Dr. Patrick Mwamba (Fue Clinic) - 1300 grafts - 5th & 6th of July 2021

[Ajamilo]

Hi guys,

I was thinking of sharing my hair transplant experience with Dr Mwamba. I had commented in a thread where someone asked about the experience with Dr.mwamba and afro hair. When  I wrote that I was sadly not satisfied i got some messages in my inbox.

So for that reason I will share my experience about the clinic and my progress in this 8 month period and make it public for everyone  so i dont need to answer people in my inbox.

Background:

In 2020, I unfortunately went to Turkey like many others to a hair mill and did a hair transplant there. I got ok growth but of course it was not good. Unnaturally I got a  high hairline and at the same time has a over harvested donor area. My hair was thick hair in some  places and thin hair in other areas of the donor area. It would not grow even and I had to fade it all the time. Mentally speaking, this was a miserable time  for me and I am sure you wonder why I chose to go to such a clinic and not a real one. 

So I took my time to go to another clinic and pay a lot more money. I followed quite a lot on various forums and in the end the decision fell on Dr.Mwamba. I Needed a doctor who could handle afro hair and at the same time a doctor who can master donor management and possibly give the same thickness to the whole area so people do not see anything unnaturaly or unusual when they look at your donor area. That was really really important for me.

Because of my experience last time, it was important to me that I got rid of all sorts of factors that could make it go wrong. I agreed with Dr.mwamba that I would lower my hairline 1.5 cm so that it became more natural. The conversation was that  people are going to look at your face and the aesthetic is important so that should be the most important thing to focus on. I Agreed with that reasoning  and agreed to focus on getting the hairline down. Got 1300 graphs on the 1.5 cm area. According to  Dr mwamba, this should be good enough to get good coverage with a afro hair. I was a little unsure but I remember that Dr.Mwamba said that the hairline at the very end had 40-45 cm2 and it was lower the further inwards we went. 

At the same time, I decided to start on Oral minoxidil to get my mid-scalp "regrowth". Had seen so much good reviews on reddit that I chose to take 5 mg every day to make this happen. I am very happy now after 6 months on Oral minoxidil to say that it is special and is giving quite good result  combined with finasteride. It has also strengthened the donor area hair-karasteristic as illustrated below. I Have some places where I have been over harvested on the donor area from first HT like up on the side but it looks good enough without people looking at it strangely. So of course i am really happy with it and I know that dr mwamba harvested it evenly.

So this is my 8 month update on my hairline. Remember that this is taken in a car so basically the lighting is not ideal and that means in natural lighting it will look wors than this. I feel really nervous and think about this all the time. I know for sure something is wrong if this stays like this to 10-11 month period. For that it means that few grafs survirved and it was failed surgery.

Furthermore , the communication with Fue Clinic has been really really bad. I know that the doctor is busy with travel and surgery, etc., but it is really difficult to talk with him. His staff promised me for several months to talk to him without success and I see that as something bad.
 In general, it is difficult to communicate with his staffs as well. But i got recently  in touch with one of them who I actually had the opportunity to talk to on the phone. I disagreed with some  of what we talked about, such as that as long as you get at least 80 percent growth, they see it as something successful. In that case, there is very little difference between them and a hair mill that probably gets the same percentage. I did not pay more money and go to a elite doctor just to settle the mark as minimum 80 %

But anyway, we agreed that it will be silly to discuss this now, since it is 8 months and 20 days and we will look forward to the 11 month period. One thing that was good was that she insisted that they would stand behind my back, which seems reassuring even though some of the things she said are disturbing.

I just pray to god that this will resolve and go forward with my life. 

 

[Mike10]

I use contact the clinic directy.They always answer quickly to me. I do not go through Fue clinic

Edited March 20, 2022 by Mike10

[Ramos]

I know what your talking about I also have had lots of problems with communicating with the @FUECLINICmany times I would call asking for information and wouldn’t get it even though I was told I would get a email back to me in 5 mins and a hour would pass I would call back and told that they were gonna send it right now and then nothing again was sent to me. I’ve also had times of trying to talk to staff and no response back even when they told me please give me your number and then no phone call happened and staff being rude to me as well 

[BaldingtimetoLdar]

Do you have any before pictures?

 

 

[Ajamilo]

22 minutes ago, BaldingtimetoLdar said:

Do you have any before pictures?

 

 

The hairline was lowered 1.5 cm so it was nothing on the area that got transplanted:)

[mustang]

2 hours ago, Ramos said:

I know what your talking about I also have had lots of problems with communicating with the @FUECLINICmany times I would call asking for information and wouldn’t get it even though I was told I would get a email back to me in 5 mins and a hour would pass I would call back and told that they were gonna send it right now and then nothing again was sent to me. I’ve also had times of trying to talk to staff and no response back even when they told me please give me your number and then no phone call happened and staff being rude to me as well 

Staff was rude to you over the phone?

How were they rude?

Edited March 21, 2022 by mustang

[mustang]

On 3/19/2022 at 9:34 PM, Ajamilo said:

Hi guys,

I was thinking of sharing my hair transplant experience with Dr Mwamba. I had commented in a thread where someone asked about the experience with Dr.mwamba and afro hair. When  I wrote that I was sadly not satisfied i got some messages in my inbox.

So for that reason I will share my experience about the clinic and my progress in this 8 month period and make it public for everyone  so i dont need to answer people in my inbox.

Background:

In 2020, I unfortunately went to Turkey like many others to a hair mill and did a hair transplant there. I got ok growth but of course it was not good. Unnaturally I got a  high hairline and at the same time has a over harvested donor area. My hair was thick hair in some  places and thin hair in other areas of the donor area. It would not grow even and I had to fade it all the time. Mentally speaking, this was a miserable time  for me and I am sure you wonder why I chose to go to such a clinic and not a real one. 

So I took my time to go to another clinic and pay a lot more money. I followed quite a lot on various forums and in the end the decision fell on Dr.Mwamba. I Needed a doctor who could handle afro hair and at the same time a doctor who can master donor management and possibly give the same thickness to the whole area so people do not see anything unnaturaly or unusual when they look at your donor area. That was really really important for me.

Because of my experience last time, it was important to me that I got rid of all sorts of factors that could make it go wrong. I agreed with Dr.mwamba that I would lower my hairline 1.5 cm so that it became more natural. The conversation was that  people are going to look at your face and the aesthetic is important so that should be the most important thing to focus on. I Agreed with that reasoning  and agreed to focus on getting the hairline down. Got 1300 graphs on the 1.5 cm area. According to  Dr mwamba, this should be good enough to get good coverage with a afro hair. I was a little unsure but I remember that Dr.Mwamba said that the hairline at the very end had 40-45 cm2 and it was lower the further inwards we went. 

At the same time, I decided to start on Oral minoxidil to get my mid-scalp "regrowth". Had seen so much good reviews on reddit that I chose to take 5 mg every day to make this happen. I am very happy now after 6 months on Oral minoxidil to say that it is special and is giving quite good result  combined with finasteride. It has also strengthened the donor area hair-karasteristic as illustrated below. I Have some places where I have been over harvested on the donor area from first HT like up on the side but it looks good enough without people looking at it strangely. So of course i am really happy with it and I know that dr mwamba harvested it evenly.

So this is my 8 month update on my hairline. Remember that this is taken in a car so basically the lighting is not ideal and that means in natural lighting it will look wors than this. I feel really nervous and think about this all the time. I know for sure something is wrong if this stays like this to 10-11 month period. For that it means that few grafs survirved and it was failed surgery.

Furthermore , the communication with Fue Clinic has been really really bad. I know that the doctor is busy with travel and surgery, etc., but it is really difficult to talk with him. His staff promised me for several months to talk to him without success and I see that as something bad.
 In general, it is difficult to communicate with his staffs as well. But i got recently  in touch with one of them who I actually had the opportunity to talk to on the phone. I disagreed with some  of what we talked about, such as that as long as you get at least 80 percent growth, they see it as something successful. In that case, there is very little difference between them and a hair mill that probably gets the same percentage. I did not pay more money and go to a elite doctor just to settle the mark as minimum 80 %

But anyway, we agreed that it will be silly to discuss this now, since it is 8 months and 20 days and we will look forward to the 11 month period. One thing that was good was that she insisted that they would stand behind my back, which seems reassuring even though some of the things she said are disturbing.

I just pray to god that this will resolve and go forward with my life. 

 

Was this second transplant on a previously transplanted area or a virgin scalp? 

It seems they were quite conservative with the numbers and a touch up would bring you to the desired density.

8 months is 80% of the result, there is room for improvement but not drastic.

I think with another 500 grafts your hairline could look much denser and I am sure the clinic will help you.

[Ajamilo]

5 hours ago, mustang said:

Was this second transplant on a previously transplanted area or a virgin scalp? 

It seems they were quite conservative with the numbers and a touch up would bring you to the desired density.

8 months is 80% of the result, there is room for improvement but not drastic.

I think with another 500 grafts your hairline could look much denser and I am sure the clinic will help you.

This hair  transplant with Dr Mwamba was on a virgin scalp. So i was not working at all with the previously transplanted area.

The thing is that a cm squared takes 50 grafts for the front quarter. That is as dense it can be transplanted in each HT. Any more than that the graft survival rate will drop as each graft fights for blood flow. So 1000 grafs per cm should give a decent density but for sure is a lot of factors involved. Fine hair, thick hair etc. And the thing is that afro hair need less grafts than Caucasians. That is what every surgeon is preaching. Afro hair gives good visual illusion of density. That means in theoretical it needs less than 1000 grafs per cm to give illusion of density. So in theory you need 1500 graphs on a 1.5 cm area to get a visual result. But with a afro hair you need less. I transplanted 1300 graphs on a  1.5 cm and it should have given me completely different result than what I have received so far.
What I am interested in is finding out why I got the result I got and what possibly went wrong. The only example I have is from a real patient case here in the forum with African hair, who got the same density problem from the same clinic. 

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Ajamilo

[mmokin]

On 3/20/2022 at 12:34 AM, Ajamilo said:

Hi guys,

I was thinking of sharing my hair transplant experience with Dr Mwamba. I had commented in a thread where someone asked about the experience with Dr.mwamba and afro hair. When  I wrote that I was sadly not satisfied i got some messages in my inbox.

So for that reason I will share my experience about the clinic and my progress in this 8 month period and make it public for everyone  so i dont need to answer people in my inbox.

Background:

In 2020, I unfortunately went to Turkey like many others to a hair mill and did a hair transplant there. I got ok growth but of course it was not good. Unnaturally I got a  high hairline and at the same time has a over harvested donor area. My hair was thick hair in some  places and thin hair in other areas of the donor area. It would not grow even and I had to fade it all the time. Mentally speaking, this was a miserable time  for me and I am sure you wonder why I chose to go to such a clinic and not a real one. 

So I took my time to go to another clinic and pay a lot more money. I followed quite a lot on various forums and in the end the decision fell on Dr.Mwamba. I Needed a doctor who could handle afro hair and at the same time a doctor who can master donor management and possibly give the same thickness to the whole area so people do not see anything unnaturaly or unusual when they look at your donor area. That was really really important for me.

Because of my experience last time, it was important to me that I got rid of all sorts of factors that could make it go wrong. I agreed with Dr.mwamba that I would lower my hairline 1.5 cm so that it became more natural. The conversation was that  people are going to look at your face and the aesthetic is important so that should be the most important thing to focus on. I Agreed with that reasoning  and agreed to focus on getting the hairline down. Got 1300 graphs on the 1.5 cm area. According to  Dr mwamba, this should be good enough to get good coverage with a afro hair. I was a little unsure but I remember that Dr.Mwamba said that the hairline at the very end had 40-45 cm2 and it was lower the further inwards we went. 

At the same time, I decided to start on Oral minoxidil to get my mid-scalp "regrowth". Had seen so much good reviews on reddit that I chose to take 5 mg every day to make this happen. I am very happy now after 6 months on Oral minoxidil to say that it is special and is giving quite good result  combined with finasteride. It has also strengthened the donor area hair-karasteristic as illustrated below. I Have some places where I have been over harvested on the donor area from first HT like up on the side but it looks good enough without people looking at it strangely. So of course i am really happy with it and I know that dr mwamba harvested it evenly.

So this is my 8 month update on my hairline. Remember that this is taken in a car so basically the lighting is not ideal and that means in natural lighting it will look wors than this. I feel really nervous and think about this all the time. I know for sure something is wrong if this stays like this to 10-11 month period. For that it means that few grafs survirved and it was failed surgery.

Furthermore , the communication with Fue Clinic has been really really bad. I know that the doctor is busy with travel and surgery, etc., but it is really difficult to talk with him. His staff promised me for several months to talk to him without success and I see that as something bad.
 In general, it is difficult to communicate with his staffs as well. But i got recently  in touch with one of them who I actually had the opportunity to talk to on the phone. I disagreed with some  of what we talked about, such as that as long as you get at least 80 percent growth, they see it as something successful. In that case, there is very little difference between them and a hair mill that probably gets the same percentage. I did not pay more money and go to a elite doctor just to settle the mark as minimum 80 %

But anyway, we agreed that it will be silly to discuss this now, since it is 8 months and 20 days and we will look forward to the 11 month period. One thing that was good was that she insisted that they would stand behind my back, which seems reassuring even though some of the things she said are disturbing.

I just pray to god that this will resolve and go forward with my life. 

 

im going to mwamba next month so this is a little concerning what do you advise?

[mustang]

The only way to find out is to have the doctor examine you in person. Nobody can know from pictures what happened or what the result is in terms of yield aside from our perception.

I have had a bad result on my first surgery back in 2007 with another surgeon in Argentina and I had to travel back for an examination, they measured the area and we could objectively determine the yield.

Top clinics always do a free touch up if it's needed, that's the difference with low cost clinics. You also have 4 months more to go before that. Let's hope you continue to grow some more until the 12 months and if there is anything to be improved Dr Mwamba will do it for free. He is a class act. 

All patients are different, some of us grow early and others grow later, some even have a drastic improvement at month 10. 

[Mixed93]

It would be good if the doctor could give you some reasons as to why the density is lacking,  hopefully you will get some answers.

How did you make the decision to choose Dr Mwamba? One frustrating thing is that there are barely any patient posted results on here for afro or curly hair, so it’s difficult to make an informed decision. 😕 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Mixed93

[Ajamilo]

4 hours ago, Mixed93 said:

It would be good if the doctor could give you some reasons as to why the density is lacking,  hopefully you will get some answers.

How did you make the decision to choose Dr Mwamba? One frustrating thing is that there are barely any patient posted results on here for afro or curly hair, so it’s difficult to make an informed decision. 😕 

Yeah but he will for sure explain it. As I agreed with the woman I spoke to, we will have a closer discussion in approx when i have reached the 10-11 month. 

Like Dr Mwamba is a nice person. And the same with the other doctor who is working with him, Dr.Ali. The thing is that I have to be objective and truthful when I am writing my experience with the clinic or is it meaningless and misleading everyone. I also told before the operation that I will write about my experience.

But you are right that very few or no patients with afro hair post it here. And we know that one can not trust 100% what clinics posts in the public since they are selective in what they choose, so it is best to look at patients. This is also one of the reasons why I wanted to do it. So that I can inspire other afro people to do the same

I will update with pics 9 and 10 month. 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Ajamilo

[mustang]

Any clinic guaranteeing you over 90% regrowth on Afro hair is a clinic I would be weary about. It's good for a clinic to be honest and upfront with their patients with the limitations on these hair characteristics. I got almost 100% regrowth on BHT on my donor on a patch test, this doesn't mean it will yield the same for every patient.

The important thing here is the clinic's willingness to address the issue if there is one after 12 months and standing behind their work, regardless of what the paperwork says they will always seek patient satisfaction.

Extracting these type of grafts (Afro, BHT, etc..) requires tremendous skill and patience, they are much easier to transect and damage than Caucasian follicles and even harder than BHT. It's probably the hardest FUE procedure you can get done and only a handful of doctors in the world master this technique. They are curved beneath the skin and you are basically going in blind.

You also got a low density hair transplant, there are big gaps between each follicle so I would think you need another 400-500 grafts for your desired density. Hopefully you will get more growth in the coming months

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by mustang

[JP28]

Man there is so much space in between the grafts it’s so weird, it doesn’t even look like 1300grafts. 
 

I wonder why he did that!? 
Do you have a very limited donor?

[Ramos]

Has the clinic tried setting up a virtual appointment so you can about with Mwamba? Since you hadn’t answered questions 

[Fue3361]

I'm gonna prematurely call this and say this is simply bad work.  If this was done on virgin scalp, the density is NO WHERE close enough to what it needs to be.  I can't tell due to scale, but this looks like 30-40 grafts per cm2 at BEST (in the front of hairline) and WAY under that number right behind it.  I'm not surprised the result was as is.

[mustang]

4 minutes ago, Fue3361 said:

I'm gonna prematurely call this and say this is simply bad work.  If this was done on virgin scalp, the density is NO WHERE close enough to what it needs to be.  I can't tell due to scale, but this looks like 30-40 grafts per cm2 at BEST (in the front of hairline) and WAY under that number right behind it.  I'm not surprised the result was as is.

40 grafts is usually more than enough for an Afro hairline.

Why didn't the patient ask for more density? I would have definitely brought it up, maybe budget?

[Fue3361]

1 minute ago, mustang said:

40 grafts is usually more than enough for an Afro hairline.

Why didn't the patient ask for more density? I would have definitely brought it up, maybe budget?

I said at best haha.  Honestly looks less than that.  And that's only the front half centimeter, behind that it's ridiculously low (for a naked scalp).

[mustang]

4 minutes ago, Fue3361 said:

I said at best haha.  Honestly looks less than that.  And that's only the front half centimeter, behind that it's ridiculously low (for a naked scalp).

That depends on when the picture was taken

If it's 1-3 days post surgery there is tumescence on the skin thus the grafts would look much further apart than what they really are a few days later. This is done by every surgeon (at least in my experience).

If it's a week later then I agree the spacing is too spread behind the hairline but that's easily fixable adding more grafts and we don't know what was agreed between the patient and the surgeon either, maybe his budget was not enough or he wanted no more than that amount of grafts.

[Ajamilo]

1 hour ago, Ramos said:

Has the clinic tried setting up a virtual appointment so you can about with Mwamba? Since you hadn’t answered questions 

Like i had a virtual consultation with Dr.Mwamba in the 6 month period and told him i was not happy with my growth. So he knows about it and i guess i have to wait to the 12 month before it will be evaluated with the doctor.
Regarding the other question. Honestly i dont want to answer questions that seems i want to bash the clinic. The clinic is elite with a elite doctor so yeah. And other thing is that the clinic knows about this thread in this website.  and according to one of the staff i have been talking to,  they will respond back to the misinformation i have writen in the thread. Honestly when i read trought it again i could have written different the part regarding communication with the clinic. It was not " really really bad" and i guess i wrote it because of frustration. But it was not really good either. And also i have been talking with the reps too so have been communicated with them but it was difficult or almost impossible to reach Dr.Mwamba trought them. Anyway i guess i understand now why people shy away writing thing when thing do not go according to their thought.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Ajamilo

[mustang]

It's important that you share your opinion in honesty and transparency for everyone to make an informed decision on where they have surgery. This is what this forum is for so thanks for sharing your journey.

I do have to say that saying that communication has been really bad when you have had your control at 6 months with the surgeon and a 12 month evaluation has been scheduled is pretty standard. It sounds as if the clinic is not answering you or not addressing any potential issues when they have had a follow up consultation and been in touch with you so maybe it's a little unfair to say communication has been really bad.

I normally only speak with my surgeon twice after my surgery at 6 months and 12.

Even elite clinics have not great cases. I had elite some elite surgeons work on me with regular results, it happens. I had 2 friends go to the very best FUE surgeon in Europe with a very VERY bad result. It can happen to any patient with any clinic. I am sure you will end up with a great result with a little touch up in a few months, stay positive man.

Edited March 23, 2022 by mustang

[Ajamilo]

1 hour ago, Fue3361 said:

I'm gonna prematurely call this and say this is simply bad work.  If this was done on virgin scalp, the density is NO WHERE close enough to what it needs to be.  I can't tell due to scale, but this looks like 30-40 grafts per cm2 at BEST (in the front of hairline) and WAY under that number right behind it.  I'm not surprised the result was as is.

ohh really i did not know that. so it should have had more grafts than 1300? But like i thought it is 1000 grafts on every cm and with afro hair less generally?

Edited March 23, 2022 by Ajamilo

[Ramos]

I agree with FUE3361 it looks like the grafts were placed out far from each other behind the hairline. Have they tried to encourage you? This is your second surgery with failure i know this can way heavy on one's mental health making them sad and go into depression

[Ajamilo]

Is over 9 month now and still the same. I  buzzed my hair since there was quite a clear difference with the density differences  between the hairline (visible gaps and skin) and the hair behind the hairline was a lot more dense and also it was people who pointed it out as well and i was tired of wearing caps all the time. 

So now i do not quite understand the obvious color difference on my skin. The  implanted area is completely white  and my skin is not white. Also is clearly difference in colour between the skin behind and the area dr. Mwamba implanted. Is this normal?

I have shared my thought anf worries with the clinic and i have to do personal consultation in Belgium before they can say anything. Sadly i dont have the possibilty to go there this month since he is going to be there to the end of the month.

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Ajamilo

[RTC]

Definitely interested to see what the Dr has to say about this..