3,500 FUE w/ Dr. Hasson | Oct 2021 | 39M

[ManeMan]

Since I’ve been lurking these boards for a year or so I wanted to try to give back to the community and share my experience. After rescheduling three different times due to the Canadian border closing over COVID, more than a year after scheduling, I was finally able to make it to Vancouver in early October, 2021. I decided on Dr. Hasson after reading through the message boards here for a while and doing a few remote consultations. (I previously posted that I had chosen Dr. Wong mistakenly.)

From the pictures I sent in for the original consultation, Hasson planned for 4,000 grafts over two days. In the in-person consult the day before the surgery, I had a little bit of a rude awakening. Hasson said that my mid-scalp had thinned more than what he had seen in the pictures a year ago and that the sides of my would-be donor area weren’t as dense as he would have liked. He said he would maximize what I had as much as possible, but that meant trying to get to 3,500 grafts and focusing on the hairline and mid-scalp (and foregoing any temples or much crown work as well as a bit of a higher hairline than originally planned). I went in their thinking I was maybe a NW4 at worst, but he told me I was near a NW7! Shot through the heart!

This was definitely disappointing, but I’ve read on these boards that this type of thing can happen, so just tried to go with the flow and hope for the best. Honestly, any improvement would be better than what I was working with. H&W tell their patients to stop using minoxidil 6 weeks before the procedure which I did, and I really think that it caused some shedding and made my hair look a lot thinner than it did a few months before.  I asked Dr. Hasson about this in detail and he explained in his experience that Monoxidil breaks down the collagen in the skin, so it’s not as elastic, making the skin more difficult to work with during the procedure, especially for FUT. I have to trust whatever this guy says as he is such an expert in the area.

Quick hairloss history: I have always had a high hairline and widows peak, but it wasn’t until my early 30’s that I started to become concerned about the receding hairline. I put off starting finasteride as long as possible to avoid the sexual side effects but started using monoxidil about age 30. I finally decided to go on finasteride 1mg/day around age 35, which in retrospect I regret not doing sooner. I was hopeful that looking at your mothers father was the best indicator of future hairloss. Not true. My mom's father died with a full head of thick white hair at 81 while my dad has been NW7 since his early 20s. So while I didn’t have the same drastic loss as my father early on, I am definitely following his pattern. Since September 2020 I’ve been taking 1.25 mg of proscar daily and continuing to use minoxidil 2x’s a day.

The experience: I felt the overall experience was clean, friendly and efficient. I always felt like I was in good hands with the team at H&W. Dr. Hasson himself was definitely a straight shooter and like I said before was honest in his assessment and also what would be possible, which I really appreciated. I ended up getting the full 3,500 grafts in one day which was about 14.5 hours total in one day. 7am arrived at clinic, got changed, Dr. Hasson sketched out the hairline and marked up my head. I was given a valium and another relaxing pill before my head was completely shot up with novicane. I was then face down in what was almost a massage table for the next few hours during the extraction phase by a tech from Bulgaria. I was able to actually fall asleep for a while. That went on for maybe 5 or so hours. Then Dr. Hasson came in and punched all the holes in my scalp as we counted together every 100 punctures up to 35. Then a quick lunch break of Japanese food before starting the implant process. At that point it was already about 3 and I was concerned about timing given that it seemed pretty late to be starting 3,500 extractions. But there were two fresh techs that had just arrived and they made me feel confident that they could get it done effectively, just going a little late. Luckily I had become friendly with a guy in the next room who was getting the exact same number of grafts so we seemed to be tracking along at the same pace every time I got up to stretch or go to the bathroom. The next 8 hours or so were bearable. I ended up watching most of Midnight Mass and Squid Game on Netflix while two women worked on my head. Any time I felt anything at all they would shoot me up with more numbing solution. We finally finished sometime around 11:30. It was a long day. I got in an Uber and went back to the hotel and propped myself up to sleep at a 45 degree angle after taking a sleeping pill.

Final tally:

3,545 grafts:

1 follicle: 300

2 follicles: 2535

3-4 follicles: 710

Total hairs: 7,500

The next few days were alright. I went each morning to get my hair washed, then put on a cap and did a little walking around the city. Stopped by the casino to play some blackjack and then just relaxed at the hotel and watched Netflix. Vancouver is a beautiful little city and the area I stayed in had a lot of great ethnic restaurants that I ordered from during my time there. I flew back on the fifth day after the procedure. 

The swelling was a lot worse than I had thought it would be. It took about two days for it to get really noticeable to the point I looked disfigured and peaked on the third and fourth day with my eyes totally swollen. The itching in the donor area in the first two weeks was really bad too which I was unprepared for. 

Right now I’m about 2.5 weeks since the procedure and feeling pretty good about it. I’ve gone back into my office for a couple days which is pretty casual so wearing a beanie didn’t seem to raise any eyebrows and I’ll probably go in without a hat next week. I just wish the redness would go down a bit more which is the thing I notice most now that the scabs are gone.

Welcome any feedback from you all and will continue to update throughout my journey. 

Here are some pictures from the first two weeks. (And it's a lot harder to take a good picture of your own head than I realized.)

Thanks!

 

Two months before procedure with longer hair:

 

Day before the procedure with shorter hair and 6 weeks without monoxidil:

 

Immediately following procedure:

 

 

Day 3 Recipient Area

 

Day 4 donor area:

 

1 Week Post Procedure:

 

2 Weeks Post:

Edited October 25, 2021 by ManeMan
Made font size larger for ease of reading.

[Z--]

Dude, I totally feel you on the shock of discovering that you're a NW7. Never pleasant (thought I was a NW4 as well). Love your attitude and how you've handled it.

This looks incredibly clean and I like that he was a more conservative given your pattern. Hasson does great work and this looks to be no exception. Can't wait to follow this. Do you have a sense of how much donor is remaining? I'm thinking the 3,500 placed should sufficiently cover the areas above. Looks like you've got a beard; did he suggest using some BHT to cover the crown in a later session? Also, when are you planning on going back for the crown (assuming if you indeed are) -- I know his wait time is longer but curious how soon one is able to get a second session.

Cheers!

[follically challenged]

Nice work man. Win back any of that HT money, or did it make the whole process much more expensive?😂

[ManeMan]

1 hour ago, follically challenged said:

Nice work man. Win back any of that HT money, or did it make the whole process much more expensive?😂

Ha. Good question! If I knew when to call it quits when I was up I would have paid for 500 of my grafts, but of course I wanted to go bigger. Ended up leaving even at the end of the trip.

[hairlossPA]

will be following. work looks clean!

[HappyMan2021]

1) How expensive was it? 3.5k grafts with Wong seems crazy expensive. Can't believe you were originally going to do 4k! 

2) While the work does look very "clean", its interesting that the hairline looks to almost be an inverted triangle, whereas someone with zero hairloss has a hairline almost like a straight-ish line. Is this part of Dr. Wong's plan of being conservative?

3) Your text was really small so didn't read much else. 

[Mark Wolfer]

Congrats on what looks like a really well planned out and executed surgery. Looks like a really efficient use of your donor area and I think you're going to enjoy the results by around month 5.

Did you get a few grafts put into your vertex too?

[ManeMan]

4 hours ago, SadMan2021 said:

1) How expensive was it? 3.5k grafts with Wong seems crazy expensive. Can't believe you were originally going to do 4k! 

2) While the work does look very "clean", its interesting that the hairline looks to almost be an inverted triangle, whereas someone with zero hairloss has a hairline almost like a straight-ish line. Is this part of Dr. Wong's plan of being conservative?

3) Your text was really small so didn't read much else. 

I went back to the post and increased the text size so hopefully it's easier to read now. In terms of the hairline - Dr. Hasson actually traced my natural hairline which I agreed with - I've always had a pretty high widows peak even when I had a full head of hair. It does look very angular and defined right now, but as it grows out the Dr. assured me it will look more natural. And, no it wasn't cheap, but I felt that this is probably the most important investment I'll make and wanted to make sure I did right. 

[ManeMan]

22 minutes ago, Mark Wolfer said:

Congrats on what looks like a really well planned out and executed surgery. Looks like a really efficient use of your donor area and I think you're going to enjoy the results by around month 5.

Did you get a few grafts put into your vertex too?

Thank you. Already looking forward to month five! Good eye - yes I got about 500 grafts in the crown area as part of the procedure. While getting full coverage back there wasn't going to be possible, the doctor was wanted to make sure that there was a bit of coverage there so that there wasn't such a stark contrast from my mid scalp. For me that was almost "extra". Maybe I'll consider a second HT at a later date to take care of it, but right now I'm just focused on getting through this one.

[yesplease]

21 hours ago, ManeMan said:

Since I’ve been lurking these boards for a year or so I wanted to try to give back to the community and share my experience. After rescheduling three different times due to the Canadian border closing over COVID, more than a year after scheduling, I was finally able to make it to Vancouver in early October, 2021. I decided on Dr. Hasson after reading through the message boards here for a while and doing a few remote consultations. (I previously posted that I had chosen Dr. Wong mistakenly.)

From the pictures I sent in for the original consultation, Hasson planned for 4,000 grafts over two days. In the in-person consult the day before the surgery, I had a little bit of a rude awakening. Hasson said that my mid-scalp had thinned more than what he had seen in the pictures a year ago and that the sides of my would-be donor area weren’t as dense as he would have liked. He said he would maximize what I had as much as possible, but that meant trying to get to 3,500 grafts and focusing on the hairline and mid-scalp (and foregoing any temples or much crown work as well as a bit of a higher hairline than originally planned). I went in their thinking I was maybe a NW4 at worst, but he told me I was near a NW7! Shot through the heart!

This was definitely disappointing, but I’ve read on these boards that this type of thing can happen, so just tried to go with the flow and hope for the best. Honestly, any improvement would be better than what I was working with. H&W tell their patients to stop using minoxidil 6 weeks before the procedure which I did, and I really think that it caused some shedding and made my hair look a lot thinner than it did a few months before.  I asked Dr. Hasson about this in detail and he explained in his experience that Monoxidil breaks down the collagen in the skin, so it’s not as elastic, making the skin more difficult to work with during the procedure, especially for FUT. I have to trust whatever this guy says as he is such an expert in the area.

Quick hairloss history: I have always had a high hairline and widows peak, but it wasn’t until my early 30’s that I started to become concerned about the receding hairline. I put off starting finasteride as long as possible to avoid the sexual side effects but started using monoxidil about age 30. I finally decided to go on finasteride 1mg/day around age 35, which in retrospect I regret not doing sooner. I was hopeful that looking at your mothers father was the best indicator of future hairloss. Not true. My mom's father died with a full head of thick white hair at 81 while my dad has been NW7 since his early 20s. So while I didn’t have the same drastic loss as my father early on, I am definitely following his pattern. Since September 2020 I’ve been taking 1.25 mg of proscar daily and continuing to use minoxidil 2x’s a day.

The experience: I felt the overall experience was clean, friendly and efficient. I always felt like I was in good hands with the team at H&W. Dr. Hasson himself was definitely a straight shooter and like I said before was honest in his assessment and also what would be possible, which I really appreciated. I ended up getting the full 3,500 grafts in one day which was about 14.5 hours total in one day. 7am arrived at clinic, got changed, Dr. Hasson sketched out the hairline and marked up my head. I was given a valium and another relaxing pill before my head was completely shot up with novicane. I was then face down in what was almost a massage table for the next few hours during the extraction phase by a tech from Bulgaria. I was able to actually fall asleep for a while. That went on for maybe 5 or so hours. Then Dr. Hasson came in and punched all the holes in my scalp as we counted together every 100 punctures up to 35. Then a quick lunch break of Japanese food before starting the implant process. At that point it was already about 3 and I was concerned about timing given that it seemed pretty late to be starting 3,500 extractions. But there were two fresh techs that had just arrived and they made me feel confident that they could get it done effectively, just going a little late. Luckily I had become friendly with a guy in the next room who was getting the exact same number of grafts so we seemed to be tracking along at the same pace every time I got up to stretch or go to the bathroom. The next 8 hours or so were bearable. I ended up watching most of Midnight Mass and Squid Game on Netflix while two women worked on my head. Any time I felt anything at all they would shoot me up with more numbing solution. We finally finished sometime around 11:30. It was a long day. I got in an Uber and went back to the hotel and propped myself up to sleep at a 45 degree angle after taking a sleeping pill.

Final tally:

3,545 grafts:

1 follicle: 300

2 follicles: 2535

3-4 follicles: 710

Total hairs: 7,500

The next few days were alright. I went each morning to get my hair washed, then put on a cap and did a little walking around the city. Stopped by the casino to play some blackjack and then just relaxed at the hotel and watched Netflix. Vancouver is a beautiful little city and the area I stayed in had a lot of great ethnic restaurants that I ordered from during my time there. I flew back on the fifth day after the procedure. 

The swelling was a lot worse than I had thought it would be. It took about two days for it to get really noticeable to the point I looked disfigured and peaked on the third and fourth day with my eyes totally swollen. The itching in the donor area in the first two weeks was really bad too which I was unprepared for. 

Right now I’m about 2.5 weeks since the procedure and feeling pretty good about it. I’ve gone back into my office for a couple days which is pretty casual so wearing a beanie didn’t seem to raise any eyebrows and I’ll probably go in without a hat next week. I just wish the redness would go down a bit more which is the thing I notice most now that the scabs are gone.

Welcome any feedback from you all and will continue to update throughout my journey. 

Here are some pictures from the first two weeks. (And it's a lot harder to take a good picture of your own head than I realized.)

Thanks!

 

Two months before procedure with longer hair:

 

Day before the procedure with shorter hair and 6 weeks without monoxidil:

 

Immediately following procedure:

 

 

Day 3 Recipient Area

 

Day 4 donor area:

 

1 Week Post Procedure:

 

2 Weeks Post:

Work looks good! Now just the waiting game. 
 

Given your emerging advanced NW pattern, was any thought given to starting with FUT in order to maximize donor capacity and have more grafts to tackle the  mid scalp and crown down the road? 
 

also, I saw that you said your MPB accelerated in your early 30s, but missed your current age?

 

 

[Style22]

I was in same boat as you after my FUE! Came out full blown NW 6 afterwards. 

[SprayPaint]

Good luck. Be patient. Work looks great. Hasson does amazing work. 

[Melvin- Admin]

Looking great looking forward to your progress 👏🏼

[Mark Wolfer]

How are things going OP?

[ManeMan]

TBH it's looking pretty bad to me right now. I'm 4 weeks out from the procedure and still have quite a bit of redness that's pretty visible and now with the shedding it is extremely sparse and very patchy with areas where there is no hair at all. I try not to look at it too much in the mirror (and when I do it's with low light) and have been going to work wearing a beanie the last couple of weeks. I'm really hoping this is normal, and it seems like it probably is from the other posts on here, but it's still stressful wondering if I did something wrong or if this is going to ever look like I had imagined going into the process. Hopefully you can give me some words of encouragement. @Mark Wolfer @Melvin- Moderator

[JDEE0]

7 minutes ago, ManeMan said:

TBH it's looking pretty bad to me right now. I'm 4 weeks out from the procedure and still have quite a bit of redness that's pretty visible and now with the shedding it is extremely sparse and very patchy with areas where there is no hair at all. I try not to look at it too much in the mirror (and when I do it's with low light) and have been going to work wearing a beanie the last couple of weeks. I'm really hoping this is normal, and it seems like it probably is from the other posts on here, but it's still stressful wondering if I did something wrong or if this is going to ever look like I had imagined going into the process. Hopefully you can give me some words of encouragement. @Mark Wolfer @Melvin- Moderator

It's absolutely par for the course, don't worry. Expect more implanted hair to shed over the coming weeks, It should begin to show signs of growing back at month 3-4 with noticeable improvements in growth starting at this point. The redness might last for 3+ months also, so that's normal too.

4 weeks is nothing, think more like 4 months before things begin to noticeably improve. 

[Otar Norwood]

This is very normal for your stage.

On 11/11/2021 at 7:30 AM, Mark Wolfer said:

Hasson's staff recommended putting jojoba oil on to keep the skin from getting irritated and it may help slightly with the pinkness.

How soon after surgery did they say you could start this?

[ManeMan]

Thanks. I wasn't told to use jojoba oil. I didn't see it mentioned in any of the post-care instructions. Now that I'm 7 weeks out, it seems like it's getting a bit better. I'll share some more update pics soon. Thanks for all the support, guys!

[ManeMan]

Week seven update. Just from looking in the mirror I things were starting to look better but outside in natural light I can see there’s still a ways to go. Doesn’t seem like it’s changed much in the last three weeks. Looks like my original hair still growing in the area has come back so now waiting on the transplanted follicles. I have been getting a lot of pimples, especially in the donor area. I’ve been washing with Neutrogena T-Sal every day but guess I just have oily skin. 

[SprayPaint]

Hey man, seriously, don’t panic. My scalp was red for almost 6 months and my hair turned out awesome. 
it’s totally normal. 
Don’t go putting a lot of sh&t on your scalp while in the healing / regrowth process. Keep it organic and natural and just let it be. You’ll be fine. Just give it time and be patient. Get a good ski cap, wear it and forget about your hair until summer 

good luck! 

[ManeMan]

Quick photo update at 11 weeks. A bit more of the hair I had prior to the surgery seems to have grown in. The redness is definitely going down compared to pictures from previous weeks. Still waiting for the new growth to come in. I’m really struggling with acne with lots of white heads and black heads everywhere some of which are also quite painful. I’ve been washing with T-Sal everyday and using differin acne topical gel a little but neither seem to be helping that much. Continuing to wear hats as much as possible.

[Gatsby]

Don't worry. You are not even at three months. Give it time to start growing. 👍

[Scream]

How painful were the anesthetic injections with Dr. Hasson?? 

[Melvin- Admin]

The pimples are a good sign that growth is happening underneath the skin. 

[Melvin- Admin]

Update?