Dead NW7 in pursuit of hair

[Rafael Manelli]

If you transplant the hairline and temples and wear a system behind, you can look like a Norwood 1 all your life. But you have to be careful to position the system right every time, within a millimetre or two. It'll be a learning curve. 

It's one of the rare cases when you actually don't want to be "conservative" with the hairline design. Recreating a receded, undulating, high Norwood 2 or 3 hairline may actually take more grafts than an aggressive, aesthetic nw1. This is because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The two points being the frontotemporal junctions at each side of your head. 

So go all out. Go for that Brad Pitt/George Clooney hairline. The question then becomes how deep do you go? I'd say at least 1cm deep. I've seen it done to an inch or more. You need enough hair to cover the system, but not so much that you run out of donor or that the difference in density between the system and the transplant becomes apparent. The transplant will be lower density than the system, no doubt, and that can be okay since the front hairline is naturally lower density than the hair behind it anyway, but if you want the ultimate result, you might want to go for two surgeries - one to establish the hairline, and a second to add even more density. This will cover the edge of the hairpiece well and allow you to do any hairstyle you want. 

It's a bold move, for sure. But bold trumps bald. 

[Gatsby]

@NorwoodSeven you have one massive advantage that most of us don't. That is that you do not have one scar on your scalp. Do not underestimate the psychological effect that this can have on a person. You can rock a great head shave with or without SMP. The money required for a Norwood 7 is like drug money. This is only my opinion but you look great with a shaved head. Once you start things like creating a frontal area for a hair piece you are cooked. Their will come a time when you will be sick to death of wearing a hair piece (I wore one for 25 years). Save your money and save your unblemished scalp. All the best!

[mr_peanutbutter]

5 hours ago, Gatsby said:

@NorwoodSeven you have one massive advantage that most of us don't. That is that you do not have one scar on your scalp. Do not underestimate the psychological effect that this can have on a person. You can rock a great head shave with or without SMP. The money required for a Norwood 7 is like drug money. This is only my opinion but you look great with a shaved head. Once you start things like creating a frontal area for a hair piece you are cooked. Their will come a time when you will be sick to death of wearing a hair piece (I wore one for 25 years). Save your money and save your unblemished scalp. All the best!

can you elaborate what sickened you so much about wearing a transplant?

[Gatsby]

8 hours ago, mr_peanutbutter said:

can you elaborate what sickened you so much about wearing a transplant?

Yes. The daily hassle for a quarter of a century. You get less for murder! 😉 But in all honesty I was just over it. If it wasn’t for the scars I would have shaved my head at least ten years before I did. 

[Rafael Manelli]

23 hours ago, Gatsby said:

Yes. The daily hassle for a quarter of a century. You get less for murder! 😉 But in all honesty I was just over it. If it wasn’t for the scars I would have shaved my head at least ten years before I did. 

They say hair systems have advanced a lot in recent decades. Can you speak on that? Is it just a marketing nonsense? Did you wear monofilament? 

[Gatsby]

When I started I wore a lace front hair piece that was permed to the natural curls of my hair. After 20 years it began to resemble a small animal that had climbed up on my head and died there!

 

[Gatsby]

This was me about 8 years ago. 

Edited February 3, 2023 by Gatsby

[Rafael Manelli]

4 minutes ago, Gatsby said:

When I started I wore a lace front hair piece that was permed to the natural curls of my hair. After 20 years it began to resemble a small animal that had climbed up on my head and died there!

 

Dude I don’t think you’re supposed to wear it for 20 years… you’re meant to buy a new one every few months lmao 

[Rafael Manelli]

1 minute ago, Gatsby said:

This was me about 8 years ago. 

Looks fine to me 

[Al - Moderator]

 

 

That is very similar to what I would look like if I never had a hair transplant. I just looked at various photos of him and believe it or not I think his sides are actually higher and more dense than mine, certainly just above the ears anyway as I have no hair in an area above both of my ears. I had my first hair transplant at 22 years old when I was a NW6, but the sides were still very high at that time. Over time the sides dropped and the crown went further down the back of my head while I also started losing hair upwards from the nape just like this picture here. You can see the start of his nape hair (if you can call it nape that far up) is at a level halfway past the bottom of his ears. Mine is very much like that now.

So I started having hair transplants and my hair loss just continues to the point where the sides and back dropped past the FUT scars which meant all of the transplanted hair fell out as well. If you end up being a NW7 at this level there is no safe zone and you maybe have 1000 good grafts you can use if you are lucky. If you really want to try having a hair transplant if you get to this level then you need extremely thick beard and chest hair and would have to use almost exclusively all of that and perhaps other body hair. The even worse news is that with so much area to cover you realistically need about 15,000 grafts or more to get decent coverage, so expect to have several sessions and spending lots of money.

The OP is not at this level, of course, but I just wanted to point out what could happen if he (or anyone) continues to lose and get to advanced NW7. It's not fun!

 

 

[Rafael Manelli]

40 minutes ago, BeHappy said:

 

 

That is very similar to what I would look like if I never had a hair transplant. I just looked at various photos of him and believe it or not I think his sides are actually higher and more dense than mine, certainly just above the ears anyway as I have no hair in an area above both of my ears. I had my first hair transplant at 22 years old when I was a NW6, but the sides were still very high at that time. Over time the sides dropped and the crown went further down the back of my head while I also started losing hair upwards from the nape just like this picture here. You can see the start of his nape hair (if you can call it nape that far up) is at a level halfway past the bottom of his ears. Mine is very much like that now.

So I started having hair transplants and my hair loss just continues to the point where the sides and back dropped past the FUT scars which meant all of the transplanted hair fell out as well. If you end up being a NW7 at this level there is no safe zone and you maybe have 1000 good grafts you can use if you are lucky. If you really want to try having a hair transplant if you get to this level then you need extremely thick beard and chest hair and would have to use almost exclusively all of that and perhaps other body hair. The even worse news is that with so much area to cover you realistically need about 15,000 grafts or more to get decent coverage, so expect to have several sessions and spending lots of money.

The OP is not at this level, of course, but I just wanted to point out what could happen if he (or anyone) continues to lose and get to advanced NW7. It's not fun!

 

 

Who is the man in the pic?

do you have any photos of your own hair? Im so sorry about what happened to you. That is absolutely brutal. Did you use fin?

if you do FUE you should leave a buffer of unharvested hair between the donor and the crown to act as a shield against further balding imo. That way you know if it comes down, the clock is ticking and you should get on meds. But in your case it sounds like it was so severe the hairline dropped even below a strip scar. This is why I think nw8 should be a classification. What do you do now?