Is this a failed transplant? 8 months post-op 2,700 grafts done at HLC.

[HappyMan2021]

1 minute ago, bloodhound said:

One did the extraction, and the other did the implementation. I don’t know either, someone had the exact same thing happen to them i’m seeing. I’m going to take someone’s advice here and see a dermatologist for an answer 

yea good call. just sucks but no one can 100% predict how a hair transplant will go. HCI does seem well rated, and every clinic is going to have bad cases no matter where you go. 

I would be nervous about going there again. Say HCI and the whole staff there did their "best" work and truly did put an A+ effort into your HT, and this happened. Whose to say the 2nd attempt is going to be better?

At the same time though, maybe this was just a one-off freak fluke. 

[Berba11]

18 minutes ago, bloodhound said:

Hey, appreciate the reply but you can’t decide what is or isn’t life or death for me. I was counting on this to work out the first time heavily, I knew it wasn’t impossible for it to fail.. but I hadn’t seen a fail from them up to the point I got the procedure done. 

I don’t know how many grafts it’ll take to fill in, it might be a big chuck of my donor, but if it didn’t work the first time why would it work now. Beyond frustrating this is a nightmare

I’m not “deciding” anything. It’s a couple of hundred grafts that haven’t taken. You’re not going to die as a result & although you’re disappointed, this is nothing to agonise over to point of invoking “death”. That’s the objective reality.

You’re already in a far superior position than you were before the surgery. You haven’t been butchered, over harvested, developed an infection, had a bad HT design, wrong grafts used or developed necrosis or all of the genuinely nightmarish outcomes that can happen as a result of a HT gone bad. It’s only going to be a very small touch up required to bring this result up to a very excellent one. 
 

I fully appreciate the frustration, but being overly dramatic (“life or death”) is neither helpful nor healthy. If you’d have come to this forum prior to getting a HT and said that you considered a HT to be a matter of life or death, most people would rightly see that as a massive red flag. 
 

Your next steps should be to maintain a dialogue with HLC with a view to a small touch up to the area of concern. Everything will almost certainly resolve just fine, albeit things may take a bit longer than you hoped. Please don’t panic or get in a funk about it. 
 

[EvansLawrence]

This is very unfortunate. I have had a very similar problem. Do you have pics of your donnor SHAVED?

my doctors were Cengiz and Umut. And my bad side is the one Umut did. 

I dont see AT ALL the high density this clinic claims to work with. It is such a big dissapointment for me and, if I were you, I wouldnt go to a free repair there. Just ask for your money back and go to a good clinic.

[bloodhound]

13 minutes ago, SadMan2021 said:

yea good call. just sucks but no one can 100% predict how a hair transplant will go. HCI does seem well rated, and every clinic is going to have bad cases no matter where you go. 

I would be nervous about going there again. Say HCI and the whole staff there did their "best" work and truly did put an A+ effort into your HT, and this happened. Whose to say the 2nd attempt is going to be better?

At the same time though, maybe this was just a one-off freak fluke. 

Yea I was thinking the same thing, why go there again if it’s there fault. But I don’t know how to determine if it’s their fault or if I’m just an unlucky case—If I am then how could anyone help me. 

[HappyMan2021]

5 minutes ago, EvansLawrence said:

This is very unfortunate. I have had a very similar problem. Do you have pics of your donnor SHAVED?

my doctors were Cengiz and Umut. And my bad side is the one Umut did. 

I dont see AT ALL the high density this clinic claims to work with. It is such a big dissapointment for me and, if I were you, I wouldnt go to a free repair there. Just ask for your money back and go to a good clinic.

im curious, were you able to get your money back from HCL? I agree OP should ask this before going for a free repair at the same place

[EvansLawrence]

Just now, bloodhound said:

Yea I was thinking the same thing, why go there again if it’s there fault. But I don’t know how to determine if it’s their fault or if I’m just an unlucky case—If I am then how could anyone help me. 

You need to ask yourself if you did all the things they told you for the post operator. If you did then its their fault.

[EvansLawrence]

Just now, SadMan2021 said:

im curious, were you able to get your money back from HCL? I agree OP should ask this before going for a free repair at the same place

I didnt. They are such a joke of clinic they didnt even reply my email although they replied inmediately to a video I did with a friend who is a youtuber and speaks about clinics all around the world, cause we said on the video that we wouldnt recommend it anymore although we never said it was a bad clinic.

[HappyMan2021]

1 minute ago, bloodhound said:

Yea I was thinking the same thing, why go there again if it’s there fault. But I don’t know how to determine if it’s their fault or if I’m just an unlucky case—If I am then how could anyone help me. 

you honestly may never know exactly what wrong. Regardless of clinic or doctor, even if the doc is ethical, the operating surgeon is never going to admit if they f*cked up or not. They are running a for-profit business at the end of the day. 

Regardless of who you go to for your follow-up touch up, there is an element of faith you will have to put into the next surgery. 

[HappyMan2021]

Just now, EvansLawrence said:

I didnt. They are such a joke of clinic they didnt even reply my email although they replied inmediately to a video I did with a friend who is a youtuber and speaks about clinics all around the world, cause we said on the video that we wouldnt recommend it anymore although we never said it was a bad clinic.

sucks but yea thats to be expected it seems. Every clinic seems to offer a free repair, but I've yet to find a clinic that will refund money. Which sucks, because the patient feels roped into going to the same clinic they got unsatisfactory results from in the 1st place. 

Its a broken system and I wish it became industry standard to offer refunds in lieu of a repair surgery, if its clear the surgery did not give its intended results. 

[EvansLawrence]

1 minute ago, SadMan2021 said:

sucks but yea thats to be expected it seems. Every clinic seems to offer a free repair, but I've yet to find a clinic that will refund money. Which sucks, because the patient feels roped into going to the same clinic they got unsatisfactory results from in the 1st place. 

Its a broken system and I wish it became industry standard to offer refunds in lieu of a repair surgery, if its clear the surgery did not give its intended results. 

Then dont hesitate in publishing your case and make all the reviews they deserve in every plataform you can. 

[bloodhound]

9 minutes ago, Berba11 said:

I’m not “deciding” anything. It’s a couple of hundred grafts that haven’t taken. You’re not going to die as a result & although you’re disappointed, this is nothing to agonise over to point of invoking “death”. That’s the objective reality.

You’re already in a far superior position than you were before the surgery. You haven’t been butchered, over harvested, developed an infection, had a bad HT design, wrong grafts used or developed necrosis or all of the genuinely nightmarish outcomes that can happen as a result of a HT gone bad. It’s only going to be a very small touch up required to bring this result up to a very excellent one. 
 

I fully appreciate the frustration, but being overly dramatic (“life or death”) is neither helpful nor healthy. If you’d have come to this forum prior to getting a HT and said that you considered a HT to be a matter of life or death, most people would rightly see that as a massive red flag. 
 

Your next steps should be to maintain a dialogue with HLC with a view to a small touch up to the area of concern. Everything will almost certainly resolve just fine, albeit things may take a bit longer than you hoped. Please don’t panic or get in a funk about it. 
 

It’s your opinion that it doesn’t warrant death, that’s not objective. If I can’t get my hair to look normal by the time I need to be normal I can’t go on. I’m not hyperbolizing, so believe it instead of making claims about how I feel or what the circumstances are, it feels condescending.

I haven’t determined if it’s the clinics fault or not yet, until then I don’t know If I’ll go there for a touch up 

[bloodhound]

9 minutes ago, EvansLawrence said:

You need to ask yourself if you did all the things they told you for the post operator. If you did then its their fault.

I did, but so did others. Why did it work for them and not us?

[EvansLawrence]

2 minutes ago, bloodhound said:

I did, but so did others. Why did it work for them and not us?

I have no idea. Maybe some doctor is worse than others. Maybe when they have a bad day they operate worse. Who knows. But if you did all the things they told you to do after, as I did in my case, then its their fault. And they should compensate you.

[bloodhound]

10 minutes ago, SadMan2021 said:

you honestly may never know exactly what wrong. Regardless of clinic or doctor, even if the doc is ethical, the operating surgeon is never going to admit if they f*cked up or not. They are running a for-profit business at the end of the day. 

Regardless of who you go to for your follow-up touch up, there is an element of faith you will have to put into the next surgery. 

This is absolutely true, all you have to go off of Is other people’s experiences and make your judgement based on that along with a few other factors

[HappyMan2021]

3 minutes ago, bloodhound said:

It’s your opinion that it doesn’t warrant death, that’s not objective. If I can’t get my hair to look normal by the time I need to be normal I can’t go on. I’m not hyperbolizing, so believe it instead of making claims about how I feel or what the circumstances are, it feels condescending.

I haven’t determined if it’s the clinics fault or not yet, until then I don’t know If I’ll go there for a touch up 

OP I for one totally understand what you're going through. 

Perhaps the person nitpicking on your "life or death" quote has never has a bad HT, or perhaps they've never even had any HT. Or they cant understand that it is not 100% literally life or death...

A HT is so much $, you have to schedule your life around the surgery, extreme stres and anxiety of the waiting period, just to get a bad result. And then needing a repair surgery that is no guarantee. 

And its not like you did anything wrong. There are exceptions of course but HCI does in general seem to be a good clinic. 

Its a massively stressful experience and you have every right to be upset. 

[bloodhound]

11 minutes ago, EvansLawrence said:

I didnt. They are such a joke of clinic they didnt even reply my email although they replied inmediately to a video I did with a friend who is a youtuber and speaks about clinics all around the world, cause we said on the video that we wouldnt recommend it anymore although we never said it was a bad clinic.

Have you found a clinic that you think will give you a repair job? If you feel like it’s the clinic’s fault then I don’t think you’d want to go back there even if the repair is free (monetarily speaking, since you’re still spending your donor hairs).

[bloodhound]

1 minute ago, SadMan2021 said:

OP I for one totally understand what you're going through. 

Perhaps the person nitpicking on your "life or death" quote has never has a bad HT, or perhaps they've never even had any HT. Or they cant understand that it is not 100% literally life or death...

A HT is so much $, you have to schedule your life around the surgery, extreme stres and anxiety of the waiting period, just to get a bad result. And then needing a repair surgery that is no guarantee. 

And its not like you did anything wrong. There are exceptions of course but HCI does in general seem to be a good clinic. 

Its a massively stressful experience and you have every right to be upset. 

Thank you friend. I started balding at 17 and it caused me to be a shut-in. Anytime I would go out I needed a hat or beanie and I’d be in fear of it flying off, It stole my life from me. I thought the nightmare would finally end with this transplant. Now I have to spend more money and more grafts that I can’t use in the future.

You hit the nail in the head calling it a stressful process. I’m glad there is someone that understands. Did you say you had a transplant fail as well?

[bloodhound]

12 minutes ago, EvansLawrence said:

I have no idea. Maybe some doctor is worse than others. Maybe when they have a bad day they operate worse. Who knows. But if you did all the things they told you to do after, as I did in my case, then its their fault. And they should compensate you.

I agree that’s how it should work. I’m just devastated, probably like how you are. We literally have the same problem it’s bizarre 

[HappyMan2021]

3 minutes ago, bloodhound said:

You hit the nail in the head calling it a stressful process. I’m glad there is someone that understands. Did you say you had a transplant fail as well?

for my 1st hair transplant, the doc really undercounted the # of grafts needed, and there was significant part of my scalp left unfilled. I was quoted 1200 grafts and really needed 2000 or so. 

The grafts that were planted grew in fine but still a failure bc I was sentenced to needing a 2nd surgery. Super frustrating bc the doc knew 100% during surgery it wouldn't look good. But instead of adding more grafts then and there she decided to leave me hanging. 

[bloodhound]

2 minutes ago, SadMan2021 said:

for my 1st hair transplant, the doc really undercounted the # of grafts needed, and there was significant part of my scalp left unfilled. I was quoted 1200 grafts and really needed 2000 or so. 

The grafts that were planted grew in fine but still a failure bc I was sentenced to needing a 2nd surgery. Super frustrating bc the doc knew 100% during surgery it wouldn't look good. But instead of adding more grafts then and there she decided to leave me hanging. 

Did she make you pay for the 2nd procedure assuming you went to the same doctor? 

[Berba11]

6 minutes ago, bloodhound said:

It’s your opinion that it doesn’t warrant death, that’s not objective. If I can’t get my hair to look normal by the time I need to be normal I can’t go on. I’m not hyperbolizing, so believe it instead of making claims about how I feel or what the circumstances are, it feels condescending.

I haven’t determined if it’s the clinics fault or not yet, until then I don’t know If I’ll go there for a touch up 

Some opinions are more correct than others… In any case, you’re reading what you want instead of what I said. I said the scale of the problem is objectively small. You require a very small touch up to bring this result up to the level you desire. It’s not far off as it stands. You’re in a better place, aesthetically, than before. Those are the *good news* facts of the matter. 
 

I apologise if I sounded condescending. That wasn’t my intention. If I’d been saying what you’re saying, I’d very much hope someone would come along and give me a good slap (virtually or otherwise!) and a shake. I’m just trying to get you to think about this more rationally & calmly in the same way that I would want someone to do to me.

If you’re seriously suggesting that you might take your own life because of a small patch of hair that hasn’t grown in, I really don’t know what to say other than to urgently recommend seeking professional help. Please don't do anything silly. You won’t find anyone else on earth (certainly no one actually worth listening to) that thinks or wants you to end things - certainly not over this. I don’t know your life or your circumstances beyond your hair, but this is a super supportive & welcoming community here. We all want you to be doing well and care that you’re ok (regardless of your hair). Im sure there’s many more people in your life that would agree, even if it doesn’t always feels like it. 
 

Please stick around on here and let the members help you through the journey - the hair side of things at the very least. 

[HappyMan2021]

8 minutes ago, bloodhound said:

Did she make you pay for the 2nd procedure assuming you went to the same doctor? 

no it was a free repair job. While the result was....better...it was still lacking density. The doctor just sucked. For my 3rd HT I went to a doc who actually specialized in hair transplants and he finally gave me great density. 

So I learned the hard way that, if a doctor does their very best A+ effort the 1st time and its a sh*t result, chances are the 2nd go around will be bad as well. 

My situation was a bit different from yours tho in that my 1st operating doc was a complete and utter rando who just does HT's on the side, apart from her main medical specialty. Whereas in your case, your surgery was done somewhere that actually has good reviews. 

So perhaps HCI did just have a fluke or something. Not sure. 

[Berba11]

23 minutes ago, SadMan2021 said:

OP I for one totally understand what you're going through. 

Perhaps the person nitpicking on your "life or death" quote has never has a bad HT, or perhaps they've never even had any HT. Or they cant understand that it is not 100% literally life or death...

A HT is so much $, you have to schedule your life around the surgery, extreme stres and anxiety of the waiting period, just to get a bad result. And then needing a repair surgery that is no guarantee. 

And its not like you did anything wrong. There are exceptions of course but HCI does in general seem to be a good clinic. 

Its a massively stressful experience and you have every right to be upset. 

For the record, I had my first HT exactly three weeks ago. I fully understand the anxieties & concerns that arise - I’ve been documenting my own journey which includes initial concerns (since subsided). So I get it fully. I believe I’m also older than the OP and my own hairloss is more extensive. 
 

I wasn’t “nitpicking”. What the OP said is extremely serious and I’m the only one who has mentioned it in the replies up until this point. There’s obviously an enormous chasm between the seriousness of that statement and the seriousness of the HT issue (which is a bit of very minor corrective work in all probability). 
 

I don’t think trying to impart some perspective upon the situation is “nitpicking” at all here. 
 

You’re dead right about everything else in terms of feeling upset & it being outside of the OP’s control etc…

[bloodhound]

15 minutes ago, SadMan2021 said:

no it was a free repair job. While the result was....better...it was still lacking density. The doctor just sucked. For my 3rd HT I went to a doc who actually specialized in hair transplants and he finally gave me great density. 

So I learned the hard way that, if a doctor does their very best A+ effort the 1st time and its a sh*t result, chances are the 2nd go around will be bad as well. 

My situation was a bit different from yours tho in that my 1st operating doc was a complete and utter rando who just does HT's on the side, apart from her main medical specialty. Whereas in your case, your surgery was done somewhere that actually has good reviews. 

So perhaps HCI did just have a fluke or something. Not sure. 

It wasn’t completely in vain, I learn form your story. Probably won’t go back there if I’m truly screwed. You don’t have to—but could I get the name of the doctor you decided on, you can PM me if that’s better for you.  I want to know what good options are based on other people’s experiences 

[EvansLawrence]

Man upload if you may oficial pics of the clinic so we can prove that it was done there. I trust you. But just to make it official. I know a friend that could share this case.