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Need advise for a Norwood 6


tony71

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Hi Guys,

I have been a long time observer and I’m been doing my research but I need advise if it’s even worth pursuing hair transplant.  After see some results on this forum it was encouraging and so here is my story.

 

i started losing my hair in my 20s by mid nineties I had 4 strip transplants with 2300 grafts but crap results. You can see the scars but when I grow my hair long I can hide it. The pics below are after growing my hair for 60 days which is not enough time. 
 

The HT were all done between 1996 to 1999. I didn’t get the results the so called surgeon “promised “ so  By 2001 I decided to get a system and it was great, but I got tired of it and by 2017 I decided to get SMP and I felt like I was free but that didn’t last long.   So the last year or so it’s been on and off about getting the FUE.

At first it seemed HLC was the top choice , then Bicer but now seeing the results for Eugenix, Dr Zarev and Dr Mwamba it seems these 3 are the choices for someone with NW6 and fine hair with thin donor area??  

in 2006 I did see a doctor and he said he can do 1800 to 2000 for front and top which would give me 30cm2 to 40cm2 coverage but the crown area I would have to use my beard.  

I took these pics tonight after letting my hair grow for 60 days.  Usually my hair when it’s long in the back it gives an illusion of being full but when it’s wet it’s not.

I do have thick beard which I have posted as well not sure how much that can help.  
 

Any feedback appreciated!

Thanks

 

 

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If you were to go forward with surgery then in your case (very similar to mine) you would be relying heavily on beard grafts n high numbers mixed with scalp grafts. And to me that means Eugenix. I would have a consultation with them and get their opinion. Others will chime in with better ideas. All the best!

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1 minute ago, Gatsby said:

If you were to go forward with surgery then in your case (very similar to mine) you would be relying heavily on beard grafts n high numbers mixed with scalp grafts. And to me that means Eugenix. I would have a consultation with them and get their opinion. Others will chime in with better ideas. All the best!

Thank you. It seems all signs are leading to Eugenix.   

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Agreed with @Gatsbyhere, I think Eugenix is the best chance you have. But it’s going to be tough even with as many beard grafts as they can get. Personally I just don’t think your a viable candidate. From what has already been taken and the thinning already evident I just can’t see it being possible. Your beard is ok but you would need some scalp hair at least. Be interesting to hear what the clinics you have mentioned say during consultation. 

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1 minute ago, JC71 said:

Agreed with @Gatsbyhere, I think Eugenix is the best chance you have. But it’s going to be tough even with as many beard grafts as they can get. Personally I just don’t think your a viable candidate. From what has already been taken and the thinning already evident I just can’t see it being possible. Your beard is ok but you would need some scalp hair at least. Be interesting to hear what the clinics you have mentioned say during consultation. 

Will update when I have the consultation s.  Worse case I will just shave it and get more SMP.    The last time I had my hair long was 20 years ago , when I got the system they shaved the front and top and kept the side and back.   When I grow it long I think it looks much better than having it short which then is obvious. 

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I was a Norwood VI as well but with good donor areas.  I agree that the beard hair would most likely be harvested but your donor looks really thin.  Get some more consultations (including virtual consultations) and please let us know what they say.  I hope someone can set up a viable plan but we all learn from everyone.  Thanks for sharing your story. 

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I am (was sort of) a Norwood 6 and been bald since 19 and just had second procedure in 7 months and now had a total of around 6000/6200 scalp grafts, one thing with all the videos and research I have seen for a while is that with the diffused thinning all over your donor area you would more than likely be told your not a good candidate for FUE, but I have seen mega results when certain places have took just tons on tons of body hair including the beard and gave a very dense head full of hair, I have never personally looked into the body hair stuff so don't know tons about it, but knowing how body hair is vs the beard or scalp hair I am guessing it won't grow as long? but its an option if you wanted to get density and not be to fussed about having really long hair?

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1 hour ago, Stewie said:

I am (was sort of) a Norwood 6 and been bald since 19 and just had second procedure in 7 months and now had a total of around 6000/6200 scalp grafts, one thing with all the videos and research I have seen for a while is that with the diffused thinning all over your donor area you would more than likely be told your not a good candidate for FUE, but I have seen mega results when certain places have took just tons on tons of body hair including the beard and gave a very dense head full of hair, I have never personally looked into the body hair stuff so don't know tons about it, but knowing how body hair is vs the beard or scalp hair I am guessing it won't grow as long? but its an option if you wanted to get density and not be to fussed about having really long hair?

I’m not looking to have long hair just enough to style.  I don’t mind short hair. I figured the beard or body hair would be the fillers in between.  I need to take better pics and send to Eugenix. Thanks!

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To be honest, I don’t see much donor hair. You could get beard hair, but you’ll have to keep your expectations realistic. What are you expecting?


I’m a paid admin for Hair Transplant Network. I do not receive any compensation from any clinic. My comments are not medical advice.

Check out my final hair transplant and topical dutasteride journey

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Melvin- Managing Publisher and Forum Moderator for the Hair Transplant Network, the Coalition Hair Loss Learning Center, and the Hair Loss Q&A Blog.

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28 minutes ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

To be honest, I don’t see much donor hair. You could get beard hair, but you’ll have to keep your expectations realistic. What are you expecting?

I know I should keep my expectations realistic. But not sure what the doctors can do?  Is it even worth it?  I do have lots of chest hair and when I grow the hair in the back long it gives that illusion it’s full in the donor area.  
 

Last time I checked with Dr True which was in 2006 when my hair was long in the back due to wearing a system , he said I can get 30cm2 to 40cm2 coverage for front with the hair from The sides and partial back, but the crown I would need beard hair. 
 

i have sent pics to HLC, Euginex and Dr Mwamba since he does chest hair too. Will keep everyone posted. 

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28 minutes ago, tony71 said:

I know I should keep my expectations realistic. But not sure what the doctors can do?  Is it even worth it?  I do have lots of chest hair and when I grow the hair in the back long it gives that illusion it’s full in the donor area.  
 

Last time I checked with Dr True which was in 2006 when my hair was long in the back due to wearing a system , he said I can get 30cm2 to 40cm2 coverage for front with the hair from The sides and partial back, but the crown I would need beard hair. 
 

i have sent pics to HLC, Euginex and Dr Mwamba since he does chest hair too. Will keep everyone posted. 

I’m gonna tag @BeHappy he’s almost identical and he’s had a lot of BHT. Maybe he’d be willing to share his results with you. 


I’m a paid admin for Hair Transplant Network. I do not receive any compensation from any clinic. My comments are not medical advice.

Check out my final hair transplant and topical dutasteride journey

View my thread

Topical dutasteride journey 

Melvin- Managing Publisher and Forum Moderator for the Hair Transplant Network, the Coalition Hair Loss Learning Center, and the Hair Loss Q&A Blog.

Follow our Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and YouTube.

 

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Wow. This has to be the most severe situation ive ever seen!  However there can be a few extractions made for the hairline! The other parts must be taken from your beard and chest area. I can only see Eugenix doing that for you, and we are all here to help and give you the information you need 

THERE IS HOPE! 

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I got an evaluation from Euginex 

they can do 2000 grafts. 1000 from scalp and 1000 from graft. 

They also want me to take Finasteride. I’m 50 years old so I prefer not to take it. I believe any hair I had I have lost by now. 

    
“Marked Area will require 2000 grafts for reconstruction of hairline, corners, and rest of the frontal scalp with a natural looking hairline and density filling, with coverage
The remaining area will show improvement with medications.”

 

Hi @Melvin- Moderator are there any questions I should be asking?  I did ask the following questions not sure if there is anything else I should be asking.  Thank you!


1-What would the density be after the procedure? For the hairline, front and mid scalp?

2-The current hair I have in the front and hairline are transplant hair. Will they go into shock and never grow again even if they are transplant hair?

3- What can we do about my crown area?

4- I’m 50 years old so I prefer not to take Finasteride due to side effects. 

5- I usually shave my hair. Should I be growing my hair out for the procedure and if so how long shall I grow it out?  

 

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You are in the same situation I am in. Shaving your head isn't ideal because of the multiple FUT scars and you don't have enough scalp donor to get any real coverage anywhere. You certainly have a good beard and it looks like you have some thick chest hair that grows long and somewhat straight. This could be useful if that's the case. I had nearly 6000 body hair grafts transplanted to my head. It was just about an even split of roughly 3000 beard grafts and 3000 chest/abdomen grafts. Most of what is growing on the typical recipient area of my head is now body hair grafts. I haven't had any issue with it not growing long enough. In fact most of it grows faster and longer than my scalp hair. It is slightly kinky, coarse, wiry, whatever you want to call that, but it's not anywhere near as bad as what some people think body hair grafts will look like. I'm not trying to match any existing hair because there wasn't any there to being with which probably makes it easier to accept any differences from scalp hair. I imagine if I had a lot of scalp hair and was trying to add some density and the beard hair wasn't quite as soft as the scalp hair then perhaps I would not like it as much, but when you have nothing to match or blend it with there's no issue, at least for me. Everyone's hair is different, so it's not like anyone can tell it's not my real scalp hair. It does soften up a lot over a period of 2 or 3 years to the point where it is just about as soft as my original hair was anyway. You just have to wait it out a while to get to that point. That's how it's going for me anyway.

I don't have any huge "WOW" factor improvement because I was still losing hair as we were adding some over several years, so a lot of it just replaced what was falling out. However I know if I hadn't had any body grafts done I would be in such a bad place. I don't know how I would have been able to deal with it, so even though there is not a tremendous visible improvement from where I started I am so glad I did it. There is noticeable improvement though and some people have commented that my hair is looking a lot better and asking me what I'm doing to get it to grow in, so that makes me feel good.

 

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Al

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(formerly BeHappy)

I am a forum moderator for hairrestorationnetwork.com. I am not a Dr. and I do not work for any particular Dr. My opinions are my own and may not reflect the opinions of other moderators or the owner of this site. I am also a hair transplant patient and repair patient. You can view some of my repair journey here.

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55 minutes ago, tony71 said:

1-What would the density be after the procedure? For the hairline, front and mid scalp?

Hard to say. That really depends on how many grafts you get, how thick the hairs are, how many double and triples you get, how far back they decide to transplant, etc. You have a bit of a base of grafts from previous transplants, so that will help you out a bit.

 

56 minutes ago, tony71 said:

2-The current hair I have in the front and hairline are transplant hair. Will they go into shock and never grow again even if they are transplant hair?

They will probably go into temporary shock loss, but they should grow back in a few months. I haven't had any issue from shock loss of transplanted hair not growing back in.

 

57 minutes ago, tony71 said:

3- What can we do about my crown area?

They are only planning on using 1000 beard grafts, but I think you have much more than that to use, so you may be able to do another session in a year later if it the 1000 from the first session seems to be growing well. You also have a lot of chest hair. I know Eugenix doesn't like using chest hair because it's not as reliable, but I tink in some people who have really long, thick chest hair it should act very similar to beard hair. I would ask them if they would be willing to do a small 100 graft test and transplant them into a specific area in the crown, so that area is only chest hair. Then you can see how well it grows. Then when you go in for another session, you will have some beard grafts to use and if the chest hair grew in satisfactorily you will be able to use that as well and hopefully get several thousands grafts total on that 2nd session which should give you some crown coverage.

 

1 hour ago, tony71 said:

4- I’m 50 years old so I prefer not to take Finasteride due to side effects.

I don't use it either. I'm 54. I did take it for about 11 years, but I stopped because it was thinning out my body hair, so my feeling is if you are going to end up using a lot of body hair then it may not be worth holding onto or improving the scalp hair just to hurt the transplanted body hair. I don't think everyone experiences a loss in body hair with finisteride, but I know I did.

 

1 hour ago, tony71 said:

5- I usually shave my hair. Should I be growing my hair out for the procedure and if so how long shall I grow it out?

Yes at least somewhat. You need to ask Eugenix what they prefer because some clinics like it to be longer and some clinics prefer it to be shorter (but not shaved).

 

 

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Al

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(formerly BeHappy)

I am a forum moderator for hairrestorationnetwork.com. I am not a Dr. and I do not work for any particular Dr. My opinions are my own and may not reflect the opinions of other moderators or the owner of this site. I am also a hair transplant patient and repair patient. You can view some of my repair journey here.

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1 hour ago, BeHappy said:

You are in the same situation I am in. Shaving your head isn't ideal because of the multiple FUT scars and you don't have enough scalp donor to get any real coverage anywhere. You certainly have a good beard and it looks like you have some thick chest hair that grows long and somewhat straight. This could be useful if that's the case. I had nearly 6000 body hair grafts transplanted to my head. It was just about an even split of roughly 3000 beard grafts and 3000 chest/abdomen grafts. Most of what is growing on the typical recipient area of my head is now body hair grafts. I haven't had any issue with it not growing long enough. In fact most of it grows faster and longer than my scalp hair. It is slightly kinky, coarse, wiry, whatever you want to call that, but it's not anywhere near as bad as what some people think body hair grafts will look like. I'm not trying to match any existing hair because there wasn't any there to being with which probably makes it easier to accept any differences from scalp hair. I imagine if I had a lot of scalp hair and was trying to add some density and the beard hair wasn't quite as soft as the scalp hair then perhaps I would not like it as much, but when you have nothing to match or blend it with there's no issue, at least for me. Everyone's hair is different, so it's not like anyone can tell it's not my real scalp hair. It does soften up a lot over a period of 2 or 3 years to the point where it is just about as soft as my original hair was anyway. You just have to wait it out a while to get to that point. That's how it's going for me anyway.

I don't have any huge "WOW" factor improvement because I was still losing hair as we were adding some over several years, so a lot of it just replaced what was falling out. However I know if I hadn't had any body grafts done I would be in such a bad place. I don't know how I would have been able to deal with it, so even though there is not a tremendous visible improvement from where I started I am so glad I did it. There is noticeable improvement though and some people have commented that my hair is looking a lot better and asking me what I'm doing to get it to grow in, so that makes me feel good.

 

Thank you for the detailed info.  Did you go to Euginex?  
 

I do have lots of chest hair and it’s straight.  That may work.  Currently I had SMP and they covered the scars, it wasn’t noticeable 5 years ago but with SMP after 5 years you need to get a new procedure done.  
 

i will definitely ask Euginex if they do chest hair.   Thank you. 

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1 hour ago, BeHappy said:

Hard to say. That really depends on how many grafts you get, how thick the hairs are, how many double and triples you get, how far back they decide to transplant, etc. You have a bit of a base of grafts from previous transplants, so that will help you out a bit.

 

They will probably go into temporary shock loss, but they should grow back in a few months. I haven't had any issue from shock loss of transplanted hair not growing back in.

 

They are only planning on using 1000 beard grafts, but I think you have much more than that to use, so you may be able to do another session in a year later if it the 1000 from the first session seems to be growing well. You also have a lot of chest hair. I know Eugenix doesn't like using chest hair because it's not as reliable, but I tink in some people who have really long, thick chest hair it should act very similar to beard hair. I would ask them if they would be willing to do a small 100 graft test and transplant them into a specific area in the crown, so that area is only chest hair. Then you can see how well it grows. Then when you go in for another session, you will have some beard grafts to use and if the chest hair grew in satisfactorily you will be able to use that as well and hopefully get several thousands grafts total on that 2nd session which should give you some crown coverage.

 

I don't use it either. I'm 54. I did take it for about 11 years, but I stopped because it was thinning out my body hair, so my feeling is if you are going to end up using a lot of body hair then it may not be worth holding onto or improving the scalp hair just to hurt the transplanted body hair. I don't think everyone experiences a loss in body hair with finisteride, but I know I did.

 

Yes at least somewhat. You need to ask Eugenix what they prefer because some clinics like it to be longer and some clinics prefer it to be shorter (but not shaved).

 

 

Thank you! 

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1 hour ago, Ryan Rap said:

Eugenix would be one of the few options I would go with.

I would say Zarev might be the best option but he has been tough to contact apparently. 

Oh man I noticed that with Zarev. His consultation form doesn’t even work.  Gives error.  Dr Mwamba is going to give his consultation too. Waiting on him.   
 

Thanks!

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