Nader - Crown - 2060 grafts - 5470 hairs

[GoliGoliGoli]

Howdy all, wanted to add to the recent uptick in Nader reviews to (hopefully) put any future patients concerns to rest. A lot of recent Nader reviews have gone over the details of the process so I will keep that part short and stick to the specifics of my situation to try and provide context to my thinking and strategy. You don’t need to hear for the 100th time how good the tacos are from me! That said if anyone has questions on more procedural stuff like the border/hotel feel free to ask. 

I'm 1 month shy of 34. Not on Fin but am on topical Min. I decided to only do crown work for my first HT. This is against the normal advice of people around here, but does not seem to be against the advice of a lot of Drs (When situation calls for it). I did crown only for the following reasons: 

1. I’m still happy with my hairline and even though it’s recessed I can still style it in a way that looks good. I also think I’m one of the guys who can look good with some recession in the hairline. 

2. I wear my hair down/to the side, not up, so it helps to hide hairline recession a lot easier and looks good. 

3. I think despite the crown being “aesthetically less important” it is also easier to hide the “bullseye pattern” that may develop from further loss compared to the hairline. Fibers and dermmatch also work well in the crown area but not the hairline. And I also feel you can “combover” these areas easier in the crown. If I had done the hairline I would’ve done a very conservative 1200ish grafts to fill in the corners, but then would have worried about further recession causing the most aesthetic part of my face to be left with a “hair island” in the front. Or at the very least wispy hairs in front of my native ones. 

4. I’ve heard from clinics that it’s easier to build a new hairline from scratch as opposed to reinforcing one. So I didn’t want to add some little bit now, and then be chasing it later little bits at a time as it recedes further. I’d rather let it dip back a bit more and then deal with it years down the road when it’s far gone, and potentially at the same time address any further loss I’ve had on the crown over those years. 

5. I also have a very good donor and a what Nader told me was a huge number of triples and quadruples.  This gave me confidence that I wouldn't soon be running out of available donor so I could be safe working on the crown now knowing that I have more left to dedicate to the hairline later on. See below for the breakdown of what was harvested in the 2060 grafts. Nader said my amount of triples and quadruples were FAR above average as percentiles. 

Singles: 105

Dubs: 767

Triples: 965

Quadruples: 230

In pictures below you will notice my recipient is a bit larger than the bald spot in the before pictures. Nader anticipated further loss by planting grafts into regions that were already thinning. This was all discussed and planned out between us during the pre-surgery consultation. Hopefully this should allow me to get YEARS out of this single transplant especially considering I wear my hair long on top. Once I’ve lost more around the crown, I’ll get by with fibers for a while and then eventually will go back for a 2nd HT to fill in the crown and get the hairline done. 

Nader is highly ethical it really does seem. We originally planned for hairline and crown work back when I was less knowledgeable about HTs and wanting a more liberal approach, and we set aside two days for my procedure to accommodate both. I decided within last week or so to only get crown done and when I told him my reasons he totally agreed and said “I’m the worst salesman in the HT industry. I always recommend holding off until you can’t deal with it anymore”. We also spent about an hour in the pre-surgery consult and it was not rushed AT ALL. I really feel bad for people who get rushed through this stage as there is SO much to discuss, and we weren’t even drawing hairlines in my case!! At Nader you really get top notch, personalized care. No glitzy office and waiting room but everything is very clean, tidy, and presentable. The results will take time to see, but I’m confident the number of triples and quadruples I have will give me good coverage while leaving plenty in the donor for future work. 

In order, the first three pics are before pics from last week, then todays post op pic, then Also included are some of my hairline styled to explain to explain why I didn’t get anything done there. Actually the last one isn’t even styled just random bed head.

If anyone has any other questions or wants to see other pictures let me know. Not sure how often I’ll post may be a lot may be a little, but I will reply to any questions. 

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by GoliGoliGoli

[GoliGoliGoli]

Here’s two more of the crown pre-op

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by GoliGoliGoli

[davidn]

Agreed with the approach. Hairline indeed looks good enough on these pics. 

[mister_25]

Will be following your thread. I have similar sized loss in my crown so it would be good to compare as I'm going for my HT soon. 

Work looks excellent

[HairEnthusiast101]

Wow your donor does look very thick. Will have plenty of donor available if you ever end up needing it! Hope the healing goes well!

[GoliGoliGoli]

On 11/9/2022 at 7:40 AM, JoDimaggio22 said:

Wow your donor does look very thick. Will have plenty of donor available if you ever end up needing it! Hope the healing goes well!

Yep thanks for reminding me I’ll post a pic of the donor. I suspected I had a really good donor with lots of triples and quadruples so I was glad to have that confirmed. I’m in the very fortunate position of not needing to worry about donor availability too much in terms of future planning (At least compared to many others). For now my biggest concern is getting the most years between HT 1 and 2, and I think the strategy I went with for HT 1 should help. That said, now that I’ve learned how easy and frankly enjoyable this process is I'm already feeling the hair greed for the front. 
 

Day 1 post op. I didn’t take the pain medication last night as was recommended, or this morning and in spite of that I’m in zero pain in donor or recipient areas. Maybe this is normal for Day 1 post op and it will be sore in the next few days when anesthesia fully wears off?  For now it feels like nothing happened other than the bandage on my head until tomorrow to keep the anesthesia held up. 

Edited November 12, 2022 by GoliGoliGoli

[GoliGoliGoli]

That reminds me; another thing that’s nice about Nader is he does all the ansesthesia shots himself. They were more or less painless he seems very adept at it 

Edited November 9, 2022 by GoliGoliGoli

[HairEnthusiast101]

4 hours ago, GoliGoliGoli said:

Yep thanks for reminding me I’ll post a pic of the donor. I suspected I had a really good donor with lots of triples and quadruples so I was glad to have that confirmed. I’m in the very fortunate position of not needing to worry about donor availability too much in terms of future planning (At least compared to many others). For now my biggest concern is getting the most years between HT 1 and 2, and I think my strategy for HT 1 should help. That said, I’m already feeling the hair greed for the front now that I’ve learned how easy and frankly enjoyable this process is. 
 

Day 1 post op. I didn’t take the pain medication last night as was recommended, or this morning and in spite of that I’m in zero pain in donor or recipient areas. Maybe this is normals for Day 1 post op and it will be sore in the next few days when anesthesia fully wears off?  For now it feels like nothing happened other than the bandage on my head until tomorrow to keep the anesthesia held up. 

So great to hear and I 100% understand wondering when to go next! I’m sure it will all play out perfectly and at your age you may not lose a ton more hair so evaluating in a year or two and go back and fill in the spots. The approach you are taking is very wise though. And yes your donor is very very impressive I’d guess another 6k or more is available back there after the 2k taken!

[Melvin- Admin]

Dr. Nader is a class act, happy growing.

[jfally]

I cannot wait to see this come together man, wow!

Our crowns are very similar. I've emailed Dr Nader, first reply only took a day, now that I'm 100% in it's taking much longer (3 weeks now) to get a reply.

The anticipation is real, totally understand why response times are as long as they are with staff being minimal, hoping to get a date scheduled ASAP so at least then I can start the countdown.

Looking forward to future updates and happy to see/hear another great Dr Nader experience!

 

[Steeeve]

Nader’s work is always so damn clean. Has he been added to the forum’s recommended surgeons list yet? He should be.

His patients have been posting for years and years but it’s nice to see so much positivity about him recently.

Talk about an underrated doc!

Congratulations! I’m looking forward to watching this come to the end.

[mister_25]

OP got us a 2 month update?

[GoliGoliGoli]

7 hours ago, mister_25 said:

OP got us a 2 month update?

Everything going well. Not much to report at 2 months really. I probably won't do a real update until month 5 and then will do a 6 and go from there. Below is a pic I snapped minutes before posting this. Hair is very greasy. I think the black "flecks" are hairs starting to poke through? 

Went through the normal shedding, seemed to end a week or two ago. I feel like I didn't shed as much as expected but hard to tell as I don't know have anything to compare to. 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by GoliGoliGoli

[GoliGoliGoli]

[Melvin- Admin]

Looking right on track.

[Zhaoerh]

Nice to hear how its going for you Goli, I have an appointment with Nader in May. I am interested in hotel recommendations. What would you recommend?

 

 

 

 

 

[GoliGoliGoli]

I stayed at the Cambria if memory serves, which is the one that Nader has a deal with - I believe it's essentially a discounted rate for Nader patients. They had room service which was nice for the day after surgery, and comp'd breakfast for all Nader patients too during my stay. 

 

It's also close to the airport which is good. 

[Norwood_infinity]

On 11/9/2022 at 12:25 AM, GoliGoliGoli said:

Howdy all, wanted to add to the recent uptick in Nader reviews to (hopefully) put any future patients concerns to rest. A lot of recent Nader reviews have gone over the details of the process so I will keep that part short and stick to the specifics of my situation to try and provide context to my thinking and strategy. You don’t need to hear for the 100th time how good the tacos are from me! That said if anyone has questions on more procedural stuff like the border/hotel feel free to ask. 

I'm 1 month shy of 34. Not on Fin but am on topical Min. I decided to only do crown work for my first HT. This is against the normal advice of people around here, but does not seem to be against the advice of a lot of Drs (When situation calls for it). I did crown only for the following reasons: 

1. I’m still happy with my hairline and even though it’s recessed I can still style it in a way that looks good. I also think I’m one of the guys who can look good with some recession in the hairline. 

2. I wear my hair down/to the side, not up, so it helps to hide hairline recession a lot easier and looks good. 

3. I think despite the crown being “aesthetically less important” it is also easier to hide the “bullseye pattern” that may develop from further loss compared to the hairline. Fibers and dermmatch also work well in the crown area but not the hairline. And I also feel you can “combover” these areas easier in the crown. If I had done the hairline I would’ve done a very conservative 1200ish grafts to fill in the corners, but then would have worried about further recession causing the most aesthetic part of my face to be left with a “hair island” in the front. Or at the very least wispy hairs in front of my native ones. 

4. I’ve heard from clinics that it’s easier to build a new hairline from scratch as opposed to reinforcing one. So I didn’t want to add some little bit now, and then be chasing it later little bits at a time as it recedes further. I’d rather let it dip back a bit more and then deal with it years down the road when it’s far gone, and potentially at the same time address any further loss I’ve had on the crown over those years. 

5. I also have a very good donor and a what Nader told me was a huge number of triples and quadruples.  This gave me confidence that I wouldn't soon be running out of available donor so I could be safe working on the crown now knowing that I have more left to dedicate to the hairline later on. See below for the breakdown of what was harvested in the 2060 grafts. Nader said my amount of triples and quadruples were FAR above average as percentiles. 

Singles: 105

Dubs: 767

Triples: 965

Quadruples: 230

In pictures below you will notice my recipient is a bit larger than the bald spot in the before pictures. Nader anticipated further loss by planting grafts into regions that were already thinning. This was all discussed and planned out between us during the pre-surgery consultation. Hopefully this should allow me to get YEARS out of this single transplant especially considering I wear my hair long on top. Once I’ve lost more around the crown, I’ll get by with fibers for a while and then eventually will go back for a 2nd HT to fill in the crown and get the hairline done. 

Nader is highly ethical it really does seem. We originally planned for hairline and crown work back when I was less knowledgeable about HTs and wanting a more liberal approach, and we set aside two days for my procedure to accommodate both. I decided within last week or so to only get crown done and when I told him my reasons he totally agreed and said “I’m the worst salesman in the HT industry. I always recommend holding off until you can’t deal with it anymore”. We also spent about an hour in the pre-surgery consult and it was not rushed AT ALL. I really feel bad for people who get rushed through this stage as there is SO much to discuss, and we weren’t even drawing hairlines in my case!! At Nader you really get top notch, personalized care. No glitzy office and waiting room but everything is very clean, tidy, and presentable. The results will take time to see, but I’m confident the number of triples and quadruples I have will give me good coverage while leaving plenty in the donor for future work. 

In order, the first three pics are before pics from last week, then todays post op pic, then Also included are some of my hairline styled to explain to explain why I didn’t get anything done there. Actually the last one isn’t even styled just random bed head.

If anyone has any other questions or wants to see other pictures let me know. Not sure how often I’ll post may be a lot may be a little, but I will reply to any questions. 

 

had mine with nader on Jan 9th. Just wanted to say thanks for your post. mine was very similar to yours. looking forward to updates as your 2 months ahead of me

[GoliGoliGoli]

3 month update. 2nd picture is pre-op for comparison. Definitely feel a bunch of small stubbly hairs that must've recently sprouted, so I'm hoping that with time these will give me some good coverage

 

Edited February 8, 2023 by GoliGoliGoli

[A_4_Archan]

Right on track ...crown always is a slowly grower...u will start seeing proper growth from 5 month mark...

[GoliGoliGoli]

9 hours ago, Archan said:

Right on track ...crown always is a slowly grower...u will start seeing proper growth from 5 month mark...

Thanks I'm hoping so! I already have considerably more hair on there compared to pre-op although it's hard to tell from the pictures. I was at the point where Caboki was starting to look pretty silly because it had nothing to cling to. But already that isn't a problem anymore so hoping for more growth over the next few months. 

[A_4_Archan]

1 minute ago, GoliGoliGoli said:

Thanks I'm hoping so! I already have considerably more hair on there compared to pre-op although it's hard to tell from the pictures. I was at the point where Caboki was starting to look pretty silly because it had nothing to cling to. But already that isn't a problem anymore so hoping for more growth over the next few months. 

U welcome...yeh pics dnt justify those thngs...and u will get a good growth from now onwards..on crown growth tend to be slower and it will shoot up after 4-5 months and u will see the noticeable difference frm thn till 18months..and ur crown will be all filled up thn..wish u a good growth..keep updating 😊

Are u on medication ?

[GoliGoliGoli]

3 hours ago, Archan said:

U welcome...yeh pics dnt justify those thngs...and u will get a good growth from now onwards..on crown growth tend to be slower and it will shoot up after 4-5 months and u will see the noticeable difference frm thn till 18months..and ur crown will be all filled up thn..wish u a good growth..keep updating 😊

Are u on medication ?

Only topical min. We'll see how things work out for me long term without being on Fin. It's part of the reason I decided only to do my crown for now. 

[A_4_Archan]

 

3 minutes ago, GoliGoliGoli said:

Only topical min. We'll see how things work out for me long term without being on Fin. It's part of the reason I decided only to do my crown for now. 

Oh okay best of luck and wish u a good growth 😊

[Melvin- Admin]

It’s already starting to grow 🙌🏼