I made a big mistake. Can someone help me with a game plan?

[transplantSurvivor]

I am 22 years old. I was suffering from initial stages of MPB and got a hair transplant with 1500 grafts. I am attaching photos to help. All the men in my family have a NW6 type hairloss pattern. It was a rash decision which I am hoping you guys can help with.

 

I am attaching photos of my donor area as well as my beard. I am willing to move my entire beard to the crown area if needed. I have been using finasteride for the last 5 years (from age 17). But I have aggressive hairloss and it is progressing. Please help me form a master plan for life. :confused::confused::confused:

 

Also i think I was scammed with the number of grafts. How many grafts do you guys think were transplanted. The transplanted area is around 2.5 cm at its widest and 15cm long.

 

Money should not be an issue. Also how is my scar. My new forehead is 5cm.

[Melvin- Admin]

Your new forehead is 5cm is that correct? That is very low especially for someone destined to be Norwood 6. Who was the surgeon? the scar looks stretched, the best master plan would be getting a conservative hairline that would allow for more grafts to be used in the midscalp and lateral humps if needed. I wouldn't place to much on BHT, while I think it could be useful in conjunction with scalp hair, I don't think placing beard hair solely in the crown would look ideal. I really hope things work out for you, getting such an aggressive hairline at a young age with an aggressive hair loss family history is just careless and unethical thing to do to a 22 year old.

[transplantSurvivor]

Yes my new forehead is 5cm!! The surgeon was in India. Do you mean that I get the current transplanted hair removed? I was under the impression that I could get 10000 scalp grafts and another 6-8 thousand beard grafts to fill out my entire head.

[Melvin- Admin]

Yes my new forehead is 5cm!! The surgeon was in India. Do you mean that I get the current transplanted hair removed? I was under the impression that I could get 10000 scalp grafts and another 6-8 thousand beard grafts to fill out my entire head.

 

At 22 years old there's no way of knowing exactly what hair is or isn't permanent, 10,000 grafts is a high number that very few reach, I'm not sure I would do anything at this point, what's done has been done, but in the future you may need to remove that hairline as 5cm is a juvenile hairline that will look odd with everything behind it thin or bald if you progress to Norwood 6.

[Al - Moderator]

I think 5cm is a bit low. I would prefer about 6cm but it's done now, so leave it alone. The scar in photo 10 looks like you have some shock loss above and below the scar, so that should grow back in over time if that's what it is.

 

As for you asking if it looks like 1500 grafts, you say it's 2.5cm at the widest and 15cm long. If we average it to about 2cm x 15cm then that's 30cms. If the Dr put about 50 grafts per cm then that comes to 1500 grafts, so I'd say it's probably in that range.

[transplantSurvivor]

Thanks beHappy. But then what about the long term plan? I am going towards a NW6. There is no doubt about that. Do I continue chasing it with additional transplants? Don't really know what to do.

[BadBeat]

The pictures weren't great but your hairline didn't even look that bad. Definitely would have waited as long as possible before an HT.

[Spanker]

Where are you measuring from. It looks higher than 5cm to me...that is 2 inches.

 

As far as master plans go, you have a few choices if you progress to a NW6.

 

1 is a hair system. For this to work, you need to leave your donor in tact.

 

2 is to forfeit your crown and only work on the frontal 3rd. This is a pretty common look.

 

3 is to work on your crown and possibly run out of donor and it will look like cramp.

 

4 is to wait til you lose a lot more hair and do one more surgery with beard and scalp hair, and complement it with a buzzed look plus SMP.

 

You have some options, and even it if is a hair system, if you can keep pretty good sides, a hair system can be super natural now, so, your life is not over. My suggestion is to forfeit the crown and keep a reasonable frontal 3rd.

 

It looks like 1500 grafts to me and I don't think you can FUE the front out to make much of a difference. Maybe the corners could be recessed a little more with FUE by taking out 100 on both sides.

 

Best bet is to not do anything for now and see how it turns out, and then only consult with the best of the best for any repair work.

[transplantSurvivor]

Thanks for the detailed response Spanker. Although everyone seems to be telling me that it was a mistake could you elaborate on why 8000 grafts cannot be extracted from the beard? I know I have that many grafts. I did a bulk measurement. There are many cases of 8000 scalp grafts online. If you complement it with 8000 beard grafts you should get a pretty reasonable result. I know if it was this easy then everyone would be doing it. But what exactly is the problem?

[Spanker]

You'd have to consult a doc to see what is reasonable. I imagine that 8000 grafts would cause too much scarring. Doctor Umar probably has the most beard graft cases so I'd start with him to help with a master plan if you intend to go that route. I think a few thousand is the most I've seen taken, maybe 3500, but I could have missed some bigger cases. You have a good beard...better than mine, but its not super exceptional, so 8000 seems a stretch to me.

[Sean]

Hold off on beard hair or any other hairs. I am a case pending. I dont know how it will turn out but i can tell you from my experience if it went ok.

[Rawkerboi]

Relax man!

When you had a HT?

Can you please tell me which is your recent picture from above.

[stephcurry30]

get on dutastiride (get it from alldaychemist) (serious)