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FUE by Dr. Bisanga / 2700 grafts / Brussels, Belgium


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Hello Interweb

A little about me, I am 37 years old and started to notice hairloss at around 21. I worried a lot at the time and over the years, more than I needed to - I actually learned to hold it at bay getting very good haircuts, something which is highly underrated for early stage hairloss imo! I spent too much of my life worrying (so much so I was even looking at hairpieces when it ABSOLUTELY was not warranted, thankfully I didn’t go through with it) and wish someone had known to tell me at that time the loss I had was mostly in my head and wasn’t a big deal in the slightest. 

Then I did start to lose quite a lot of hair about 6 years ago, I was looking pretty bald when quite suddenly it reversed! It was a bit of a miracle with a lot of hair coming back, which I still don’t fully understand, however it then resumed around 2 years ago to the point where now, finally I felt like something needed to be done.

Therefore I’ve been looking at getting a HT for over 10 years on and off. As an aside, I remember in 2008 that everyone was convinced “hair-cloning” was coming any day now.. so I was always thinking oh if I can hold out for that… you know how that worked out haha. So when I see that kind of article now I can’t help but be sceptical. Anyway, I’m glad I was able to wait in the end as I feel the technique, especially FUE, has been greatly honed in this time. I was always expecting to get FUT when reading years ago, but now the donor area management with FUE are ending up looking amazing and the skills to make sure the grafts take are equally impressive - among the best surgeons that is of course. In addition I was always expecting to fly to the USA or Canada as that’s where the best doctors were back in the day - so I was really pleased when researching this time around to find that there are now some excellent choices for us Europeans. Great for easy travel in Covid times, to be able to have good service in our continent and support EU business.

I’m not going to talk much about the selection process, but I decided to go with Dr Bisanga. Him and his team were highly professional from first contact (special thanks to Ian!) and seem to have the process, communication, aftercare and most importantly results locked down.

I have posted some pre-op photos, they aren’t really that good as they were not intended for this purpose.
Something to note is that my hair is very “fluffy” - eg it doesn’t look so bad really even though there is actually very little of it there! The hair characteristics have been quite a blessing in hiding the loss over the years. 
The clinic took better pre-op photos which do show the extent of the loss, perhaps I will get them from them at some point and post them here.

Drugs-wise I took Propecia for around 6 months 2 times in my life and got side effects so stopped. I recently started again as the crown for the first time was looking a little weak - but only take 3mg per week (every other day), just before I go to bed and this has been ok in the month since I started. Dr Bisanga highly recommends oral Minoxidil which I’m considering taking also.
 
This forum has been such a great resource to me going back all those years when I would check in every now and then to see what was going on in HT world, and all the more so over the last few months when I’ve done intensive research to plan the HT that I just had done. I think it’s really great that people who have had the same life experience come together to advise and support each other. So although it’s not really my kind of thing, I just had to post a bit about my story and make a little diary here to give something back to the place that has helped me out so much - I hope that it’ll end up being a positive story..!

 

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Edited by New_Barnet_Please
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So I had a consultation with Dr Bisanga the day before the op, after which my head was shaved to be ready for the next day. I was told my donor area was good at density 85-85-80 and I have plenty available in the bank should they be needed later.
But I do have retrograde alopecia all around the nape area of the back of the neck that goes quite high up, this was an interesting case to the doctor to show that FUE “safe zones” really have to be carefully calculated for each individual patient. This meant that less grafts would be taken from this area than normal. 

If you are reading this I assume you are a fellow sufferer of hairloss and I would say one thing which was interesting to me was the shaving of my head for the process. I always thought with my face & head shape that I would be the worse possible appearance with a shaved head, so just before the proceed was the first time that I did so. And.. actually I didn’t completely hate it which was such a surprise. Don’t get me wrong if I have the ability to get a good result from FUE to replace the hairline and get a good head of hair then that is definitely my personal preference, but I looked far better than I expected. All of which is to say if you are on the fence about if you really want a HT, then don’t assume anything, why not try shaving your head down to try out a few different gradients before taking the plunge to check it out on yourself as you may be surprised.

I got 2719 grafts on 06/09/21, it took 8 hours. 
1 FU - 472 grafts
2 FU - 1389 grafts
3 FU - 827 grafts
4FU - 31 grafts

Dr Bisanga started to punch the grafts and I had a shot in the arm which is mostly a painkiller but it totally knocked me out!! I’m not sure if this is usually the case, so I can’t comment that much on the procedure as I only really came around in the final couple of hours. The result looks like Dr Bisanga's signature work and looks just as I was expecting and hoped, so now we just have the waiting game.

I might not update that often, as it’s not something I want to think about that much. I’m expecting to not look that good for up to 4 months with shedding, redness etc, and am fully prepared to be patient about it until at least the 6 month mark where hopefully the result should start to take shape - but I’ll update where I can! 
By the way I’ve just realised that I’ve never really talked about hairloss with anyone, so once I started writing I've ended up pontificating a bit haha.  Thanks for reading and hope it helps someone out there. 

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These are some pictures 2 days post procedure. Everything seems to be healing up nicely, I was provided with several sprays and balms with detailed instructions as part of the post-op care so have been getting a couple of nice days rest and carefully following the schedule. 

My hairloss has always been worse going out from my right temple and I could see the hair was weaker going back further in this area. Therefore I requested that we take the placement a bit further back into this area and the Dr obliged. I’m pleased about this as I’d like this procedure to buy me as much time as possible before I need to consider if I want to do another one - and to see if the newly started meds can stabilise what I have. 

There was minimal swelling on day 1 post-op so this is a very good time to fly back home if you need to do so, now on day 2 I have a lot of swelling in the forehead which I’ve been advised is totally normal. You maybe can’t tell from the pictures but I look a bit like some character from Star Trek due to this hah!  So when popping out for food the bandana is coming in useful.

Note that many people take pictures immediate post-op or on day 1, so it’s important to note this is day 2 if you are going to compare anything.


I saw a few stories on this forum where people scratched the new grafts in the night so I used the neck pillow to sleep and am covering my hands in a pair of socks each night to prevent this!
I have just been looking at some other stories on here and the pictures look better when just the eyes are covered, so for the next round I’ll put more effort into getting some nicer pics. Feel free to comment on this thread. 

 

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Work looks very clean and refined. Congratulations!

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1st Procedure, Oct. 2012 - 1,704 grafts FUT w/Dr. True

2nd Procedure, Sept. 2015 - 2500 grafts FUE w/Dr. Vories

 

FUE Progress - http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/180966-my-experience-w-dr-vories-2-500-grafts.html

FUE 1 year result - http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/184716-1-year-results-2-500-grafts-w-dr-vories.html

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I really like that hairline. I'm sure it'll come out great. 

They'll send you the photos they took of you soon. I recommend taking good photos every month, just as a journal for yourself. The journey is long but you'll be a new man by Spring!

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@New_Barnet_Please
Thank you for presenting such an excellent and thorough write up regarding your history and experience.
I would also agree regarding your hairline design and having seen your photos, this shapes your face incredibly well and I have no doubt will achieve quite the transformation.

I have great respect for those who decide to share their case with the community after taking so much value from other members doing so over the years and your case will be a great example of that also.

Early days but a lot to look forward to and I am excited for you in regards to the months ahead. Stay patient these initial months and you have our full support as you well know.

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Patient Advisor for Dr. Bisanga - BHR Clinic 

ian@bhrclinic.com   -    BHR YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcH4PY1OxoYFwSDKzAkZRww

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

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Great write up.

Also I couldn't agree more with what you said in your second post... For me an absolutely critical step that every bloke should take before getting a HT is to buzz their hair short to differing lengths & fades and rock the look for a few months. It suit most blokes perfectly well, is easy to maintain and will save a load of money & hassle. It also always - ALWAYS - looks better than a balding comb over job or crap wispy frontal hair with gaps etc. If after that a HT still appeals then fair enough! But it should be considered essential research in my view.

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Thanks for all the comments chaps! 

It was great when the swelling went at day 4-5, it's important to take some time off for yourself, as day 7 was the first time that I felt 100% again. Here we have day 8, the first day that it's possible to wash the graft area with the shower which I was very grateful for! I've been following the aftercare instructions religiously and the items provided seem to work really well. Still some scabbing after the wash but I've been told that this should all be gone by day 10, so not long to wait.

One thing I forgot to mention in the initial write up, the hairline is deliberately not quite symmetrical. Dr. Bisanga suggested this as it both suits my natural hair direction and apparently always looks more natural overall than if it's made to be exactly symmetrical. Also the hairline can be slightly further up as my hair should naturally fall slightly downwards, I've never had the slicked back hairstyle that is common here and I don't think it would suit my face. How the hairline ends up growing will be the most interesting part for me to see. 

Soon comes the tricky part with the dreaded shed!..

See you at 1 month.

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Edited by New_Barnet_Please
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  • 4 weeks later...
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1 month checkin here.

All going fine, the noggin obviously still doesn’t look so great at the moment but I’m working from home so  hair appearance isn’t something to think about that much and I’ve bought myself a couple of hats that I like for when out and about - got quite used to wearing them actually. 

For the pictures note that I wasn’t completely bald in the central area of the recipient area before so that’s why there’s growth there. 
I’ve added the pictures taken at the clinic to better show the pre-HT situation in the previous post.

Numbness 
Still numbness in the recipient area, bit of a weird feeling but not a big deal at all.

Redness 
Still reasonably red but this is fully expected, I’ve seen on other stories from patients this can last for months, I think so far it looks better at this stage than others I’ve seen in this respect.

Shedding
The shedding of grafts has been different to expected, as I’ve heard people talk about it and then seen the picture of a lot less hair, so I kinda thought it all just went at the same time at a certain point. Perhaps obvious to others but it’s not so dramatic, it has just gradually thinned for me over the time. Also more grafts are still hanging in there than I expected at this time.

Donor Area
Is absolutely fantastic already, FUE is truly amazing in the right hands.

Medication & Supplements
I was on Finasteride for only about a month before the HT, as I mentioned I was trying a different approach to taking it (3mg per week) to avoid previous side effects and it was fine. However I have currently decided to stop taking it because I have started 2.5mg Oral Minoxidil and I just thought I’d like to see clearly what effect that has without any other factors, which I felt comfortable doing as I’d only just started Finasteride so wouldn’t lose any gains. I don’t know if this is the right move, as taking both would have a better effect - but I would like to see what Oral Minoxidil can do on it’s own. The reason is that I’d like to avoid taking Finasteride if possible, so want to see how it goes, it’s something that’s under consideration for me so will keep pondering on it. The shaved right down crown is looking quite weak when this area was always ok until a few months before the HT, so perhaps I will end up deciding it’s best to take action with the Finasteride on this after all. 

The 2.5mg Oral Minoxidil is just a tester to see how it goes, I will up to 5mg after maybe another month, as this was the prescribed dose. Oral Minoxidil is not that frequently taken by hairloss sufferers as far as I can tell but from my research (and Dr. Bisanga’s advice) it seems like the risk is minimal and frequently over-blown in forums. When it’s used for blood pressure, patients take 10-40mg, which is substantially more than the 2.5-5mg for hair loss.

As a side-note I’ve always had big gaps on the cheeks for my beard (more hair not in the right place!), anecdotally I’ve heard that beard growth is a potential side-effect of Oral Minoxidil so it’d be fantastic if I do get some more growth there, fingers are crossed.

I’m also taking 1mg Biotin and 1000mg of MSM and probably will for the year to support hair growth.

Hair Weakness
Something I haven’t enjoyed much is seeing the mid-scalp and crown growing back from being shaved right down (the non-HT or donor area). Pre-HT the hair in these areas seemed not too bad to me, it’s only when seeing it short like this I can see it’s actually pretty thin in these areas I’ve actually just looked at the BHR clinic photos for the first time just now and it’s possible to see the weakness of the mid-scalp and crown in the wet hair photo from the top of the head. I just didn’t spend much time looking at the top of my head with wet hair pre-HT haha, so it’s been a little bit of a shock. Not much to be done, I will have to see if the medication can keep the old follicles in these areas hanging on in there. It doesn’t look bad when long anyway so hopefully not too much to worry about for a while anyway.

Anyway, onwards we go. The 1 month mark has come around quickly. See you at month 3 for more exciting pictures of my bonce! haha

 

 

 

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EDIT:

I am just realising how different hair appears under different lighting - so I want to add one more photo in full harsh daylight so anyone considering their first HT has a full idea of what 1 month could look like.

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Edited by New_Barnet_Please
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  • 2 weeks later...

@New_Barnet_Please

Thanks for the recent update. Great documentation and photos that will prove very valuable in latter months when looking back at really seeing the progress that you will have achieved.

Healing is looking good and right on track.

Looking forward to your month 3 update as you mentioned. 3 months is always a nice early milestone and always nice to reach and look ahead.

Thanks again

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Patient Advisor for Dr. Bisanga - BHR Clinic 

ian@bhrclinic.com   -    BHR YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcH4PY1OxoYFwSDKzAkZRww

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

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Great to see everything worked out so well.
We are actually fairly equal in terms of when we had our operation done at BHR, so I will be following you for sure!

Seems like a fairly good amount of hairs have stayed after the shedding (if it is done completely), which is a good sign that you will have nice growth in the months to come.

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  • 1 month later...
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Sup gents!
3 month check-in time, and it’s been an interesting time. It was a bit of a revelation that I didn’t lose all of the grafts to shedding, in the end quite a lot stayed. This sounds good but in reality the grafts don’t look like “normal hair” so with the redness this means the scalp doesn’t look so much like normal hairloss. It wasn’t a big deal to me as I just wore hats most of the time, but it’s really quite obvious that a procedure was done (for anyone bothered to look closely). 

The wait was a bit psychologically harder than expected, it’s best to put it out of mind as much as possible, then at around 2.5 months everything started looking way better. I didn’t bother to get my hair cut until 3 months, when I did it was 3 grade on the sides and back. 

Donor area
Has been incredible, you wouldn’t even know grafts had been taken from the sides, just at the back currently at a 3 grade it looks a bit thinner than before at the moment. Total none-issue which is amazing. I’m quite fortunate to have a strong donor area which is quite likely to stay this way - so having seen what can be done it feels great that I don’t really have to worry about hair loss too much going forward as there’s plenty of grafts should they be needed later - as Dr Bisanga told me when we met. 

Partly because of this I am sticking with not taking Finasteride for now and just using Oral Minoxidil, to see the results from only that medication (I had previous side effects from Finasteride). It’s a little hard to say but I think it is having a positive impact - it will be easier to measure on the crown and it is just starting to appear stronger now - I think.  

Numbness
Was strong for a fair while, but just disappeared one day around month 2.

Redness
Still visible even now but at 3 months now irrelevant as coverage is good. 

Thinness month 1 and 2
I was a bit concerned that the hair looked way thinner on top and on the crown than the sides around month 2. I think I had a bit of shock-loss on the crown as the donor area went quite close to the crown. The mid-scalp has thickened back to where it was previously now on month 3. I honestly don’t know if this is that the hair in these areas was thinner anyway and it just showed when shorter, if the Oral Minoxidil has helped a bit, or if the hair really didn’t like being shaved right down and took some time to recover from that.. anyway it’s all looking strong now at my usual hair cut length so feeling really pleased about that. 

Pictures
If I posted pics in the light of my room the result would look fantastic already, but it wouldn’t be exactly a true reflection. The reason for this is that I had some hair there before, so actually the new hair is quite thin.. but this is combining with what’s there and the new growth is acting as kind of concealer to make it look pretty damn good. So to try to show it properly I took the photos in-front of a window in harsh daylight. This helps show the thickness at the temple, which is the reality of the new hair all over. It’s just my hair characteristics have always been quite good at looking thicker than it is and this new hair blending in with the old - I’m not complaining though, really happy so far. I can see signs of what’s to come and getting a great feeling about it!

I’ll do a proper photo set at month 4 as hopefully then they’ll be more thickness and it’ll be taking shape further :0)

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On 12/9/2021 at 10:37 PM, Marco Van Basten said:

thanks for the update mate

i went to Dr Bisanga too and just under 2 months

looking forward to seeing your progress!

Awesome! I can report back from the future then that things get better haha. Hope you've got a great month of growth ahead of you! 

Edited by New_Barnet_Please
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  • 4 weeks later...
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It's that time.. 4 months. I've not actually got much to say for a change, just enjoying the growth! At this stage I genuinely could not be any happier with how it's going.

Wishing a 2022 filled with hair happiness to all! See you at 6 months.

 

** my hair is darker as I had a toner put through it.

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Edited by New_Barnet_Please
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