5.5 months. Not what I expected

[Rongy_dringus]

Hi everyone. I’m sure these reassurance posts are starting to sound like a broken record and I apologize in advance for posting yet another one. I am 5.5 months post op. The procedure was performed in Turkey at esthetichairturkey. 4100 grafts. Nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t take supplements or use anything else on my hair. 

I’m at 5.5 months and I feel like the hair itself is growing very slowly and there is minimal progress from my initial state. The pictures are not in order. In the mirror with hair slicked back is my initial state. Then there is one directly post procedure. The one with short full hair is 2 weeks post op. The rest are at 5.5 months.

I know some will say to wait and that’s really all I can do at this point. I just feel like there is no progress at all, especially at almost 6 months. Any thoughts?

thank you in advance. 

Edited September 4, 2018 by Rongy_dringus
Posted wet hair pic, should be dry

[lakes9925]

wish i could give you some good advice but your either going to be a late grower or have minimal growth. I like the way they did your hair line, If things turn out well you should have a really good result.

[PeloDinero]

Why did you go to this place? They can’t even spell aesthetic correctly. Should’ve been the first of many red flags. 

[Melvin- Admin]

There are a couple of issues, first is you’re only at 5.5 months that’s too soon to asses the result. Second, the picture you posted is with soaking wet hair. You can not compare your pre-op “dry” hair pics to the post-op “wet” hair pics. This is not a true depiction of the results. In fact, many members call out clinics that practice this sort of photography, except they do it the opposite. Post wet hair pre-op photos to dry hair post-op photos. The difference is going to look greater. 

You need to match the pictures, if you took dry hair pre-op photos than your post-op must be dry as well. Once you post improved pictures then we will be in a better position to know the actual growth at this point, which again will be minimal since it’s only been 5.5 months.

[Rongy_dringus]

Hi. My apologies. Here are pre procedure pictures without wet hair

[Melvin- Admin]

Looks like you have suffered a great deal of shock loss, are you on any medication like Minoxidil and Finasteride?

[Mickah17]

You need to get on finasteride asap!!

[Rongy_dringus]

4 hours ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Looks like you have suffered a great deal of shock loss, are you on any medication like Minoxidil and Finasteride?

I am not on any medication. The clinic has said that the growth is now starting and that it takes 8 months to start getting results. They keep reassuring me and telling me to please wait

[Melvin- Admin]

1 hour ago, Rongy_dringus said:

I am not on any medication. The clinic has said that the growth is now starting and that it takes 8 months to start getting results. They keep reassuring me and telling me to please wait

Well it's clear that you lost a lot of native hair due to surgery, so what they are saying is true, you should start seeing growth of your transplant. The problem you're having is the hair you had before fell out, as a result of surgery. 

 I suggest getting on minoxidil and finasteride to try and recoup some of the hair you lost. This is why having surgery with diffused hair loss is always risky, especially if your hair loss is not stable. I sincerely wish you the best and hope that hair grows back.

[Rongy_dringus]

50 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Well it's clear that you lost a lot of native hair due to surgery, so what they are saying is true, you should start seeing growth of your transplant. The problem you're having is the hair you had before fell out, as a result of surgery. 

 I suggest getting on minoxidil and finasteride to try and recoup some of the hair you lost. This is why having surgery with diffused hair loss is always risky, especially if your hair loss is not stable. I sincerely wish you the best and hope that hair grows back.

Thanks for your input. I guess only time will tell. I will post more pics in the future

[Bill - Seemiller]

11 hours ago, Rongy_dringus said:

Thanks for your input. I guess only time will tell. I will post more pics in the future

Rongy,

Every time I see posts that start with titles like this, I just want to change it to add… But it’s only been 5.5 months. You do understand that some people don’t even experience signs of new growth until about now right? I understand that you are nervous and waiting and it’s not easy. But I do understand that it takes up to a year to 18 months for a hair transplant to grow and fully mature. If you’ve undergone FUE, this process sometimes takes even longer.

So try hard not to stress, because stress and anticipation and negative thinking can impact the result.  

Best wishes,

Bill

[Rongy_dringus]

4 minutes ago, Bill - Managing Publisher said:

Rongy,

Every time I see posts that start with titles like this, I just want to change it to add… But it’s only been 5.5 months. You do understand that some people don’t even experience signs of new growth until about now right? I understand that you are nervous and waiting and it’s not easy. But I do understand that it takes up to a year to 18 months for a hair transplant to grow and fully mature. If you’ve undergone FUE, this process sometimes takes even longer.

So try hard not to stress, because stress and anticipation and negative thinking can impact the result.  

Best wishes,

Bill

Thank you for the reassurance. Not too stressed but I was looking around seeing all these guys with beautiful long manes at 6 months and just wondering if mine was a disaster. But your right, it’s early. I’m going to crack open a beer and play some fortnight to pass the next few months and we will see how it is at that point. Thanks again!

[bismarck]

Keep us updated and good luck.

[PeloDinero]

Seriously, why do people go to such janky, unproven clinics and then get upset when results aren’t as expected? If you can’t afford a renowned surgeon, stop, and wait until you can. You don’t get many redos with this. 

[Rongy_dringus]

On 9/6/2018 at 7:29 PM, PeloDinero said:

 

Edited September 16, 2018 by Rongy_dringus
Delete

[bismarck]

10 minutes ago, Rongy_dringus said:

As a physician myself, a great deal of research was put into this. I visited several clinics while in Istanbul and this one was to my standards. Have you been to this one? Do you have experience with them? If not, I’m not sure you should be giving your opinion. 

Furthermore, while there, I met many foreigners from the US, Europe, Asia that were satisfied. I watched them doing a procedure and they respected sterile methods and knew what they were doing. Their google reviews were 4.9 with 125 reviewers (I understand some of these can be bought), and they have about 400k followers on Instagram. Their before and after pictures were impressive. Cost was not an issue for me, and their prices were are par with most Istanbul clinics.

my question was not about me being devastated or upset. It was only to get some opinions on my progress so far. If you feel it is such a “janky” and “unproven” clinic, please do give some details why. I’d love to see what I missed. 

If you're not a physician that surgically treats hair loss, it can be hard to leverage your field of practice into hair restoration as it is such a niche specialty.

Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding. Instagram followers and google reviews are not as reliable as actual patient cases, particularly as the Turkish clinics seem to have a habit of inflating their numbers artificially. There have even been scenarios here where a clinic was suspected of making multiple HRN accounts. Not across the board, but I've seen fishy behavior from that neck of the woods more than once. 

Though obviously it is too late now, good questions to ask early are: do they have a large quantity of patient (not clinic) submitted results here or elsewhere online? Do they have big failures? How do they respond to their failures?

Then you can get into the specifics like: how much of the procedure is performed by techs, do they use manual or robotic punches, how long have they been in practice, do they subcontract techs or are they contracted employees, where did the doc train and in what specialty (ENT, ER, general practitioner, etc), what's their volume and FUT/FUE split, etc.

Edited September 6, 2018 by bismarck

[pinky_head]

Hey! 

I think thinking much about whether the clinic was a good or bad choice is beyonde the scope.

This forum seems to obsses a bit over some of the clinics and doctors, and even though I am sure it is well deserved, doesn't mean anything regarding the people who did your surgery.

I think your post op pics look fine. As far as the progress goes, there is not much to do other than wait. It seems you indeed suffered a lot of shock loss in the recipient area. 

Try to be patient, even though I know myself it's ridiculously hard, and keep us updated.

Good luck

 

[Rongy_dringus]

On 9/6/2018 at 7:56 PM, pinky_head said:

Hey! 

I think thinking much about whether the clinic was a good or bad choice is beyonde the scope.

This forum seems to obsses a bit over some of the clinics and doctors, and even though I am sure it is well deserved, doesn't mean anything regarding the people who did your surgery.

I think your post op pics look fine. As far as the progress goes, there is not much to do other than wait. It seems you indeed suffered a lot of shock loss in the recipient area. 

Try to be patient, even though I know myself it's ridiculously hard, and keep us updated.

Good luck

 

 

 

 

Edited September 16, 2018 by Rongy_dringus
Delete

[Spaceman]

On 9/5/2018 at 6:11 PM, Bill - Managing Publisher said:

...But I do understand that it takes up to a year to 18 months for a hair transplant to grow and fully mature. If you’ve undergone FUE, this process sometimes takes even longer...

@Bill - Managing Publisher Why would FUE take longer? I haven’t heard that before.

[matt3480]

Totally agree with what others have said.

It's irrelevant that you are a physician. That gives you no more expertise or knowledge of any hair clinic versus anyone else here who has done the same research who isn't a physician.

I pretty much stop reading when I see people who say they've done their research and then in the next sentence say they had their surgery done in Turkey. People get surgeries in Turkey because they are basing most of their decision on price and the hope that they might be one of the RARE ones who actually come out of that country with a decent result (which would make it a bargain). You guys all know what you are getting into by having surgery done there.

Same with finasteride......you know the risks of not being on it. Certainly up to you to make that decision but you no one here is shocked that your result isn't great considering you aren't on Fin and had this done in Turkey.....and that isn't going to magically change in 6 months.

You are going to get the whole 18 month spiel on this site....but I've had 3 surgeries. You pretty much know whether you are going to have a great result by 6 months every time. Sure, you may grow a few more hairs from now until 18 months....but will it be this huge difference? No, it won't.

 

Edited September 16, 2018 by matt3480

[Rongy_dringus]

45 minutes ago, matt3480 said:

Totally agree with what others have said.

It's irrelevant that you are a physician. That gives you no more expertise or knowledge of any hair clinic versus anyone else here who has done the same research who isn't a physician.

I pretty much stop reading when I see people who say they've done their research and then in the next sentence say they had their surgery done in Turkey. People get surgeries in Turkey because they are basing most of their decision on price and the hope that they might be one of the RARE ones who actually come out of that country with a decent result (which would make it a bargain). You guys all know what you are getting into by having surgery done there.

Same with finasteride......you know the risks of not being on it. Certainly up to you to make that decision but you no one here is shocked that your result isn't great considering you aren't on Fin and had this done in Turkey.....and that isn't going to magically change in 6 months.

You are going to get the whole 18 month spiel on this site....but I've had 3 surgeries. You pretty much know whether you are going to have a great result by 6 months every time. Sure, you may grow a few more hairs from now until 18 months....but will it be this huge difference? No, it won

Edited September 16, 2018 by Rongy_dringus
Because

[Payam]

9 hours ago, matt3480 said:

Totally agree with what others have said.

It's irrelevant that you are a physician. That gives you no more expertise or knowledge of any hair clinic versus anyone else here who has done the same research who isn't a physician.

I pretty much stop reading when I see people who say they've done their research and then in the next sentence say they had their surgery done in Turkey. People get surgeries in Turkey because they are basing most of their decision on price and the hope that they might be one of the RARE ones who actually come out of that country with a decent result (which would make it a bargain). You guys all know what you are getting into by having surgery done there.

Same with finasteride......you know the risks of not being on it. Certainly up to you to make that decision but you no one here is shocked that your result isn't great considering you aren't on Fin and had this done in Turkey.....and that isn't going to magically change in 6 months.

You are going to get the whole 18 month spiel on this site....but I've had 3 surgeries. You pretty much know whether you are going to have a great result by 6 months every time. Sure, you may grow a few more hairs from now until 18 months....but will it be this huge difference? No, it won't.

 

Man this makes me so sad, I am at 6 months right now after surgery with Erdogan and my result is horrible, you're saying most of the result comes at 6 months but most I've seen say it's about 60%.. I didn't find a single bad result from erdogan when I googled, only one from a spanish guy two years ago.

[BlessUp]

U have to give it time either way it's out of your control what's done is done to the poster above. Use toppik or another concealer as it works wonderful to cover the thinning spots until 12 to 18months for hair to fully mature or wear a hat to get by then get another transplant if need be.

Like you I got alot of shockloss unfortunately. U can also hop on minoxidil to help get some more density if you havnt yet

Edited September 17, 2018 by BlessUp

[txtransplant]

   Please, this is a no brainer. The surgery looks like it was dense enough. Assuming they did at least decent quality work, you should have gotten a nice result. HOWEVER. It is fairly obvious you have a lot of shock loss. When the hairs are getting small and sickly as yours were doing before the transplant, they are pretty geriatric. They really can't withstand the trauma of the transplant and it basically knocks them  out. Some might get back up to fight another day. But they were on their way out and my guess is many it was their death nail. That is the danger of transplanting into areas that have thinning hair. GET ON MEDS ASAP!  It might save some that you have lost. One surgeon told me Propecia works pretty good on the hair that checked out in the past 6months. But longer than that there is no bringing it back. So basically, from my research ideally a patient with an upcoming transplant and defuse thinning ideally should be on Propecia to get those thin hairs thick and ready for the coming war even if you don't plan to use it for years. So get busy using that and monox and maybe you can save some of the sick old native men you knocked of by having this transplant.  

 

   Other posters make a good point. Turkey is mostly a crap shoot. Every tech has to learn and you really don't want to be one of the practice guinea pigs they learn on. But you really can't do much more than find a reputable clinic and lower the odds of getting a bad result. It truly is a roll of the dice that some research can help with, but not completely prevent. There are a very select few clinics there that have stellar reputations and I am sure only employ the best techs. I looked seriously at Turkey and reality is the top places there are nearly as expensive as in first world countries.  Having said that, it seems like most of the decent clinics there get decent results. So most likely you will get a lot of bang for your buck. but bad results are a possibility. Of course the best choice if money was not an option is simply pick one of the top ten surgeons in the world and you have much less chance of a bad result. It is tempting though. Go to Turkey and get say good results 90% of the time. When I say good results I mean 80% graft survival and no surprises. Go to a top US surgeon and pay 8x more and get a great result 96% of the time and 90% graft survival or better.  8x the price for a tiny bit better result on average and a lower failure rate is a pretty steep premium. I can't blame anyone on a budget for doing their homework as best they can and rolling the dice on Turkey for a typical guy needed 3000 grafts on a first procedure. 

 

 Your results after looking at thousands of pics and a year of study on this subject considering my own surgery. Doesn't look promising man. Sure, growth this early isn't usually stellar. But I have seen very few patients that have less hair than before their surgery at this point. That's the honest answer. Don't loose hope. You might just be that bottom 10% who just regrow really late and will have a great head of hair. You are not hopeless. If it were 12m then you would have nothing to hope for. But you asked about here and now. My guess...and since it is early this is guessing.  You lost a lot due to shock loss and probably were balding fast or about to start. Couple that with clearly not being a patient that is responding fast and hard. The really great growers all seem to be great early growers too. My guess is you will get a decent amount of growth over the next few months and some of your native hair will come back too. It will get better and probably look better than before you got the transplant. You might need a second transplant and unless the transplant is a failure, you will be much better off in 2019 then if you did nothing at all.  You asked for our best guesses. My best guess is you will have moderately successful results from this transplant, but for sure short of what you were ideally looking for.  BUT IT IS EARLY....AND JUST A GUESS. You might just be slow to grow and will have a stellar result 6 months from now! The actual work looks rather good and professional so that should give hope that you are a slow grower and not a guy who got crap work done. 

[Rongy_dringus]

On 9/28/2018 at 2:22 PM, back2clas said:

   Please, this is a no brainer. The surgery looks like it was dense enough. Assuming they did at least decent quality work, you should have gotten a nice result. HOWEVER. It is fairly obvious you have a lot of shock loss. When the hairs are getting small and sickly as yours were doing before the transplant, they are pretty geriatric. They really can't withstand the trauma of the transplant and it basically knocks them  out. Some might get back up to fight another day. But they were on their way out and my guess is many it was their death nail. That is the danger of transplanting into areas that have thinning hair. GET ON MEDS ASAP!  It might save some that you have lost. One surgeon told me Propecia works pretty good on the hair that checked out in the past 6months. But longer than that there is no bringing it back. So basically, from my research ideally a patient with an upcoming transplant and defuse thinning ideally should be on Propecia to get those thin hairs thick and ready for the coming war even if you don't plan to use it for years. So get busy using that and monox and maybe you can save some of the sick old native men you knocked of by having this transplant.  

 

   Other posters make a good point. Turkey is mostly a crap shoot. Every tech has to learn and you really don't want to be one of the practice guinea pigs they learn on. But you really can't do much more than find a reputable clinic and lower the odds of getting a bad result. It truly is a roll of the dice that some research can help with, but not completely prevent. There are a very select few clinics there that have stellar reputations and I am sure only employ the best techs. I looked seriously at Turkey and reality is the top places there are nearly as expensive as in first world countries.  Having said that, it seems like most of the decent clinics there get decent results. So most likely you will get a lot of bang for your buck. but bad results are a possibility. Of course the best choice if money was not an option is simply pick one of the top ten surgeons in the world and you have much less chance of a bad result. It is tempting though. Go to Turkey and get say good results 90% of the time. When I say good results I mean 80% graft survival and no surprises. Go to a top US surgeon and pay 8x more and get a great result 96% of the time and 90% graft survival or better.  8x the price for a tiny bit better result on average and a lower failure rate is a pretty steep premium. I can't blame anyone on a budget for doing their homework as best they can and rolling the dice on Turkey for a typical guy needed 3000 grafts on a first procedure. 

 

 Your results after looking at thousands of pics and a year of study on this subject considering my own surgery. Doesn't look promising man. Sure, growth this early isn't usually stellar. But I have seen very few patients that have less hair than before their surgery at this point. That's the honest answer. Don't loose hope. You might just be that bottom 10% who just regrow really late and will have a great head of hair. You are not hopeless. If it were 12m then you would have nothing to hope for. But you asked about here and now. My guess...and since it is early this is guessing.  You lost a lot due to shock loss and probably were balding fast or about to start. Couple that with clearly not being a patient that is responding fast and hard. The really great growers all seem to be great early growers too. My guess is you will get a decent amount of growth over the next few months and some of your native hair will come back too. It will get better and probably look better than before you got the transplant. You might need a second transplant and unless the transplant is a failure, you will be much better off in 2019 then if you did nothing at all.  You asked for our best guesses. My best guess is you will have moderately successful results from this transplant, but for sure short of what you were ideally looking for.  BUT IT IS EARLY....AND JUST A GUESS. You might just be slow to grow and will have a stellar result 6 months from now! The actual work looks rather good and professional so that should give hope that you are a slow grower and not a guy who got crap work done. 

Amazing post man. Very well done, thoughtful, educated and well written. Thank you for that ?

here is an update at 7.5 months. I know the picture is not with the same light and at a different angle, but I am happy as hell with it. I will post pics with the same lighting and angles as my initial pics at the 12 month mark. 

Edited October 26, 2018 by Rongy_dringus