Dr Bruno Pinto - 2352 grafts - Feb 3rd 2023

[rambo man]

Hello All

Before I get on with this post I wanted to give a public thank you to anyone I have messaged privately on here and that has replied. There a quite a few of you and you have all helped me so much

I have been a member of this forum for quite a while now. I have read nearly all the threads on here but don't often comment. This was pretty much mainly because up until now I had never had a hair transplant myself and felt that commenting on someone that had without any experience of it didn't seem fair. Now that I have had mine I wanted to post a thread in order to help other people like myself that have spent years daily looking on forums and threads for updates and trying to navigate through this hair loss world the best we can in hope of one day having great hair again.

I am a 32 year old male and I have had temporal hair loss since the age of 18. I receded at the age of 18 into a NW3 where it has stayed for around 14 years. At the age of 20 I went on propecia and topical minoxidil and took both of these for around 6 years to good effect. It held and also enhanced my NW3 hairline.

At around the age of 26 years old I had a lot going on. I was engaged and moving house and working my way through promotions at work that for some reason or another I just gave up on the medication. Don't get me wrong after getting married we wanted to kids and stopping the medication a year before that was always the plan but I didn't need to do it quite as early as I did. Luckily for me in the 6 years that followed my hair loss didn't seem to get any worse. I had perhaps a 5% drop in density but on the whole without being on medication for that time it has done really well. I have now been back on propecia and also oral minoxidil 5mg for over a year and plan to use these for as long as possible

I have always been able t style my hair to cover recession and most people would generally not know that I had any hair loss at all. Hiding it did come with some sacrifices though. I remember on a lads holiday at about 20 years old I had to pretend to have food poisoning to get out of going to the water park and had to spend the day by myself when everyone else was out enjoying it purely because I didnt want them to see me with my hair wet and the high corners. People will probably think that pathetic and it is but to me thise things were important. I would also not turn up to football or asked to be substituted if it rained and always wanted to avoid photos where possible. I was happy to live like this and basically miss out on this to avoid people seeing my receded hairline

However fast forward to the present day and I have two beautiful kids and don't want them missing out on things like swimming and being out in the rain because of me so I finally decided to do something about it.

After years of research I narrowed my picks down to Dr Bruno Pinto and Dr Bisanga. From all the threads I have read and consultations with both of them I have only good things to say about both and felt I would trust both of them 100%.

In the end i decided to go with Dr Bruno Pinto. He is one of the highest rated doctors in Europe and on the Spanish forums is probably recognised with the most thread pretty much all of which are fantastic results

There are not many things a patient can control in a hair transplant and a lot of things that can go wrong. The only thing I could control was picking a surgeon and felt that the doctors on my short list were as good as anyone anywhere. The reason I ended up picking Dr Bruno Pinto was because the whole procedure himself. He is the only person that touches your head all day. He is really passionate about his work and could talk all day about hair and the satisfaction he gets out of helping his patients. He only operates one person a day so you are the only person in the clinic and he only operates three days a week or at most 100 patients a year so he can dedicate himself to his patients that he has got and use any free days for consultations and monthly check in

I arrived at the clinic around 8am and for the first 2 and half hours was just talking and planning. Drawing a hairline on that complemented my aesthetics but also didn't go against nature. He showed me that I had high frontalis muscles and that we must not implant lower on to them or my hair would move every time I frowned. On one side the muscle was higher by 1.5mm. you wouldn't know this to look but the curve of it bugged Dr Bruno Pinto as he could tell by eye one side was out. He checked through all my native hair and said there were no signs of thinning anywhere else which was a relief to hear.

I had booked this with him over a year ago and when I sent through my photos and videos of my donor area he suggested 2000 grafts for the hairline and 300 grafts for the temporal peaks. Which I agreed to and paid for 2300 grafts. On the day of the surgery we discussed the temporal peaks and I mentioned that I haven't ever had them and he agreed as he could tell by look with the scopes that there was no hair loss in the area and that they had not receded and were just not very pronounced so he said he wouldn't want to create something that wasn't originally there as it could things off and I agreed but asked if he would use the 2300 for the hairline and get it dense around the front. Looking at my donor he estimated I would be able to get around 8000 grafts and still have a short haircut but if I wasn't bothered about the sides being kept longer than a grade 3 I had potential for a thousand or so more if needed.

I wont keep boring you with in and outs of the procedure but wanted to list a few key points for anyone who might be having one soon and find it useful. I thought the injections on the donor and extractions were a 2 out of 10 pain wise. Hardly felt any of them. However on the recipient site the injections were a lot more painful I was gripping the chair but its only a few seconds and then its done. Dr Bruno Pinto said I had very good vascularisation and elastic skin which meant the grafts should bed in well but I would have a lot of fibrin which is a yellow liquid seeping out and that it would not effect the result.

We did all extractions and got 2352 which was 52 more than paid for but was a gift from Dr Bruno Pinto. I had read he does this with his patients. The graft breakdown is below. We had a quick lunch and then onto implantation and I think we finished around 8pm so it was a long day.

Grafts:2352
1s:622
2s:586
3s:1007
4s:119
5s:17
6s:1

A total of 5382 hairs at average of 2.30 which he said was really good considering a quarter of the grafts were singles.

I am day four post op now and have really scabbed up more so on one side. The donor is perfect and I have no pain and able to massage and wash normally in the shower. I had swelling for two days which deformed my face but that passed soon enough.

From getting in touch with the clinic over a year ago with Emilio who is absolutely great and so helpful all the way through to Dr Bruno Pinto coming in on a Saturday to do my hair wash personally I cannot thank them enough for the respect they have shown me and how much they have helped me. I am now hoping like everyone else for a great result

Below are photos of my hair pre-op and post op as well as a donor photo straight after extractions and how i generally styled my hair.

Please feel free to comment good or bad. I shall try and update very regularly because during my research it was my biggest annoyance with people start threads and not updating. I understand why and that they just get on with their lives but shall try my best to give you a full thread to 12 months.

Any questions please ask I shall try and reply to any you have

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by rambo man
Camera roll underneath previous photo

[bear56]

2352  grafts in such a small area= super high density. should turn out real well !!! 

[HappyMan2021]

@rambo man can you clarify these pics? These are pre-op? You look like Wolverine in them lol. Just wondering where the pain points are in these 2 pics. 

[rambo man]

9 hours ago, bear56 said:

2352  grafts in such a small area= super high density. should turn out real well !!! 

Thanks yes Dr Bruno Pinto said he was trying to eyeball the front lines and match them up close to native density so it would only need one pass. He did say though with elastic skin and such high density there would be a lot of fibrin which I have now in day 5 with basically one big scab each side

[rambo man]

8 hours ago, HappyMan2021 said:

@rambo man can you clarify these pics? These are pre-op? You look like Wolverine in them lol. Just wondering where the pain points are in these 2 pics. 

[rambo man]

Just now, rambo man said:

8 hours ago, HappyMan2021 said:

@rambo man can you clarify these pics? These are pre-op? You look like Wolverine in them lol. Just wondering where the pain points are in these 2 pics. 

@HappyMan2021no problems yes these are both pre op photos. I don’t looks as good right now haha. As I say I was lucky my loss didn’t get that far considering how early it took. From front on I have always looked ok but from a side profile especially the right where I comb right to left to hide recession you would clearly see a comb over. Again like that was ok until there was wind or rain or water and then it looked ridiculous 

[Mike10]

With the wet hair one can see that the middle is starting to weaken and you are only 32. So good decision to hop back on hair loss treatment

[A_4_Archan]

Very densely packed and it needed to be to match density if ur existing hairs..ur hair looks enough thick to give u a very good density and tht too whn they are so dense packed ..

How many grafts per/cm2? 

Are you on medication ?

[rambo man]

10 hours ago, Archan said:

Very densely packed and it needed to be to match density if ur existing hairs..ur hair looks enough thick to give u a very good density and tht too whn they are so dense packed ..

How many grafts per/cm2? 

Are you on medication ?

@Archan yes I am on propecia and oral minoxidil every day.

the are was 37cm2 and the grafts were 2352 so around 63 grafts per cm2 but probably more in the hair line and less further back I would think

[A_4_Archan]

Thts great ...very high density cause i have mostly seen surgeon's placing at around 50 per cm2 for hairline...

Bt as ur existing hair seems to be dense he wud have done ths to match tht so it blends well...so ur outcome would be fantastic ...

[Sitries1]

Looks excellent. Very densely packed. Pinto's work is fantastic. Nice hairline design too. 

[Dillpickle123]

Gone look great 👍 I about a week the scabs should start to fall out 

[Hairy Henderson]

Did you get the temples done?  It looked like there was intent on the temples but can’t tell in the post surgery pics

[rambo man]

On 2/9/2023 at 9:49 PM, Sitries1 said:

Looks excellent. Very densely packed. Pinto's work is fantastic. Nice hairline design too. 

@Sitries1thanks if I get anything like yours I would be happy 

[rambo man]

On 2/10/2023 at 12:46 AM, Dillpickle123 said:

Gone look great 👍 I about a week the scabs should start to fall out 

@Dillpickle123thanks I am following yours as a guide haha happy hair growing

[rambo man]

23 hours ago, Calihome1 said:

Did you get the temples done?  It looked like there was intent on the temples but can’t tell in the post surgery pics

@Calihome1in the end no. They were planned but when Dr Bruno Pinto had a look with his magnification tools he said all the hair was present and there were no pores where hairs used to be so I hadn’t lost any and they were always like this and not to recreate something that wasn’t there originally

[Dillpickle123]

18 hours ago, rambo man said:

@Dillpickle123thanks I am following yours as a guide haha happy hair growing

Haha that’s great mate! One thing I noticed is that the first couple months you’ll have increased hair fall the shower all normal though 

[rambo man]

On 2/12/2023 at 5:48 PM, Dillpickle123 said:

Haha that’s great mate! One thing I noticed is that the first couple months you’ll have increased hair fall the shower all normal though 

Thanks I have been doing three washes a day to get the scabs off and have noticed a few more strands than usual so thanks for the advice it’s all normal

[rambo man]

Hi All

2 weeks in the books now so just updating. Nearly all the scabs came off around day 11 but I do have a couple that are now tony but still there. Dr Bruno Pinto said they are because I had a lot of fibrin and they are just going to take a few days more to go. When washing they are hanging off but one point is still hanging on and he said just to leave them until they fall themselves.

The donor area looks really good. I have had the back and sides cut today to blend it a little better. There’s still a big difference between the lengths and it’s noticeable but doesn’t look that bad and in another two weeks it should be able to all blend well I think.

Glad to get these two weeks out of the way. These were harder than having the surgery with spraying and washes and sleeping on my back.

I know all the grafts are going to shed soon but hopefully it won’t be so bad and the growth of the transplanted hair starts ealru

I shall update again at one month

[airporteffect]

Very nice. I got the same amount of grafts but your recipient area is about 1/4 the size. This should be a great result.

[Big Rome]

you using straighteners to manipulate your hair like that to cover the recipient area?? 

[rambo man]

14 hours ago, airporteffect said:

Very nice. I got the same amount of grafts but your recipient area is about 1/4 the size. This should be a great result.

Thanks hopefully both get great hair after 

[rambo man]

3 hours ago, Big Rome said:

you using straighteners to manipulate your hair like that to cover the recipient area?? 

@Big Romeno it’s just how I have styled my hair for years to hide my right temple so it just falls like that when brushed forward and then a tiny amount of wax to hold the hair there 

[Gasper20]

This is super dense. Going to be a great result

[Gatsby]

@rambo man this is great work! Happy growing!👌