Dr Diep FUE 1356 Grafts on Temples (NW2/3) [2-12-2020]

[Tentpole91]

4.5 month update. Hair is growing in well, but hard to take photos because it is so long. Main concern is the pattern in the hair on the right side, for lack of a better word. 
 

My hope is that this becomes less noticeable once the fine singles up front grow in. 
 

Have a haircut tomorrow. Can provide more then. 

[MrAr]

It’ll blend in a lot more when the recipient hairs catch up to the other hair and after the hair cut to even it out .mind looked really off the other day but after I cut it all same length it made a lot of difference and  I see what you mean but I think your right should see how those singles come out in front 

Edited July 2, 2020 by Dadda

[Tentpole91]

Yeah. Tomorrow I am going to ask the barber to go a lot shorter in the front. Will be the first time I am directly incorporating the transplanted hair into the visible hairline. 
 

Hopefully it doesn’t look too obvious. I’m starting to accept that the donor is probably always going to be a bit patchy and uneven at anything below a three guard. But I will hold out until month 8 or 9 to make that final judgment. 

[MrAr]

Most defenitly ! I feel the same way my donor the same as you know but hopefully does improve in the time to come .. oh you haven’t touched the transplanted hairs ?! It’s going look a ton better when it matches length of other hair 

[Tentpole91]

That’s right. I’ve left the rest of the hair fairly long to disguise. 
 

I owe you guys some older updates as well. 
 

3 Months

 

[Tentpole91]

Four months

 

[Tentpole91]

@Melvin-Moderator would be curious to know your thoughts on growth so far! 

[Melvin- Admin]

Looks good for 4 months, the hairs appear a little curly, but that will straighten out in the next months. I would definitely feel encouraged. 

[Tentpole91]

Awesome. Btw it’s kind of confusing, I posted more recent photos (4.5 months) at the top of this page. Did you get a chance to check those out as well? 

[shookwon33]

check out my thread, you look exactly on track at where i was at for 3-4 months

[Tbcruz]

Looking good tentpole91, how’s the donor looking ?

[whattheFUE]

Diep likes those straight frontal hairlines which are more common in low androgen/non caucasian ethnicities, particularly Asians. It's not a bad look, but certainly doesn't look right after 10-20 years if recession continues behind it. His aesthetic choices can sometimes be really bizarre.

[BDK081522]

On 7/2/2020 at 5:40 PM, Tentpole91 said:

4.5 month update. Hair is growing in well, but hard to take photos because it is so long. Main concern is the pattern in the hair on the right side, for lack of a better word. 
 

My hope is that this becomes less noticeable once the fine singles up front grow in. 
 

Have a haircut tomorrow. Can provide more then. 

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but that right side really does look awkward. This is a very good indication that his pattern of implanting grafts in straight rows might not look great when grown out as well. You're still extremely early in the process and it may be exacerbated by pulling on the hair but it doesn't look right at the moment. Actually resembles the old mini grafts a bit because all you see is straight rows of hair which doesn't happen in nature. Very questionable as to why he would do this. Efficiency or convience would be my guess because he is obviously capable of producing strong results. This patterned implantation and suspect extraction technique make Dr Diep seem like he's taking shortcuts. I'm not saying that this will turn out badly after a year because more than likely it will look fine but his technique seems questionable.  

[HTHope]

1 hour ago, ruca2 said:

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but that right side really does look awkward. This is a very good indication that his pattern of implanting grafts in straight rows might not look great when grown out as well. You're still extremely early in the process and it may be exacerbated by pulling on the hair but it doesn't look right at the moment. Actually resembles the old mini grafts a bit because all you see is straight rows of hair which doesn't happen in nature. Very questionable as to why he would do this. Efficiency or convience would be my guess because he is obviously capable of producing strong results. This patterned implantation and suspect extraction technique make Dr Diep seem like he's taking shortcuts. I'm not saying that this will turn out badly after a year because more than likely it will look fine but his technique seems questionable.  

I see you had previous work from diep. Did you experience the same type of implantation and harvesting from one side?

[Noodles123]

I posted my own pictures earlier in the thread showing this linear pattern that he implants the follicles in.   He clearly does it for efficiency.    I'm honestly not a fan at all of this technique because it makes the transplanted area look sparser than if he had staggered the grafts.  If you have grafts implanted in rows, then you will have rows of spaces that you can see right through.  Imagine looking at a corn field.  You can look down the rows of spaces.  Now imagine if the grafts were staggered.   The spaces in between each graft would be minimized and you get a denser looking result.  If you look at how a clinic like H&W implants their grafts, it is staggered so you cannot see into the spaces.   You may use the same number of grafts but you get more coverage of the scalp precisely because the grafts are in a staggered pattern.   

I get he does this for the sake of speed, but it sacrifices some degree of naturalness for efficiency.   One of my main complaints about my own transplant with Diep is that it looks sparse because there is too much space between the grafts.  

 

Edited July 10, 2020 by Noodles123

[Tentpole91]

On 2/13/2020 at 6:34 PM, ruca2 said:

@Melvin-Moderator I didn't share my results. I had a small FUE from Bosley before finding this site. I then was led to Dr Diep by results posted here and his YouTube channel. From a macro perspective the transplant looks okay and the casual observer wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary. However, I'm extremely detail oriented (picky and slightly a perfectionist) and can't help but notice major flaws. My donor looked bad. Punches were extremely large, bloody and he left a linear line at the bottom of the extraction zone that almost looked like an FUT scar. I had to have had smp to my donor. Some of his angles in the hairline were too perpendicular and when my hair is shorter it sticks awkwardly up. He did a small section on the temporal side were the hair should have been oriented down and forward. He placed them angled straight back. 

Quoting this to answer the previous poster's question as to whether ruca2 shared results.

[Tentpole91]

@Melvin-Moderator can you shed any light into why Dr. Diep places grafts in straight lines? I've looked at many other threads on the forum, and haven't found any other doctors that take this approach. It seems so easy to fix.

[Tentpole91]

5 months 

Edited July 10, 2020 by Tentpole91

[Noodles123]

On 2/13/2020 at 6:34 PM, ruca2 said:

@Melvin-Moderator I didn't share my results. I had a small FUE from Bosley before finding this site. I then was led to Dr Diep by results posted here and his YouTube channel. From a macro perspective the transplant looks okay and the casual observer wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary. However, I'm extremely detail oriented (picky and slightly a perfectionist) and can't help but notice major flaws. My donor looked bad. Punches were extremely large, bloody and he left a linear line at the bottom of the extraction zone that almost looked like an FUT scar. I had to have had smp to my donor. Some of his angles in the hairline were too perpendicular and when my hair is shorter it sticks awkwardly up. He did a small section on the temporal side were the hair should have been oriented down and forward. He placed them angled straight back. 

I don't think you are being a perfectionist by pointing these things out.  If you go to page 2 of this thread, I posted my pictures of my Diep procedure and I noted the exact same things.   My donor is obviously thinned out because of questionable extraction patterns.  Instead of spreading it over a larger area, he focused all of my extraction in a small area on the back of my head.  He also went out of the safe zone and went too far up on my crown, which frankly makes that area look thinner.  One, the hairs in this area are susceptible to miniaturization.  Two, it has made this area look thinner which is the last thing you want your crown to look like.     You can literally see the rectangular thinned out donor area on the back of my head.  It was not feathered out at all.

Is my transplant decent looking? Yeah, but I think there isn't the kind of attention to detail you would expect out of a clinic that charges on the higher end for FUE.  With the linear implantation pattern, the work doesn't look as dense as it could because of all the spaces in between the grafts.   He could easily fix this by modifying his approach and stagger the grafts at the hairline and keep his linear pattern behind the hairline.   

[Tentpole91]

5 hours ago, ruca2 said:

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but that right side really does look awkward. This is a very good indication that his pattern of implanting grafts in straight rows might not look great when grown out as well. You're still extremely early in the process and it may be exacerbated by pulling on the hair but it doesn't look right at the moment. Actually resembles the old mini grafts a bit because all you see is straight rows of hair which doesn't happen in nature. Very questionable as to why he would do this. Efficiency or convience would be my guess because he is obviously capable of producing strong results. This patterned implantation and suspect extraction technique make Dr Diep seem like he's taking shortcuts. I'm not saying that this will turn out badly after a year because more than likely it will look fine but his technique seems questionable.  

Thanks for posting, Ruca2. At this point, the only thing I can do is wait and see. If such an obvious pattern does remain 4-6 months from now, that is something I would likely seek to fix with another doctor. BTW, would be really cool if you were willing to share some pics of your experience with Dr. Diep. Feel free to PM them to me if you aren't comfortable posting them publicly.

@Melvin-Moderator, my previous comment is now pretty far up, so will repeat it here: 

can you shed any light into why Dr. Diep places grafts in straight lines? I've looked at many other threads on the forum, and haven't found any other doctors that take this approach. It seems so easy to fix.

 

[Melvin- Admin]

@Tentpole91

In my experience, I haven’t seen any issues, even in my own procedure, but I’ll get his input on your case. Please send me a pm of your surgery date and name, I’ll make sure he reaches out to you. 

[Melvin- Admin]

5 months is still early and my honest feeling is that it will look good by 12 months. It’s growing in well already, the hairs are wirey because they’re not matured yet, once they mature the difference will be substantial.

[Tentpole91]

PM sent, Melvin. The one thing that does worry me a bit is that the pattern of hair placement could be difficult to fix down the line. Whatever Dr. Diep did here, it's probably with me for life.

@ruca2 I am excited and hopeful to prove you wrong as the hair continues to grow out over the next six months. If you reference the photos earlier in my thread, Diep did place a denser line of singles in front of the rows; as that matures, the appearance of hair plugs will hopefully diminish. That said, there truly are no excuses for the unnatural, row-like placement of grafts on the right side. Especially at a price of $10/graft. 

[Melvin- Admin]

@Tentpole91

Too early to start saying things like that, at close inspection, it’s clear the grafts that have grown are multi-hair grafts, the single haired grafts have grown less. That’s why it looks bulky, but once those single haired grafts come in, you won’t see a difference. At this point, we have to be patient and wait for growth, I’m confident it will be good at 12 months.

[Tentpole91]

Hi everyone. Posting some new photos of the right side at 5 months, one week. 
 

The hair is getting thicker, but the pattern on the right side remains fairly distinctive.