BHT - 610 grafts with Dr Robert Dorin

[AB2000]

Do you have any other source of body hair down the line?

[Al - Moderator]

19 hours ago, Ganderson said:

Curious to know - at any point since you started using your beard as a transplant source - have you gotten really tan? Im a dark guy who gets significantly darker in the sun (a shade of milk chocolate if you will) - do you think those little white dots on your throat would bear significant risk if you were to go in the sun a lot? What if you were more like me? It doesnt SEEM to be an issue since theyre small, faded, and in an area that is always undergoing constant shaving so its seemingly whatever - ive always been under the impression that using beard grafts (for the things you and I have discussed) is extremely low risk.

 

I vacation for a week on the beach at the end of every Summer and I've had no issues being on the beach with no shirt after using a lot of chest grafts as well as the beard grafts. I'm also at several other beaches each Summer for one to 3 days at a time. I don't think I ever get a really dark tan, though, but certainly darker than I am in the Winter. Once the Summer comes around and my grafts start growing in I'll be sure to take some pictures out in the sunlight. I will gladly volunteer to take a week vacation on the beach for this important research 😀

 

[Al - Moderator]

9 hours ago, AB2000 said:

Do you have any other source of body hair down the line?

 

We tried a small test of back hair a while ago, but the amount of good grafts the Dr was able to get for the amount of attempts was maybe 10% to 20% of useable grafts and the area was getting torn up a lot. I think the issue is that the flesh is more mushy or maybe less dense is the way to say it, so what was happening is the flesh just falls apart very easily and it was basically just disintegrating as they were pulling the grafts out. The tech showed me what was happening. She showed me a graft that looked OK on her finger, but then she rubs her other finger over it and the flesh around the hair just rubs away like water and all she had was a hair with nothing on it as if she just plucked a hair out.

I may try a test of arm hair since I seem to have a lot of that.

[Al - Moderator]

FIRST SHAVE!

Saturday, December 11. This is the first shave post HT. This is 5 days post op. I tried to shave gently, so it isn't an extremely close shave.

 

 

 

 

 

And here is a few minutes later trying to show you what it looks like in a normal situation. Oh no! I look more my age now. Those lights in that hotel room were really good to me. LOL. Or maybe these lights are just really bad... yeah that's it.

 

 

 

A couple of top pics, so you can see how the recipient looks at 5 days post op when you don't have to shave it all off for the procedure, although I know I only had a small session and it probably wouldn't be as easy to hide it as this is if it was a large session.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2021 by BeHappy

[Al - Moderator]

FIRST DAY BACK TO WORK

This is Friday December 17. This is 11 days post op. I took two weeks off (16 days). The first 5 days was for me to let my beard grow. I don't want to grow a beard at work. The redness is a bit less than it was, but it's still there. I'm hoping I can get by without anyone noticing. I'll try to hide in the office as much as I can. Luckily this is a low week at work with everyone out Christmas shopping. The top looks fine. Nobody will see anything up there. My hair is still a bit wet in those pics as I just showered and getting dressed for work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[stephcurry30]

Incredible story and I hope this procedure helps alleviate some of your troubles

[Gasthoerer]

On 12/21/2021 at 6:29 PM, BeHappy said:

 You can see all the rows of FUT scars. I count about 8 rows of them.

 

 

Wow, what a journey. Every newbie in is his early 20s should read your story. How this clinics left you with 8 FUT scars is beyond tragic. But what you have achieved is even more amazing. Wish you great growth for the latest procedure. 

[Spaceguy]

On 12/21/2021 at 6:29 PM, BeHappy said:

 

It was a different time. Shaving back then made you an outcast. Even just having 1 or 2 tattoos was frowned on. Such a big difference than how it is today.

Just for fun... Here is me at 22 years old in 1989. This is in the chair getting ready for my first hair transplant. I wish I had more and better pictures, but there was no such thing as cell phones with cameras back then and I didn't want to be in pictures looking like I did. This one is black and white because it's a photocopy of the one the clinic took. The clinic used a polaroid instant camera to take all before and after pictures.

 

By the time shaving your head started becoming acceptable in the early to mid 90's I think, I had so many scars by then that there was no way I would do it. This one is me in 1998 at 31 years old. (9 years after the first HT). You can see all the rows of FUT scars. I count about 8 rows of them.

 

You are a HT veteran.

Salute!

You still look young for your age, as some others suggested i wpuld also go for buzz haircut and SMP.

SMP will cover all FUT scars and it will blend with existing hair....i think it would rock your appearance much better than longer hair. You have a good head shape, use that!

 

[Ganderson]

1 hour ago, Spaceguy said:

You are a HT veteran.

Salute!

You still look young for your age, as some others suggested i wpuld also go for buzz haircut and SMP.

SMP will cover all FUT scars and it will blend with existing hair....i think it would rock your appearance much better than longer hair. You have a good head shape, use that!

 

Yep he definitely has options now thanks to the successful BHT’s!

[Al - Moderator]

 

I'm at 3 weeks post op now. A bit of an issue has popped up over the past few days. I'm getting a lot of little pimples that are very red. It's now more red than it was a week ago. The right side (2nd pic) is not really bad and isn't noticeable unless you are right next to me and looking for it. The left side is definitely noticeable and I find myself trying to turn away whenever someone starts getting on that side of me. It's also been very itchy. I think shaving every day is probably making it worse than it would be if I just left it alone. I have my 2 days off coming up, so if I don't have to go out anywhere important, I'll try not to shave for a couple of days and see if it starts clearing up.

 

 

 

[Al - Moderator]

On 12/23/2021 at 9:38 AM, Gasthoerer said:

Wow, what a journey. Every newbie in is his early 20s should read your story. How this clinics left you with 8 FUT scars is beyond tragic.

 I had 25 transplant surgeries in a little more than 5 years. FUT strips didn't go all the way around your head in those days because the number of grafts was small, so they would do a strip on the side of your head and then continue from the end of that to the other side on the next surgery. The 25 surgeries includes all the FUTs, 5 scalp reductions, and 147 (if I'm adding the number correctly) punch removals to attempt to eliminate space between grafts. All this while they were promising me that there would be no scars left once it was finished. They were even charging me $150 per session for a guarantee of no scars and unlimited donor.

Edited December 27, 2021 by BeHappy

[Al - Moderator]

On 12/23/2021 at 4:18 PM, Spaceguy said:

SMP will cover all FUT scars and it will blend with existing hair....i think it would rock your appearance much better than longer hair. You have a good head shape, use that!

 

Thank you. I'm thinking about it lately. here is a picture I took a few months ago of the back of my head showing some of the FUT scars to give you an idea of why I never shaved my head. This pic is a bit blurry because it's an image from the mirror. It's hard to take pics of the back of your own head.

You can see I have some bad retrograde hair loss now that I obviously didn't have years ago. Since that hair is all gone now, the transplanted hair on top is gone too which is why I had to replace almost all of the originally transplanted area with BHT plus a lot more areas around where the crown widened and dipped and the sides dropped. A lot of the BYT I did previously was to build up the sides and fill in the lower crown which was completely bald.

 

 

[tony71]

Definitely following your story. I’m almost in the same boat. Had 4 strip hair transplants in 1996 to 1999 and had 2300 grafts in the front.   I had SMP done in 2017 too. 

but looking to see if I can do FUT and maybe beard too. Not sure what doctors are good but I keep reading about HLC 

[Etownone]

Hey buddy... 

I see you went ahead with your procodure.  Hope you get good results.    And thanks for uploading all the pics...    It really helps out us that are thinking of using beard,   and how it heals.   

How's it looking now.  

[Al - Moderator]

 

I'm at 4 weeks and 1 day. The right side is almost completely cleared up except for couple of lingering pimples, but the redness is gone. This was the better healing side from the beginning.

 

Now here is the left side. This is mostly cleared up as well, but there is still a slight bit of redness and some very minor pimples. Right now I think it looks more like I had a bad shave with an old razor rather than looking like something was done. It's not bothering me at all at this point. Nobody has asked about it the entire time, but if they did I would have just passed it off as having dry winter skin and the shaving cream really drying it out when I shave.

 

 

 

[Al - Moderator]

@tony71 and @Etownone

I don't think I mentioned this anywhere, but if you have a good beard and you are only doing maybe 500 to 600 grafts, it would probably be taken from a much smaller area in the center. My first beard graft session was a much smaller area that didn't extend up the side toward my ear so much. That made it much less noticeable than this one. After getting over 2300 grafts already, we had to expand outward more to get more grafts. I knew it would be a little more noticeable while it was healing and I took an extra 2 days off from work to try to compensate a bit. I couldn't take off more than that. Anyway, I wasn't too worried about it because I knew from the previous sessions that it would most likely eventually heal extremely well, so I was OK with it. Just wanted to put that out there for you guys and anyone who is thinking about using beard grafts.

 

[Etownone]

2 hours ago, BeHappy said:

 

I'm at 4 weeks and 1 day. The right side is almost completely cleared up except for couple of lingering pimples, but the redness is gone. This was the better healing side from the beginning.

 

Now here is the left side. This is mostly cleared up as well, but there is still a slight bit of redness and some very minor pimples. Right now I think it looks more like I had a bad shave with an old razor rather than looking like something was done. It's not bothering me at all at this point. Nobody has asked about it the entire time, but if they did I would have just passed it off as having dry winter skin and the shaving cream really drying it out when I shave.

 

 

 

You healed up great.  

Cant tell over 2k grafts were extracted.   

Have you been getting a lot of ingrowns?    I heard thats happens to just about everyone getting beard fue.    When I hady consultation with Dr Dorin,   he told me about a trick people use to get help treat, and get rid of them.     Totally forgot what it was.   

 

[tony71]

4 hours ago, BeHappy said:

@tony71 and @Etownone

I don't think I mentioned this anywhere, but if you have a good beard and you are only doing maybe 500 to 600 grafts, it would probably be taken from a much smaller area in the center. My first beard graft session was a much smaller area that didn't extend up the side toward my ear so much. That made it much less noticeable than this one. After getting over 2300 grafts already, we had to expand outward more to get more grafts. I knew it would be a little more noticeable while it was healing and I took an extra 2 days off from work to try to compensate a bit. I couldn't take off more than that. Anyway, I wasn't too worried about it because I knew from the previous sessions that it would most likely eventually heal extremely well, so I was OK with it. Just wanted to put that out there for you guys and anyone who is thinking about using beard grafts.

 

 

You donor area looks good  it’s healing  must better than the last pics   

 

I will definitely need more than 600. lol
 

 

 

[Ganderson]

14 hours ago, Etownone said:

You healed up great.  

Cant tell over 2k grafts were extracted.   

Have you been getting a lot of ingrowns?    I heard thats happens to just about everyone getting beard fue.    When I hady consultation with Dr Dorin,   he told me about a trick people use to get help treat, and get rid of them.     Totally forgot what it was.   

 

I’m curious about this too - I got a small FUE done years ago and I get ingrowns from that 

[drawdownfx]

Fascinating story. Thanks for updating and I am glad you are in a better place now

[Etownone]

Hope all is good...

 

Update? 

[Melvin- Admin]

@BeHappy I wish you would try hir fibers. I really think it could be a game changer for you. 

[Al - Moderator]

On 1/5/2023 at 7:33 AM, Etownone said:

Hope all is good...

 

Update? 

 

I have my next hair transplant scheduled for March. I wanted to go much earlier, like in December, but life got in the way and I was working 6 days per week all Summer and wasn't sure when we'd get (and keep) new hires to lighten my work load, so because of it all, I wasn't able to get a chance to have a follow up consultation and decide what to do next until just a few weeks ago. I did let my beard grow a few days last month when I had a few days off to see how much hair I still had left there. I don't have time right now, but I'll come back in a day or two and post some pics.

 

[Al - Moderator]

On 1/5/2023 at 6:28 PM, Melvin- Moderator said:

@BeHappy I wish you would try hir fibers. I really think it could be a game changer for you. 

 

I have tried them at home a few times over the years and yeah my hair looks totally full, especially now that I have enough hair to use it with. I didn't have enough hair in some areas before. What a difference it makes now! However, I just can't bring myself to actually go out with it in my hair. I know me. I'd constantly worry about whether someone can tell. This is what happened to me when I had a hair system years ago. I got sick to my stomach just being around people. It was awful. I wouldn't do that to myself again.

And actually I worry more about how to explain one day being bald and the next day having a full head of hair.... and then what? Then I have to keep up the charade every day or else everyone sees me bald again. No thanks. If everyone I work with is going to know it's fake, then why bother? What's the point. I wouldn't be fooling anyone. It's like a guy you may see who wears an obviously fake hair piece and you think "OK. We all know he is bald. He may as well just get rid of it."

 

[Al - Moderator]

I think I am going to do a before and after with hair fibers and post it here just for fun though .