Eugenix (Drs. Das/Somesh/Vinita) | 11,102 grafts | NW 6/7 | 28 yrs old | 2022/2023/2024

[hair_forever]

Hi, I'm following your case with great interest, I saw that you're opting for the idea of lowering the hairline, forget it, they drew you an excellent line like this and the parietals are fine too, don't waste uf in areas that aren't needed and concentrate them where they really are they are needed.

[Gatsby]

Looking good. As a Norwood 7 in your mid 20’s (?) I would be extremely reluctant to waste finite grafts in the hairline and temple points. The only reason I agreed in my second pass to touch the hairline and temples was to finally hide my hairline scar from when I was young and butchered. Dr Sethi will more than likely want to add a little to the hairline and temples. However like @SLA I would stand your ground and focus purely on any weak points. I would keep oral minoxidil up your sleeve for later and the same with SMP. Stick with Finasteride now (if you are taking it/can tolerate it). As you know surgery for hair loss is like trying to hit a moving target. You want to preserve not just your donor but also the transplanted hair from that donor for not just the years but the decades ahead of you. I think your results are incredible and ten years ago this would have been just a dream for both of us. All the best for your next procedure. 

[wembley]

Looking great. With your third ht you will make it perfect! enjoy your new hair..

[Buffaloboy]

On 2/14/2024 at 11:44 PM, general-etwan said:

I did not. They never responded back to me with an opening for a video consultation. Pittella is booked way too far out for my liking too and his cost is out of my range. I think he’s doing great work. Just not going to be an option for me. 

Isn't Sethi about the same as Pitella now? (if you can even get him to agree to do it)

[GeneralNorwood]

If you're sticking with Eugenix, maybe at least write them to have Sethi in the planning of the procedure. After all, you are a regular customer.

[hair_forever]

1 hour ago, GeneralNorwood said:

Se rimani con Eugenix, magari scrivigli almeno per coinvolgere Sethi nella pianificazione della procedura. Dopotutto, sei un cliente abituale.

Quoto ask for Dr. Sethi's supervision as this third and final ht is crucial for you.
But, aren't they soon considering using BTH?
Does only Pittella use them?

[general-etwan]

3rd Procedure

March 21, 22, 23 2024

Package with Dr. Vinita performing surgery (slits) + Dr. Somesh and Dr. Pradeep in on planning & design.

As I said over the past few months, I really wanted to have this 3rd procedure before summer. Eugenix informed me that Dr. Pradeep wanted to see me during my time there so they only gave me open dates during which he'd be there. In February the dates of March 21-22 came open and it was a good fit with my schedule, so I booked it. That puts the timeline at 9 months after my 2nd procedure last June (and my 2nd procedure was similarly 9 months after my 1st procedure in Sept 2022).

Left home Tuesday night, arrived in Delhi/Gurugram Wednesday night, procedure took place on Thursday and Friday, and then we did a part 2 additional work on Saturday. I left late Saturday night to return home. 

As we talked about recently, my primary goal for this procedure was to add density to the top areas. The projection from February was for 2,900 grafts, using some beard hair.

 

 

 

Planning & design with Dr. Somesh + Dr. Vinita resulted in a plan to focus on the frontal area and the crown area. The pattern that Somesh drew up wasn't what I was originally expecting; I just assumed density would be added uniformly all over. But I guess what they really try to do is identify the exact areas in need of most improvement based on how well growth came in from the last time. Some areas trailed behind other areas in density when examined up close and needed the most work.

Additionally, I expressed my desire to slightly reposition my hairline, due to the fact that the left temple corner was previously higher than the right when viewed straight from the front and the left side of my face is weaker than my right. So I wanted to bring the left side of the hairline down just slightly by 1-2 mm for better balance for my liking.

Secondly, Somesh and Vinita proposed doing "donor farming" in the areas of retrograde alopecia that I have above my ears on the sides of my head to try to achieve a more filled look, using beard hair (I've had that retrograde thinning since my teens). I agreed to do it, but made clear I didn't want to use a ton of beard hair to do this; just a little.

Somesh drew up the following:

 

 

We identified the crown region (mostly the lower crown and reaching up into the side crown areas), the frontal/hairline area, and the above-the-ears donor farming areas as the recipient areas. We identified the rear scalp, the neck hairs, the sidelocks, and the beard as donor areas. I expressed that I wanted to be aggressive with taking scalp donor as I felt it had held up very well through 2 procedures so far and would be totally fine with a little thinning to achieve more density up top. Dr. Somesh understood my goals and explained that he would homogenize the area as much as possible and try to smooth over the boundary between the lower crown and the rear donor area, creating a more uniform look. Plan was for 2,500 slits total.

Dr. Pradeep came to see me and reviewed the design, made sure the hairline adjustment measurements lined up, and approved of it. He said he doesn't usually like to do donor farming using beard hair, but in my case, my beard hair is decently similar to my scalp hair and so it would be acceptable to do.

Dr. Vinita made all the slits according to the design and on Thursday they extracted from rear scalp donor and implanted 616 grafts in the frontal/hairline area. It was getting into late afternoon/evening and I had some oozing so we finished up for the day. On Friday we started at 9 am and they extracted more from the scalp donor, used that in the crown area, added some more grafts to the front hairline and did the hairline adjustment, and then extracted beard grafts for use in the donor farming areas above the ears They put 145 grafts on the right donor farming and 87 on the left donor farming (232 total). In total, 2,500 grafts were added to the frontal area, the crown areas, and the donor farming areas combined.

Early evening we finished up and I went back to the hotel to rest, but soon something happened...I was in the bathroom reviewing the scalp and had pulled my surgical cap off and noticed 4 hair grafts had come loose from the donor farming region above my right ear. I'm not sure how it happened, they seemed to not be deep enough into the slits and were just sort of hanging there and the surgical cap might have gotten caught on them pulling them loose. One had already fallen and was just laying on my neck. They were obviously not all the way in the skin so I touched two and they fell right off. The 3rd bled just a little as it came out. I was simultaneously chatting with @Bandit90 and mentioned what happened and he said to let Dr. P know asap. This was around 10:30 pm Friday night. I messaged Dr. P and he arranged a driver to bring me in for him to look at. Got into the clinic after 11 pm, he had a look and unfortunately I lost those 4 grafts but he had his team quickly extract 4 more from beard and added them back to the donor farming area above the right ear. I appreciated this so much, as he absolutely did not have to do anything until Saturday but his immediate care is just world-class. I think the above-the-ear skin is more difficult to push the grafts into and for some reason those 4 didn't make it in deep enough.

After Friday's work, 2,500 grafts total:

 

 

Late Friday night when reviewing everything I felt there were a couple little things I still noticed:

1) I felt there was a larger gap between dark, thick hairs on my left rear lateral hump area compared to my right:

 

2) There were still small gaps in the behind-the-temple areas, which I talked about months ago. When the hair is buzzed down very short or shaved, you can see the dark hairs that were transplanted last year, then a region of thinned blonde hairs, and then dark hairs again. I really wanted to even that out, and also, we had not used any of the corner-of-the-neck hairs that we originally identified as usable. Those neck hairs of mine have always annoyed me; if they aren't shaved almost daily, it just makes the back of my head look sloppy. Nature gave me hair growing down my neck but not on the top of my head, lol. So I really wanted to get rid of them and use them somewhere more important.

 

I messaged Dr. P about these two concerns and he said we'd go over everything on Saturday in the center.

Saturday, driver picked me up at noon and the team took me upstairs in a new area. Hung out there for a while and met a few other guys, two from USA and one from Poland. Dr. P, myself, and Dr. Somesh examined my pics on a big screen. They agreed to add some more grafts to the lateral hump areas on both sides, more on the left than the right, and use the neck hairs previously identified as usable for the behind-the-temple filling to address all of my concerns and further homogenize dark hairs across the scalp. 

We did that Saturday afternoon and Somesh and Dr. P checked in on my final results after:

 

They added 71 grafts to right temple, 68 grafts to left temple, 74 grafts to right lateral hump, 112 grafts to left lateral hump...using 139 grafts from the neck area and 186 beard grafts, for a total of 325 additional grafts, bringing the total for the week's procedure to 2,825 grafts.

Overall, I did have a lot of pain again this time. I don't know what it is with me and local anesthesia, but it wears off after a little while and I dealt with a very intense burning sensation over most of the recipient area each day. Somesh asked me what my pain level was from 1-10. Truthfully, it was about a 7-8 but I said "3 or 4" to downplay it a little because I didn't want them to have to stop, and Somesh said "3 or 4?!?! It should only be a 1 or 2." LOL. They gave me some additional medication to try to help with the burning feeling.

I'm very glad I pushed for that additional work, to close as many gaps as possible, however minor or unnoticeable at longer hair length. I wanted to be able to maximize my options for future haircuts and really just maximize uniformity where possible.

Here's something I have to say in summary about the clinic for anyone wondering how operations are going these days:

Eugenix has been expanding and they do take on a lot of patients. There are a handful of people having HTs done every day, between Drs. Bansal, Das, Somesh, and Vinita. Big team, a lot of moving parts. People are coming and going all day. You do start off getting what you pay for in terms of planning investment. If you go with the lower tiered packages, you're obviously not going to get as much investment in planning or deep-maximization-of-strategy as you would at the more expensive packages. Unless you're paying for Dr. Pradeep or Dr. Bansal to make all your slits, this is not a process in which you and your doctor will have an extremely deep examination and then analyze and mull over a plan for days and weeks before having the procedure. Eugenix is performing a lot of procedures. As a patient having a HT here, you really should be personally knowledgeable, proactive, and assertive in what you want, and make sure they address all of your concerns. If you don't have deep knowledge of the HT industry or HT design and need a doctor who will hold your hand from start to finish, and who can put many hours of investment into your situation, due to he or she performing fewer operations overall, there are plenty of options in the world for that. Every clinic has pros and cons; the pro to Eugenix is they have made it possible for me to have this work done all before my 30th birthday and at a very reasonable cost. They are also very ethical and careful with donor management, all of which I have a lot of gratitude for.

Grand Total Graft Counts from each procedure:

The fact that they've been able to use over 9,000 grafts from my scalp donor is remarkable. My donor has turned out to be a lot stronger than I could have ever expected. I do expect some visible thinning after this procedure but hope it won't be too bad.

Please update the title of this thread to:

Eugenix (Drs. Das/Somesh/Vinita) | 11,102 grafts | NW 6/7 | 28 yrs old | 2022/2023/2024

Edited March 28 by general-etwan
corrected total graft count

[general-etwan]

Also, not sure if I ever shared this picture from Fall 2023 before I buzzed my head, which I shared with the docs. So if it was looking like this after the first 2 procedures, I'm really excited to see the results from the 3rd. 

[Phillyman1996]

Looks good!!

[hair_forever]

I wish you all the best for your third HT!

[Shadman]

@general-etwan

I've read your previous updates. I knew you'd go for a third sitting, but I never thought that you'd do it at the nine-month mark 😀

I think every weaker spots were addressed this time, overall work looking great.

Best wishes 👍

So, Dr. Somesh proposed a plan where he didn't want to add any density to your current hairline but he But you were more into distributing density uniformly which actually happened later on. Any specific reasons you didn't proceed with the previous plan moreover, how many grafts were used to increase density in the hairline and frontal area?

 And what did Dr. Sethi & Dr. Somesh say about your hairline lowering?

[Al - Moderator]

I'm really impressed with how they handled the situation with a few grafts coming out. It looks like you covered all the areas that you have been posting about, so I'm sure you're feeling really good about it right now. I can't wait to see how it looks in another 9 months.

 

[Fox243]

@general-etwan as another nw6/7 patient in his early-mid 20s, i wish you all the best and am excited to see what this turns into.

[Melvin- Admin]

Looks amazing @general-etwan you bring up some valid points that should help those interested in choosing eugenix, or possibly a different clinic. The number you achieved for the price I think is probably the best value for Norwoods 5+ hopefully patients look at your thread and study it. 

[Dragonsphere]

Looking good and tidy @general-etwan. 

Did he say how many grafts you have left in the bank?

[general-etwan]

5 hours ago, Shadman said:

@general-etwan

I've read your previous updates. I knew you'd go for a third sitting, but I never thought that you'd do it at the nine-month mark 😀

I think every weaker spots were addressed this time, overall work looking great.

Best wishes 👍

So, Dr. Somesh proposed a plan where he didn't want to add any density to your current hairline but he But you were more into distributing density uniformly which actually happened later on. Any specific reasons you didn't proceed with the previous plan moreover, how many grafts were used to increase density in the hairline and frontal area?

 And what did Dr. Sethi & Dr. Somesh say about your hairline lowering?

Somesh wanted to add several hundred grafts to the frontal behind-the-hairline region from the beginning. I suppose because that is the most important area to make look strong because everyone sees you from face on. That work would’ve started a few mm behind the existing hairline but I wanted to adjust the left side of the hairline just a tiny bit, so that’s when he just decided to implant grafts from the newly drawn hairline point to the midscalp. The hairline wasn’t lowered overall. The center point is still the same height above glabella. The left corner was just made a little fuller. Dr. P said it was good. Now when I measure from glabella to each temple corner, eyebrow corner to each temple corner, etc both sides are pretty much the same. 

It looks like around 717 grafts were implanted in that frontal region, adjusted hairline to a few inches back.

[asterix0]

Congrats on your latest procedure and a great outcome on the way, will follow this 🫡

Edited March 26 by asterix0

[general-etwan]

3 hours ago, Al - Moderator said:

I'm really impressed with how they handled the situation with a few grafts coming out. It looks like you covered all the areas that you have been posting about, so I'm sure you're feeling really good about it right now. I can't wait to see how it looks in another 9 months.

 

Yeah, Dr. Pradeep is there late into the night a lot, says he doesn’t sleep much, and I think there are people at the clinic 24/7 in case a patient needs anything immediate. I’m very satisfied we covered all the areas I was stressing about so yeah looking forward to seeing results. 

[general-etwan]

2 hours ago, Melvin- Admin said:

Looks amazing @general-etwan you bring up some valid points that should help those interested in choosing eugenix, or possibly a different clinic. The number you achieved for the price I think is probably the best value for Norwoods 5+ hopefully patients look at your thread and study it. 

Thanks! Please update title to 

Eugenix (Drs. Das/Somesh/Vinita) | 11,102 grafts | NW 6/7 | 28 yrs old | 2022/2023/2024

1 hour ago, Dragonsphere said:

Looking good and tidy @general-etwan. 

Did he say how many grafts you have left in the bank?

No, they’ve never given “remaining numbers” immediately after any of my procedures. I’ve always seen it as personal preference on how much thinning a person wants to accept in the donor region. I’m sure I’m pretty close to my “end” but I think probably up to another 1,000 or so could be extracted right from the center of the rear scalp donor area, still the thickest and most dense area of hair on my entire head. 

[TakeAction]

Congrats man, you've come a long way. And I'm really impressed that they were able to get 9k from your scalp donor. I have a feeling that a lot of doctors are unwilling to push the donor to its limits. But for high norwoods I believe it's necessary. Most of us would prefer a slightly thin donor and a lot of hair on top. 

[futureresearch]

Nice, this is gonna be awesome! Appreciate your thorough updates!

[bru]

Great read as usual following ur thread. Wish u all the best with ur recovery and I hope it turns out the way u picture it looking good but 👍

[Gatsby]

Wishing you all the best @general-etwan. Over 9k scalp grafts for a Norwood 7 is incredible. Happy growing and this will hopefully see you through for good. 👍

[Dragonsphere]

 

On 3/26/2024 at 7:53 PM, general-etwan said:

Thanks! Please update title to 

Eugenix (Drs. Das/Somesh/Vinita) | 11,102 grafts | NW 6/7 | 28 yrs old | 2022/2023/2024

No, they’ve never given “remaining numbers” immediately after any of my procedures. I’ve always seen it as personal preference on how much thinning a person wants to accept in the donor region. I’m sure I’m pretty close to my “end” but I think probably up to another 1,000 or so could be extracted right from the center of the rear scalp donor area, still the thickest and most dense area of hair on my entire head. 

You could probably get another 3k+ from your beard.

Obviously this would severely limit styling options. 

I guess it's a trade-off as to what you prefer ascetically.  

Everything around your adams apple can be used anyway, that is unless you like the neckbeard look 😅

A light smp will look very nice after your grafts have grown out.

That with a buzzcut your hairloss would likely be unnoticeable to the average person. 

Edited March 27 by Dragonsphere

[AGL77]

Great news and wishing you the very best on your 3rd HT. Been following your case and want nothing more for you than to get the win. One question I have is why do you choose not to have Dr. Das involved in this procedure? Thank you!