sure if I was going to Madrid until I stepped on that plane last week. I felt like my wife was trying to indirectly tell me to not do it. It was yet another way I felt isolated.

 

I prepared everything by myself to fly across the world. I also had to calm my wife’s nerves about my flight blowing up or terrorists taking over a city. I arranged for a new passport with a Global Entry pass (a detailed background check on me to prove I’m not evil which lets me skip some security lines). I would be going to a country where I know no one and can’t speak their language (I want to learn Spanish and have tried. It’s been difficult to find a daily reoccurrence with my current job situation though).

 

All in all… I think I went way out of my comfort zone to make a change in my personal life.

 

 

ATTACHED PHOTOS

 

• Me in 2015
  
• My younger years
  
• My desired goal (one can dream!)
  

 

 

I kept this goal photo on my phone for a year and looked at it whenever I had to make any decisions around this procedure.

 

Hey redcut - what app are you using to get your desired goal hairstyle pic? Is that just photoshop?

[redcut]

Hey redcut - what app are you using to get your desired goal hairstyle pic? Is that just photoshop?

 

Sorry... I just saw this post! I'm using Photoshop and some elbow Google Image search grease. Find a hair style you like then take a photo of yourself at the same angle as a starting point.

 

FYI, I just took my 4 month photos and will organize them for posting soon. Before and after my first profession haircut in years.

[iq732]

Sorry... I just saw this post! I'm using Photoshop and some elbow Google Image search grease. Find a hair style you like then take a photo of yourself at the same angle as a starting point.

 

FYI, I just took my 4 month photos and will organize them for posting soon. Before and after my first profession haircut in years.

 

Thanks redcut. Looking forward to your update pics.

[redcut]

A lot of growth this past month. It looks solid from the front. From the top down or under sunlight the new areas aren't dense enough to hide scalp. You can still see the outline of my head in the front when looking at the side. Hopefully more density will appear in the coming months.

 

I thought months 4-6 was when most of the new hair grows. At the start of the 4th month, I have what I was expecting with one procedure so I'm curious what will happen later this year.

 

My scalp is no longer numb. There's still some tint to it. I've been actively out without a hat and sticking my head out the window like a dog to enjoy the breeze!

Edited October 13, 2016 by redcut

[redcut]

This was my first professional haircut in years. I have a formal event soon and needed some taming. The HT was left pretty much alone. It was only my regular sides taken down. This will also be the first time most people I work with will see me without a hat. It'll be interesting! More than once my wife has said she's really impressed with the results.

 

The stylist did a good job. A little Toppik and hair goop can mask the scalp with some style while I wait for more to grow in the next months. I do not have any Toppik concealer in any of these photos.

 

I also dyed my hair for the first time since the procedure to cover up wild gray. It's been very satisfying to see the change bloom since the "ugly duckling" phase.

Edited October 13, 2016 by redcut

[iq732]

Looking good redcut!

[farmcat]

Impressive results Redcut.....and they are only beginning!

[Ernie]

How's month 5 looking Redcut?

[redcut]

Here's week 24, halfway through Month 5. There's another cycle of growth with smaller hair coming up. This should help add more density to hide the scalp under bright top lights.

 

I've also included a topdown photo from the day of the procedure to now.