HLC 4020 FUE Grafts

[hairlossman1]

Thought I would start this by stating a huge thank you to this forum and its members for educating me in my hair transplant journey. I have learnt a lot and would like to share my hair transplant experience.

Background:

31 years old. Previous 2000 FUE graft procedure in England 4 years ago with very minimal growth (did the mistake of doing no research and going off celebrity pictures). 

Meds: Finasteride 1mg daily for 8 years - no real side effects. Minoxidil foam daily. Biotin daily.

On the 7th and 8th of February I underwent a 4020 FUE graft procedure at HLC in Ankara. 

I have seen a couple of slightly sub-par results from HL:C recently, but I must say that so far my experience with them has been excellent. My 2 day procedure was completed by Dr Umut. 

I was told that despite my previous 2000 graft procedure, I had around 6000 hair grafts left in reserve and at least 1500 beard grafts. I was told that my hair quality was good, although I have always thought that my hair was quite fine in thickness. 

The plan was to thicken the hairline with 50cm2 and then 40cm2 moving back to the mid scalp. 

Happy to answer any questions.

Your thoughts on my procedure and any advice moving forward would be much appreciated.

 

 

Edited February 11, 2022 by hairlossman1

[follically challenged]

4 hours ago, hairlossman1 said:

Thought I would start this by stating a huge thank you to this forum and its members for educating me in my hair transplant journey. I have learnt a lot and would like to share my hair transplant experience.

Background:

31 years old. Previous 2000 FUE graft procedure in England 4 years ago with very minimal growth (did the mistake of doing no research and going off celebrity pictures). 

Meds: Finasteride 1mg daily for 8 years - no real side effects. Minoxidil foam daily. Biotin daily.

On the 7th and 8th of February I underwent a 4020 FUE graft procedure at HLC in Ankara. 

I have seen a couple of slightly sub-par results from HL:C recently, but I must say that so far my experience with them has been excellent. My 2 day procedure was completed by Dr Umut. 

I was told that despite my previous 2000 graft procedure, I had around 6000 hair grafts left in reserve and at least 1500 beard grafts. I was told that my hair quality was good, although I have always thought that my hair was quite fine in thickness. 

The plan was to thicken the hairline with 50cm2 and then 40cm2 moving back to the mid scalp. 

Happy to answer any questions.

Your thoughts on my procedure and any advice moving forward would be much appreciated.

 

 

Nice work! Who did your first surgery?

[hairlossman1]

Thanks! Dr Shahmalak did my first surgery.

[Gramatik]

13 hours ago, hairlossman1 said:

Thought I would start this by stating a huge thank you to this forum and its members for educating me in my hair transplant journey. I have learnt a lot and would like to share my hair transplant experience.

Background:

31 years old. Previous 2000 FUE graft procedure in England 4 years ago with very minimal growth (did the mistake of doing no research and going off celebrity pictures). 

Meds: Finasteride 1mg daily for 8 years - no real side effects. Minoxidil foam daily. Biotin daily.

On the 7th and 8th of February I underwent a 4020 FUE graft procedure at HLC in Ankara. 

I have seen a couple of slightly sub-par results from HL:C recently, but I must say that so far my experience with them has been excellent. My 2 day procedure was completed by Dr Umut. 

I was told that despite my previous 2000 graft procedure, I had around 6000 hair grafts left in reserve and at least 1500 beard grafts. I was told that my hair quality was good, although I have always thought that my hair was quite fine in thickness. 

The plan was to thicken the hairline with 50cm2 and then 40cm2 moving back to the mid scalp. 

Happy to answer any questions.

Your thoughts on my procedure and any advice moving forward would be much appreciated.

 

 

Good luck. Hlc is a great choice. Can I ask you. Do u select the doctor who is going to do the procedure or the clinic decide that to you? Also can dr ozgur perform a surgery by himself ?

[hairlossman1]

Thanks. You don't have any say in who works on you. I have heard that each doctor has a slight speciality (beard graft extraction etc) so I guess they would priorities the doctor to the patients that are there on the day. 

All the doctors gather at the start and help design your hairline, this takes approximately 30 minutes Dr Ozgur leads this process. He asks a few questions about what you are expecting (short term and long term goals) and what they can achieve.

There were 4 patients having surgery on both days that I was there. I'm unsure on which doctors performed surgery on the other patients, Dr Ozgur was always at the clinic so it is quite possible that he performed some part of a surgery on one of the other patients.

I will update with pictures each month but happy to answer any questions in the meantime.

[MachoVato]

I think it looks great! Hairline looks super dense. I'm looking forward to your results.

[hairlossman1]

7 minutes ago, MachoVato said:

I think it looks great! Hairline looks super dense. I'm looking forward to your results.

Thanks! I followed your experience with HLC closely and it gave me the confidence to go with them. Hopefully I'll end up with a result similar to yours!

[spacemanspiff]

I  just did mine today with Dr Umut too! probably just missed each other.  I thought he in general was very cool and did a good job. Bandages come off tomorrow so I will have a good look then. 

Looks like a great transplant so far. keep us updated!

[recoba2020]

Congrats, it looks greats. I heard that HLC has a new doctor (Dr Bekir) was he present at your consultation?

[hairlossman1]

13 hours ago, spacemanspiff said:

I  just did mine today with Dr Umut too! probably just missed each other.  I thought he in general was very cool and did a good job. Bandages come off tomorrow so I will have a good look then. 

Looks like a great transplant so far. keep us updated!

Must have, I flew home on Thursday. Yeah I thought he was very professional and took time afterwards to explain everything. I'm sure yours will look great.

Thanks, will do. 

[hairlossman1]

13 hours ago, recoba2020 said:

Congrats, it looks greats. I heard that HLC has a new doctor (Dr Bekir) was he present at your consultation?

Thanks! I'm not sure on the names of the other Drs, there were 4-5 around each day so quite possibly.

[Britanium]

Looks really good. I have no doubt it will be a very different experience than your first ht… 🙏

[hairlossman1]

26 minutes ago, JC71 said:

Looks really good. I have no doubt it will be a very different experience than your first ht… 🙏

Thanks very much! Fingers crossed

[hairlossman1]

44 minutes ago, blast said:

Surprised they did it in 2 days, normally HLC use 3 days for OP that size. I wonder if they are trying to squeeze more people in now?

From my experience and what I have seen recently, roughly 4000 graft procedures are completed in 2 full days.

[Gatsby]

You have done well in being able to stay on finasteride, minoxidil and biotin. You still have a huge amount of hair and this looks like very clean work. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to your updates!

[MachoVato]

4 hours ago, hairlossman1 said:

From my experience and what I have seen recently, roughly 4000 graft procedures are completed in 2 full days.

Mine was 2 days, too. Very long days!

[hairlossman1]

Just a quick question regarding the following attached picture. I’ve removed 99% of the scabs (day 12), there’s a large patch in the centre of the recipient area where the grafts don’t seem to have grown and are just small black dots (I have put a blue square around for an example). Is this normal? Or should the hairs of grown, meaning that those grafts haven’t taken/may not grow? The majority of the grafts towards the front seem to have continued to grow.

Ill update with more pictures of how everything is looking in the next few days.

Thanks in advance! 

[hairlossman1]

1 month update

First month has flown by. Overall pleased with how things are going. Shedding started about a week ago and losing more and more hairs each day.

I had a very stubborn scab that left a deep ‘scar’ on my scalp when I removed it. The area around it doesn’t seem to have much hair around it, I’m guessing that the hair just came off with the scab? I’ve pointed out the area on one of my pictures.

I’m pleased with how my donor is looking after 6000 grafts total being taken from it (2000 from first procedure). Going to cut the back and sides at some point this week.

Meds update: I’ve been taking MSM, vitamin D and collagen for the past month and recentlyre-started minoxodil foam twice daily.

Heading to the dreaded ugly duckling phase, hopefully have some growth by the summer months.

Any thoughts on how things are looking would be much appreciated. I’ll provide a further update in another month.

[Vann]

Any updates?

[hairlossman1]

5 months.

Decided to wait until the 5 month mark to update again. 
 

The first 2 pictures are from 3 months, the other three are from 5 months (21 weeks)

Overall I know there has been an improvement from where I was, but there is a lot of thin areas still. I know it’s only 5 months and I shouldn’t compare to other peoples progress, but being on this site makes it hard not to.

Really hoping things continue to thicken over the next few months and the thin areas catch up.

Maybe I’m being a bit unrealistic for what 5 months should look like and I’m a bit blinded to progress as I’m studying it so closely every day. Anyway, I’d really value anyones input on how things are looking.

Thanks

[THE TRUTH]

Based on the pictures you submitted, it seems like there has some growth between month 3 and month 5 especially on the midscalp which is encouraging and good sign. The growth is on.
The density is still not there but let's wait and hope that it thickens up more until month 7-8. 🙏

By the way, I took a look at your pictures and it appears that you are showing signs of Norwood 6 already. You mentionned you've been on Finasteride for 8 years.
My question is when did this extra little bald spot that I circled become noticeable ?Was it while your were on finasteride ?
This spot is a sign of future advanced hairloss. The evil little DHT is attempting to take it to a full horseshoe. Reminds me of Baldcafé who had a similar spot.
And what did Ozgur say about it specifically ?
Maybe switching to a stronger pharmaceutical stack would be beneficial (like the Pinto/Freitas oral Dutasteride + oral minox combo). You don't want your hairloss to progress any further after having 2 surgeries and a very limited donor supply.

[hairlossman1]

Thanks for your comments.

Ozgur said that I would have to stay on finasteride, which I have no problem doing as I haven’t had any side effects. I agree which what you are saying about the back of my head, although it has been like that for many years. He also said I had a good donor and enough beard donor if needed for future procedures. At the moment I’m not bothered about the crown as topic covers it very easily so will continue with this for the foreseeable future.

I have thought about oral minoxidil, but at the moment don’t want to start taking another tablet that I won’t be able to start, may take it in the future if needed.

[THE TRUTH]

2 minutes ago, hairlossman1 said:

Thanks for your comments.

Ozgur said that I would have to stay on finasteride, which I have no problem doing as I haven’t had any side effects. I agree which what you are saying about the back of my head, although it has been like that for many years. He also said I had a good donor and enough beard donor if needed for future procedures. At the moment I’m not bothered about the crown as topic covers it very easily so will continue with this for the foreseeable future.

I have thought about oral minoxidil, but at the moment don’t want to start taking another tablet that I won’t be able to start, may take it in the future if needed.

Okay cool bro. Good luck

Did Bekir told you to perform scalp massages after day 10 ? 

[hairlossman1]

3 minutes ago, Your shill from the mill said:

Okay cool bro. Good luck

Did Bekir told you to perform scalp massages after day 10 ? 

Sorry, meant to say ‘I don’t want to start another tablet that I won’t be able to stop’.

I didn’t meet Bekir, and no one mentioned about scalp massages to me.

[Vann]

43 minutes ago, hairlossman1 said:

5 months.

Decided to wait until the 5 month mark to update again. 
 

The first 2 pictures are from 3 months, the other three are from 5 months (21 weeks)

Overall I know there has been an improvement from where I was, but there is a lot of thin areas still. I know it’s only 5 months and I shouldn’t compare to other peoples progress, but being on this site makes it hard not to.

Really hoping things continue to thicken over the next few months and the thin areas catch up.

Maybe I’m being a bit unrealistic for what 5 months should look like and I’m a bit blinded to progress as I’m studying it so closely every day. Anyway, I’d really value anyones input on how things are looking.

Thanks

I think youre exactly where 5 months should be at. Your hair contrast doesnt help in terms of density. But you seem to be on the slower side of growth. I understand its difficult to compare yourself to others but you have to remember its not what is intended and I am glad you were able to update us.

I think you might have had some shockloss around your native hairs when looking at your photos so it might have caused some thinner areas to be more exaggerated. Dont fret once you hit later months you should begin to see more development.

How is your donor looking and feeling so far?