Best diffused alopecia hair transplant surgeon/clinic?

[Glassbuildingoffice]

Who would be the best surgeons/clinics you would recommend based on my images please. 

Background: 
- A year of burnout at work lead to thinning hair. This has happened in the past. It thickens but always with lesser density.
- Blood panel is good. Low Vit D only. I could do with healthy diet and exersize. 
- I travelled to Istanbul and met with a few clinics. Hair of Istanbul turned me away. Now Hair Time said I need 2 ops. Dr Caymaz etc
- I soon realised Turkey is not necessarily the best place to go after reading on this forum. 
- I live in Europe but happy to travel to Asia. 
- I have a faded hairstyle from donor area but can re-upload once grown out. 
- 30 year old, Indian Asian Male.
- Budget: flexible but ideally within $15,000 
- Happy to use beard hair under chin only and also chest hair
- Against using Fin but happy to use topical Min. 

Q1: Looking for a no-brainer surgeon who can do this in one sitting but i'm really struggling to find someone. What would you do in my shoes?
Q2: I stopped using topical Minoxidil as Turkey clinics said you stop for 3 month before surgery. Is this true or shall I can restart?

[mister_25]

I’ll try to answer all your points in order, some I don’t have any input on

• Stress can accelerate hair loss but is not the cause of it. You need to address the cause of the problem and stress won’t affect it that much
• All the “clinics” you mentioned are hair mills. They do around 20 patients a day, in and out no regard for quality. If you get a bad result you will get ghosted. You want a skilled doctor that does 1-2 patients a day. Not a team of high school technicians doing EVERYTHING
• Turkey has a large amount of hair mills, there are good clinics there but there is also more hair mills than any other country. Some of the recommended surgeons/clinics on here are located in Turkey.
• Europe and North America are the best places to get a HT, there are some good options in Asia like Eugenix. 
• Your going to want to increase your budget, you are a Norwood 5 or 6, the picture quality isn’t the best so I can’t tell you which you are. so you are going to need around 6500+ grafts for full coverage.
• Beard hair in my opinion is a unique skill that certain surgeons possess, Eugenix has a list of high Norwood beard cases.
• Minoxidil in my opinion isn’t effective on its own, still better than nothing. You really need to consider Finasteride/Dutasteride. Your transplanted hair is resistant to balding, not immune and you want to preserve your native hair. Your crown could dip into Norwood 7 level in the future.

Now for your questions

1. Generally speaking if you want this to be close to a one and done you will either go to a Good FUT clinic, or you would need a massive FUE session. For FUT Hattingen in Switzerland and H&W in Canada come to mind. For FUE Eugenix in India does some massive sessions, I’ve seen some big sessions from Mwamba in Belgium and Pitella in Brazil has been getting very high FUE counts.
2. Different surgeons recommend different times. I went to H&W and they told me 6 weeks of discontinued minoxidil use. I’ve heard other clinics say two weeks.

if I were you. I would try Finasteride or Dutasteride, and see if I stabilise for a year, 6 months at my earliest. If I do stabilise, I would then have a doctor that I trust in perform a large surgery covering the frontal third and mid scalp in the 1st HT. I would then go in a second transplant in about a year to 15 months or so and perform a second HT to address the crown and weak points from the 1st. This is to maximise the amount of hair you can get for the top of your head for as long as possible.

Edited December 31, 2022 by mister_25

[Glassbuildingoffice]

 

• I ought to upload a good donor pic but for the time being, I feel my donor is not sufficient. I am open to two sessions if it will give better results. - would your recommendations above therefore change?
• I too am thinking Eugenix simply based on the fact, me being Indian that they would have better experience in dealing with my hair type. 
   

5 minutes ago, mister_25 said:

you will either go to a Good FUT clinic

• Do you have any recommendations?

[Glassbuildingoffice]

12 minutes ago, mister_25 said:

For FUT Hattingen in Switzerland and H&W in Canada come to mind

Sorry I misread this for my FUT recommendation 🙏

[mister_25]

Just now, Glassbuildingoffice said:

Sorry I misread this for my FUT recommendation 🙏

 Ah you didn’t misread it, I edited it cause I accidentally didn’t include it. Just me being a idiot lol

7 minutes ago, Glassbuildingoffice said:

 

• I ought to upload a good donor pic but for the time being, I feel my donor is not sufficient. I am open to two sessions if it will give better results. - would your recommendations above therefore change?
• I too am thinking Eugenix simply based on the fact, me being Indian that they would have better experience in dealing with my hair type. 
   

• Do you have any recommendations?

Eugenix is good for high Norwood’s, I’ve been impressed by their results. If you can get Dr Sethi I would say you are in one of the most capable surgeons hands.

Generally speaking for FUE one mega session and a second large session is pretty standard for a Norwood 5. If your a Norwood 6 it makes things difficult cause your crown is much bigger and in my belief is it becomes much harder to chase a good result once you hit a Norwood 6+. Still possible as we’ve seen with Zoomster, Gatsby and Melvin. Probably two mega sessions

To be honest, you need your donor examined by a doctor to truly know if it’s good or not. I was under the impression I had very good donor but in reality I just have average hair caliber and average density. There are a lot of factors to determine if you have a good or a bad donor such as Retrograde, hair thickness, how many Multis, density and more. It’s something to worry about on your consultation, if you go to Eugenix and you have a good beard it’s probably more than enough. I’ve seen many cases of patients going in thinking they can only get X amount of grafts cause of a poor donor but get a massive shock when the reality is much higher. And also vice versa. 

I will advise that most doctors turn down patients that aren’t on medication (Finasteride/Dutasteride), not sure if this holds true for Eugenix but it’s very common.

 

[Glassbuildingoffice]

Thanks for all this. 

I'm a Healthcare proff and the idea of being of Fin/Dut doesn't sit right with me. Mainly the side effects. A family member took it and reported similar issues  

I'll be in touch with a few you mentioned, and may even drive out to Belgium if it means I can get a proper consultation. I was told previously FUT may be a good choice for me but failed to find anyone reputable in Europe so far. 

[mister_25]

12 minutes ago, Glassbuildingoffice said:

 

I'm a Healthcare proff and the idea of being of Fin/Dut doesn't sit right with me. Mainly the side effects. A family member took it and reported similar issues  

 

Fair enough, there are other DHT blockers out there that you may consider to be worthwhile like Saw Palmetto which I also take as a capsule once a day, it’s a lot weaker than Finasteride and I think it’s considered more of a herbal medicine.(I think the official numbers are something along the lines of Dutasteride blocks 90% DHT Finasteride 70% Saw Palmetto 30%). There was a recent success story on it other than my own I’ll post here.

if your going to Belgium the two best are Bisanga and Mwamba, both also have good skills with beard hair.

Anything to help the balding brothers. 

 

[Glassbuildingoffice]

Eugenix kindly replied by email and gave me a phone call. Dr Sethi has limited availability and may not be possible to see him. However they kept pushing me for Dr Bansal saying she is equally as good. I felt a hard sell for her. Approx 3-4 euros per graft. They also want me on Fin, but as mentioned i'm against that. 

"Currently, you seem to have Norwood Grade 3V of baldness but this may progress in future

The marked area could require: 4000

Proposed Harvest from Scalp: 3500

Proposed Harvest from Beard: 500"