Dr Bruno Ferreira - 3569 grafts - 07&08 September 2021

[nokee]

Hello everyone, I was a long time lurker here without the username but few days ago I underwent the surgery with dr. Bruno Ferreira so I decided to make a thread and hope both you fellow people and me can follow and comment on my results. I also know that dr. Ferreira doesnt have much exposure and a lot of people would love to see some more work from him and here it is !
I will try not to make this post too long and also sorry for my English and grammar in advance as it is not my native language 

So lets start with some of my history, Im a 26 year old lad having MBP since my early age (probably 18-19) and as dr. Ferreira considered I am a class 3v-4 on the Norwood-Hamilton scale with a diffuse component. But after I had my initial talks with dr. Ferreira I had started using Finasteride (06.07.2020) and havent been using it before. Basically my frontal areas have receeded a ton, mid scalp moderately and crown was left almost untouched (luckily).
So I started using Fin 1.25mg every other day and been doing it same way ever since. Fin didnt do many wonders to me, but it did keep my existing hair + improved crown and mid scalp a bit (will attach few photos).

My surgery plan

Originally dr. Ferreira suggested to do 4000-4500 grafts with a 2 day OP but he said that this might change as Finasteride could give me some boost and guess what, thats exactly what happened. When we met in person he actually decided that we dont need to touch crown and can focus more on my frontal third, mid scalp and just a refine touch on my temples as they were existing and very defined already but missed a bit of density.
 

1.st day OP

So first day of my operation was September 7.th and thats when I went to the clinic. Doctor decided we should meet a bit early to do all the preparation, hairline design etc.. so we met at 07:30 AM. I was warmly welcomed by one of his nurses and given a key to my personal room where Im going to get dressed up for the operation. After that was done I finally met dr. Ferreira and the talks have begun  . After I sat at the chair so he could examine my head a little bit better he instantly notices that my forehead is quite assimetrical (one side is a little bit in front of the other) so he drew an assimetrical hairline aswell which I really really liked, he was drawing it for solid 30 minutes, maybe even more. He really wanted to make sure the hairline fits my face and looks as natural as possible. After that doctor took measurements of my donor and the hairline and we decided we will go with 3500 grafts, we had to cover 75 cm2 and my density is going to be 45-50 grafts per cm2.
As we agreed on the hairline we proceeded to the room where all the fun begins  . First day doctor extracted and implanted 1.6k grafts, first he extracted and implanted 1k followed by a break and delicious lunch and then we proceeded to do the remaining 600 for the day.
Doctor was taking a lot of pictures in between all the breaks but I still didnt receive them so will update the thread once i do. I also dont remember the hair count but I remember my hair/graft being 2.19 for the first day because doctor took almost 400 singles for the hairline.
Worth noting i did have this one spot where i bleeded a little bit after the surgery but i was all fixed later on  . When I got home all I had to do was spray ton of saline solution every 30 minutes and my night was actually decent, I managed to sleep some.

2.nd day OP

So first day was over really fast and it was all smooth until I went to charge my phone this morning. I had a charger port right under some freakin lamp and I gently touched the lamp (didnt even shake it or anything) with my forehead but I wasnt sure if it was actually with my transplanted part. I called my GF we examined it and we still werent sure which is a good sign I guess because it didnt bleed or anything. I got really pissed as im really a perfectionist when it comes to doing things like this and I prepared so well for it but decided to remain calm. Afterwards I went to the clinic and instantly told the story to the doctor and he went to see whats up. He said that he thinks I did hit it with a upper part of my hairline (i will show it later on) but as i didnt hit it hard and i had no bleeding, follicles probably didnt die. After we went with the surgery on the break he told me that he opened a bit these damaged grafts (because they were a little bit pushed against the head but not moved) and everything will be fine. A little horror story but the spot is really not big and I think its healing very well but we shall see .
This day we went with the same tactic as the day before and it went all smooth once again. This day we extracted the remainder of the grafts and my hair/graft count was 2.6 and had actually quite a bit of 4 and 5 hair grafts. Total hair/graft count was 2.48 or something like that (really dont remember exactly, I will need to wait for photos). At the temples there was around 50 fine single hairs placed in each of them (doctor said that we cant go agressive here and this is just a fine little touch on already existing hairs)

Now the healing period starts

So the surgery part really went smooth and clean and I was very happy with the outcome. After the OP I was given very clear OP instructions and a big bag with a lot of stuff (saline solutions, aloe vera, shampoos, some medicine etc.. ). I didnt get swollen a lot because doctor also gave me some ice packs and instructed me to use them 3-4 times a day for 10 minutes.
Healing so far is going really good and at the moment i am at my second day so here are some photos.

Day 1 post OP

Day 5 post OP

I feel like I have spammed way too much but thats just my way of writing haha. Hope you guys dont mind and feel free to give me some feedback.
Also a special shoutout to our boy @Rolandas who gave me a lot of information and never hesitated to answer my questions !

 

 

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by nokee

[Rolandas]

Looks great. Gotta love the way Dr. Ferreira is building hairlines. Fine singles in the front (i see he took yours from around the ears) with very irregular pattern.

Best of luck with your healing.

[Min12]

Looks really clean and the write up was informative! 
 

just a few questions:

- How long did it take for Ferreira to give you a consultation from the point of you contacting the clinic?

- Are you going to do the crown as well?

- What punch size did Ferreira use because by looking at the images there’s seems to be different sizes used and that could affect scar size.

[nokee]

11 hours ago, Min12 said:

Looks really clean and the write up was informative! 
 

just a few questions:

- How long did it take for Ferreira to give you a consultation from the point of you contacting the clinic?

- Are you going to do the crown as well?

- What punch size did Ferreira use because by looking at the images there’s seems to be different sizes used and that could affect scar size.

Hey mate, thanks for the feedback

-I contacted clinic back in january or even earlier 2020 (cant remember exactly and lazy to find email) and i got very detailed review of my hair and my surgical plan - medical treatment for the future after a day or two, I must say out of dozen doctors that I have contacted, Dr. Ferreira answer was most detailed one and it was definitely not an automatic email but hand written by doctor himself (this is what I liked the most, he gives himself 100% to every patient)

-I do not need to do crown at the moment, it is very stable and can improve only, my crown is barely visible with longer hair, mid scalp was more of a problem, but doctor said that I have another 4-5000 grafts and i dont have to worry about the future in terms of donor capacity. I have tons of beard hair aswell.

-Punch size was probably same as the one that was used on Mr. Rolandas, i didnt ask.. I guess its 0.85? he was constantly switching back and forth between manual and automatic punch. Scar wise I think its much more important how and at what places was the hair extracted, punch size doesnt make that big of a difference, its important to not overharvest an area because of possible future transplants aswell.

Edited September 14, 2021 by nokee

[ML488]

Great review. Thanks for it. Very densely packed 3500 there. I expect your result to be awesome. 

Would you say you still had a decent forelock/frontal third of hair remaining? Bc based on how dense the implants look it looks like he may have gone in between quite a lot of your native hair which is impressive. 

Edited September 16, 2021 by ML488

[Gokuhairline]

are you still on finas ? any side effects ? and how about minox ? oral/topical ? looks good happy growing

[nokee]

On 9/17/2021 at 12:43 AM, ML488 said:

Great review. Thanks for it. Very densely packed 3500 there. I expect your result to be awesome. 

Would you say you still had a decent forelock/frontal third of hair remaining? Bc based on how dense the implants look it looks like he may have gone in between quite a lot of your native hair which is impressive. 

Hey mate thanks for the comment. I would say i still had decent forelock/frontal third (main problem was mid scalp which was quite thinning or in process of it). I will post now a picture when the scabs are almost completely gone, let me know what u think of it now

On 9/17/2021 at 1:02 AM, Gokuhairline said:

are you still on finas ? any side effects ? and how about minox ? oral/topical ? looks good happy growing

Hey mate, yes ofcourse still on Fin (1.25 mg every other day). Ive had some testicle pain for the first few days and after that all good luckily. I never tried minoxidil only because its kinda annoying to me that I have to put it on head every day and I can't stop it ever if i want it to be working, maybe I will try oral one day when theres more people sharing their experiences about it. 

 

Anyhow day 11 post OP scabs are almost completely gone and here are some pics, let me know if looks good/dense for the number of grafts I've had. What about the hairline, looks good? To me it looks really decent, especially the details (I will attach some close ups later on too). One part is making me bit nervous, its the the part right above the hairline in the middle (looks a bit thin compared to rest of the hair and its also right above the hairline) but im probably being too picky/over analyzing things just for the sake of it We all probably went through that phase hehe. Attaching some of the temporal work too (had 50~ singles placed in both sides, mostly just to shape temporal peaks a little bit) . 

Also my donor has completely healed but my GF forgot to take pics of it today so I will have it on the next update.

Edited September 19, 2021 by nokee

[Min12]

40 minutes ago, nokee said:

Hey mate thanks for the comment. I would say i still had decent forelock/frontal third (main problem was mid scalp which was quite thinning or in process of it). I will post now a picture when the scabs are almost completely gone, let me know what u think of it now

Hey mate, yes ofcourse still on Fin (1.25 mg every other day). Ive had some testicle pain for the first few days and after that all good luckily. I never tried minoxidil only because its kinda annoying to me that I have to put it on head every day and I can't stop it ever if i want it to be working, maybe I will try oral one day when theres more people sharing their experiences about it. 

 

Anyhow day 11 post OP scabs are almost completely gone and here are some pics, let me know if looks good/dense for the number of grafts I've had. What about the hairline, looks good? To me it looks really decent, especially the details (I will attach some close ups later on too). One part is making me bit nervous, its the the part right above the hairline in the middle (looks a bit thin compared to rest of the hair and its also right above the hairline) but im probably being too picky/over analyzing things just for the sake of it We all probably went through that phase hehe. Attaching some of the temporal work too (had 50~ singles placed in both sides, mostly just to shape temporal peaks a little bit) . 

Also my donor has completely healed but my GF forgot to take pics of it today so I will have it on the next update.

Wow that’s quite red, I’m guessing that’s going to stay like that for around 2 months.

[nokee]

It looks very red because of the flash light of my phone, without the flashlight it looks okayish, still red but in normal range  but my skin is usually quite sensitive so I would say my scalp is going to remain sensitive aswell, might have long period of redness but its okay with me as long as the transplant is good  

[nokee]

Hi guys, thanks for all the feedback so far.
Im doing good and I have entered the 'prepare for the shed' phase even tho I see hairs falling out regularily when washing my hair, lets see how it rolls out.
Regarding the donor zone I think I might have just a little bit of a shock-loss right under the crown, but it might also be illusion cause doctor didnt shave my crown at all so the hairs there are quite a bit longer. Anyhow I think donor is healing really well too.

So I'll leave some pics as usual, some hairline close-ups this time, let me know what you guys think. To me it looks really clean and dense, a lot of singles in the hairline. Excuse my salt-peppery hair (yes I know im 26 only) , I will probably dye it down the road to change my appearance a bit, who knows how it turns out  Feel free to ask any questions!

14 days post OP

[Gokuhairline]

nice bro....i feel you on the entered the prepare for shedding phase...happy growing

[nokee]

19 hours ago, Gokuhairline said:

nice bro....i feel you on the entered the prepare for shedding phase...happy growing

Thanks, maybe I'm one of the few lucky ones that dont shed all the hairs? We will see this week what happens haha

[Gokuhairline]

1 minute ago, nokee said:

Thanks, maybe I'm one of the few lucky ones that dont shed all the hairs? We will see this week what happens haha

hahaha imagine, I am secretly praying i'm also in that small % that doesn't shed or sheds very little and just keeps growing....how amazing would that be ? looks like were on the same day post FUE, I got mine 9/7 

[nokee]

1 Month update

So its been 1 month already and things seem to be on the right track. Unfortunately I was not the soldier of fortune and truth be told I'm glad that I'm having the shock loss cause that means im 100% on the right way. It doesnt seem that bad at all in person but im still having some shedding even tho it has slowed down significantly.
Only issue so far has been few pimples here and there at recipient area but I dont touch them and they just dissapear on their own. Also I started to have some itching on recipient aswell few days ago.
Donor is already back to what it looked before and can't wait to see what it looks like after I trim my hair. Area under the crown that seemed to be hit by the shock loss is improving a lot, its probably going to heal fully in next 1-2 months. Doctor said that its not over-harvesting 100% and that its definitely shock loss.

I have one question, seems like I have some dead/shedded hair that really stick to my scalp for some reason, even if i try to like pick them off the scalp they just wont move on. Doctor advised me to try and rub harder during shower and he said that its not really good for these hairs to stick around on the scalp and they are probably the reason for some pimples. Can i try gently rubbing my scalp with wash cloth? 



Also throwback to some of my old pictures to see how it used to look, just so we can use them as a comparison later hehe



Have a great weekend everyone!

Edited October 9, 2021 by nokee

[Gokuhairline]

look like you kept a good amount of the recepient....we had fue on the same day btw...

[nokee]

On 10/11/2021 at 5:00 AM, Gokuhairline said:

look like you kept a good amount of the recepient....we had fue on the same day btw...

Yeah, how are you doing? Is it same progress so far?

I had my first haircut today boys and I think it looks amazing, I asked barber to go with slightly bigger guard and it was 3mm, next time I will try 2.5 to see if there is any difference. My donor looks completely healed and no scarring is visible, no thin spots aswell. Havent touched top of the hair at all. Also third pic. doesnt want to rotate for some reason haha.

[Gokuhairline]

On 10/13/2021 at 10:57 AM, nokee said:

Yeah, how are you doing? Is it same progress so far?

yeah so far so good, think some growth has actually started lol

[nokee]

Hey everyone, today marks 2 MONTHS POST OP 

So far so good ; redness is almost gone, pimples are gone, hair has stopped shedding and I dont feel like I'm in the ugly duckling phase at all. Might have to do with me having a bit of my native hair already but now I cant wait to start getting growth. I have kept probably 15-20% of transplanted hairs which is fine. I dont have much to say so if you guys have some questions feel free to ask!

[Gokuhairline]

looks like you lost all the transplanted hair ? or am i not seeing right ? thats why it does not look like ugly duckling phase

[nokee]

On 11/14/2021 at 6:07 AM, Gokuhairline said:

looks like you lost all the transplanted hair ? or am i not seeing right ? thats why it does not look like ugly duckling phase

Nah I kept some, maybe 5-10% ? Maybe even less not sure..

 

I was scrolling through the thread and I have noticed that I dont really have many closeup hairline photos that could be used in future for comparison.

Here are some indoors and outdoors shots

[nokee]

Hey everyone, today marks 3 months post OP.. Not much different compared to what it looked like at 2 months in but for sure some more growth. My recipient is very itchy at times which is a good sign, hairs are poppin through the skin. I think I can say I have some early growth? You guys can say 

 . Anyways here are some pictures.

Edited December 8, 2021 by nokee

[Britanium]

Definitely showing signs of early growth 👍🏽

[SD1984]

Looks like you are right at that point where some really good growth is going to begin 

[nokee]

Hey boys ,
4 Months update here !

Got some great growth from month 3 to month 4, probably more than I expected which is great. I dont have anything really happening to my hair besides growth so not really much to say. My left side is lacking a little bit compared to right side but really at this point I have no rights to worry about it, next 2-3 months are really when the hair starts sprouting at insane rate. Let me know what you think!

[ML488]

I don't think you could ask for much more at 4 months. At this rate by 6 months you will be golden and everything after will just feel like a bonus imo