Tomorrow is the day!! 2500 grafts - Dr Vories

[pavan2232]

Hello Guys!!

 

Finally decided to get my HT done with a one day procedure with Dr vories tomorrow. Excited and nervous, I believe I'm in the good hands :rolleyes:

 

Dr Vories suggested 2500 grafts on my frontal forelock which i'm hoping will work out well since my goal for now is to frame my face and fix the frontal part, but i'm considerably thinning in crown which I plan to fix in future. Dr Vories usually does 3000 grafts a day, so after initial assessment of my donor availability, would ask him if 2000 in the front and 1000 in vertex look good.

 

I hope everything goes well, will follow up with my entire experience here.

 

Appreciate any post-op tips,suggestions.

 

 

Thanks.

[ontop]

Congratulations you have chosen a good doctor to perform your FUE surgery.

Also knowing Dr Vories he proberly use at least 250 both sides of temples & at least 2000 for front forelock maybe a touch more if needed so your face will be framed nicely.

 

If I may advice you to just focus on your frontal zone this time around & being your only 28 I suggest you look into taking medications to at least stabilized any future native hair loss.

 

Again congratulations & good luck & keep us posted.

Edited September 6, 2016 by ontop
.

[JON86]

Wish you good luck and lots of hair.

[pavan2232]

Thank you!! ontop

 

Appreciate your advice, I will definitely discuss with Dr Vories and will let him decide what suits me better.

 

I'm currently on lipogaine and will start on propecia after the procedure.

 

Thanks.

[pavan2232]

Wish you good luck and lots of hair.

 

Thank you!!

[Rawkerboi]

My advice would be to focus entirely on frontal forelock, and leave crown.

Let medication handel crown and see if there is any improvement.

[ontop]

Thank you!! ontop

 

Appreciate your advice, I will definitely discuss with Dr Vories and will let him decide what suits me better.

 

I'm currently on lipogaine and will start on propecia after the procedure.

 

Thanks.

 

Good lad.

 

Dr Vories will have a chat with you no doubt.

 

Good luck tomoz your in good trusted hands there.

[akrhair]

Congrats!! All the best

[TakingThePlunge]

Great choice! I'm sure you're going to be a happy camper! Looking forward to your updates.

[SKYLAR]

medication is NOT going to fill in the crown. I would surely have him address the crown unless u plan on doing two separate HT's. the crown its notoriously hard to fill.

 

Vorhies is one of the top guys imo. his graft placement is dense and his graft survivability is as good as it gets

 

My advice would be to focus entirely on frontal forelock, and leave crown.

Let medication handel crown and see if there is any improvement.

[pavan2232]

Thank you All for the support.

 

I'm so relieved now, I really wish I had done it earlier. I wont go in too detailed but I will give you my brief experience.

 

To begin with, the procedure isn't that painful as I expected it to be. but, off course the numbing shots were a little stingy. Dr Vories used a vibrator with the shots and it helped to a certain extent. Went in around 7 am and completed by around 3:30pm.

 

So as I said, I did ask Dr Vories if we can split 3000 grafts on front and crown but he suggested that I would need 2500 grafts on front to have good density. So we agreed on working only on the frontal forelock. I will be planning for a 2nd HT in year or two to fix my crown. so for now, 2400 grafts were used on forelock and 100 grafts were used on left temple.

 

All the extraction was completed around 11 AM and after a short break got started with implantation's. we took a break for every 500 grafts and after about an hour into implantation, felt some burn on the donor area. Dr gave a pain killer shot and it felt better. We finally completed the implantations at around 3:30pm. All the while there was minimal to no pain at all except for numbing shots.

 

Dr Vories said all the grafts were extracted and implanted successfully with no issues and he is expecting 95% growth. He also said that I shouldn't see any shock loss, as we worked only on the frontal area the native hair on the mid scalp is not completely surrounded by the transplanted hair and it will have good blood circulation.( he said shock loss happens only when native hair is completely surrounded by transplanted hair and blood circulation would be less to native hair). He asked me to expect swelling around forehead and it would go down in 2-3 days. He went over all the post-op care and asked me to avoid any physical stress for next one week. He prescribed a pain killer(vicoprofen) and sleeping tablets(ambien) and suggested to use the pain killer only if needed.

 

I got back to the hotel and rested for an hour or so and later in the evening I noticed swelling on forehead towards the left temple and it gradually moved to the center by night. I had a painkiller and went to sleep. Good thing was to have sound sleep, may be the painkiller helped. By today morning, the swelling was all over the forehead. I feel no extreme pain but I can feel the stiffness both on donor and recipient areas. I see some liquid coming out of the donor which the Dr said it is expected. I have been applying saline water on grafts every one hour and eagerly waiting for first wash tomorrow. The only worrying part for me so far is the itching sensation over both the donor and recipient areas.

 

Overall, I feel everything went as planned with the procedure and I'm hoping the same with the healing process as well the next phases.

 

Here are few photos. I will keep posting weekly updates for first few weeks. Appreciate any feedback, tips and suggestions!!

 

Thanks.

[akrhair]

Looking good, all the best!!

[ontop]

Work looks clean I wish you happy healing.

[pavan2232]

Thanks Guys!!

 

So far so good. Had my first wash last night and the donor looks to be healing well. Right now dealing with heavy swelling over the forehead and all over the eyes. I have been applying ice for 20 mins every one hour as the Doc suggested. Any other remedies that I can help deal with swelling ?

[Rawkerboi]

It is fairly common to experience some swelling of the forehead 2-3 days after hair transplant, especially if the frontal hairline is reinforced.

It can be very helpful to massage the forehead from the center to the sides to disperse any swelling that begins to occur (lymphatic drainage massage).

Also, I would encourage you to apply cool compresses intermittently for the first three days and try sleeping with your head elevated.

[pavan2232]

It is fairly common to experience some swelling of the forehead 2-3 days after hair transplant, especially if the frontal hairline is reinforced.

It can be very helpful to massage the forehead from the center to the sides to disperse any swelling that begins to occur (lymphatic drainage massage).

Also, I would encourage you to apply cool compresses intermittently for the first three days and try sleeping with your head elevated.

 

Thanks for advice!!

It really helped, I'm feeling much better now.

[pavan2232]

Day 5 Post-op

 

Holding up well but I'm being very anxious about how the healing period would go. Swelling has considerably gone down and should be back to normal in day or two. I do feel a lot of burn from the donor and pain meds have been helping.

 

There is a lot of scabbing on the donor and it seems to get better by each day. Normally how many days does it take for the donor to heal completely ? I mean for all the scabs and pain to go away ?

 

Any gels/ medication for donor to heal quickly ?

[robc]

I think it took about 2 weeks for the scabs to heal and maybe a week for most of the pain. My donor area itched had pimples for at least 2 months though.

 

Partial doses of the pain meds and Advil will help the itching. Good luck on your recovery,

[Louisjams]

I have followed this thread with interest. Looks like you are coming along well. Congrats on your procedure! Keep us posted on how you do. The waiting is the hardest part.

[pavan2232]

I think it took about 2 weeks for the scabs to heal and maybe a week for most of the pain. My donor area itched had pimples for at least 2 months though.

 

Partial doses of the pain meds and Advil will help the itching. Good luck on your recovery,

 

Thanks robc!!

 

I myself have few pimples on the donor. Any additional care that you had on your donor ?

[pavan2232]

Hi Guys!!

 

I'm at Day 12 post-op slowly recovering. It wasn't as quick as I expected and compared to others. My donor is very sensitive and I still have occasional burn/pain and few pimples. I have been using the aloe vera spray on the donor.

 

Till day 10, I haven't touched the grafts except for daily wash with the sponge. There was think crust/scabs and as it is already day 11 and the scabs haven't started falling, Along with the wash, I slowly starting massaging the grafts in circular motion from yesterday. The scabs looked to be loosening up and coming out with my fingers. But I noticed hair along with the scabs that were coming out. I know this is completely normal and expected So, I went ahead did the same today. I was able to get a lot of scabs out and all most all of them came out with hair.

 

Is this normal to loose so much implanted hair with the scabs.? I know this is expected but i didn't think I would loose so much. The rate at which the hairs were out today, i feel by the end of the last scab I feel I would loose half of the implanted hair. Also, the density is looking so much less than it was few days back. This is really worrying me.

 

Can someone chip in with your thoughts!!!

 

I'm waiting for my 2 week follow-up with Dr Vories this Tuesday.

[mikeyhwk]

It's not like i have a butt load of experience with this but I am going thru the same thing pavan, I washed away all the scabs and hairs came with them. I told my doc he said it's normal and that i should be anchored by now and if it were a graft there would be blood. There hasn't been, just scabs with shafts of hair so I think we're on the right track but if somebody more experienced could chime in id love the confirmation

[pavan2232]

It's not like i have a butt load of experience with this but I am going thru the same thing pavan, I washed away all the scabs and hairs came with them. I told my doc he said it's normal and that i should be anchored by now and if it were a graft there would be blood. There hasn't been, just scabs with shafts of hair so I think we're on the right track but if somebody more experienced could chime in id love the confirmation

 

Hey Mikey! Thanks for your reply

I agree, there will be bleeding if we pulled out a graft and I haven't seen any. So, I'm hoping we are good!! But, I read somewhere that hair could also be dead follicles implanted. if a dead follicle were implanted it usually sheds in the first two weeks. I'm not sure how much of it is true. I just hope all our grafts are intact and just want to know if anyone had a similar experience with their post-op and how it affected their results.

 

There is too much of info out there and it's sometimes messes up the mind!! :rolleyes:

[mikeyhwk]

Hey Mikey! Thanks for your reply

I agree, there will be bleeding if we pulled out a graft and I haven't seen any. So, I'm hoping we are good!! But, I read somewhere that hair could also be dead follicles implanted. if a dead follicle were implanted it usually sheds in the first two weeks. I'm not sure how much of it is true. I just hope all our grafts are intact and just want to know if anyone had a similar experience with their post-op and how it affected their results.

 

There is too much of info out there and it's sometimes messes up the mind!! :rolleyes:

 

haha I know what you mean, it's information overload. I dont think with the sheer number we're talking that it would be dead follicles but anything is possible. Its comforting that im not the only one going thru it. I do think we're okay tho, I do think it's just normal fallout given that its coming with the scabs, it comes at different times for each of us.

[pavan2232]

2 weeks post-op!! Time just flew by

 

Donor looks to be healed well except for occasional nerve pinch. I have had shock loss for sure looking at the native hair in the mid scalp and crown. Also, the growth has been very uneven. I see a lot of small hair just at root but not growing. I hope they grow out in next few weeks.

 

how does it look guys ?

 

Would really appreciate to hear any comments/feedback