Shock loss or depletion due to over-harvesting? Anyone have similar results?

[JCor]

I had a FUE procedure 7 weeks ago and this is what the side of my head and back of my head looks like.  I had a 3,500 graft procedure to touch up the hairline, add density in the mid scalp and touch up the crown.  
 

Per the pictures below, I’m now more concerned that the donor area will look like this permanently.  As you can see the left-to-mid side has large bald patches that weren’t there before and the right side is patchy and you can still clearly see the block where they took grafts.  
 

I also lost a lot more native hair up top since the procedure took place.  Anyone else have similar experiences at this stage?  Is this just shock loss?  The clinic keeps telling me that this is normal and that it will take time to grow in and blend naturally.  They basically said it would be a year out until they do a thorough examination of the results.  

[BaldGuy]

It seems to be shock loss in donor. It should come back at 7 or 8 month. So be patient.

[Berba11]

The 2nd photo is concerning as it looks like they extracted from your crown, which is far too high up in the donor area if so. 
 

Who was the doctor/clinic?

[BillyHopkins88]

I could be wrong but they may have extracted to close together 🤔 Were did you go ?

[JCor]

I don’t believe they went as high as the crown.  Here is a photo taken about a week after and you can see how high they went and if they extracted too close together or not.  I had it done at Restore in Chicago.

[Berba11]

15 minutes ago, JCor said:

I don’t believe they went as high as the crown.  Here is a photo taken about a week after and you can see how high they went and if they extracted too close together or not.  I had it done at Restore in Chicago.

To me that looks a bit high. There’s only a couple of Docs in the world that would typically take hair beyond the traditional “safe zone”, and that’s only after thorough examination of the hair loss pattern. For example, Dr Zarev goes right to the edges of the hair loss pattern and does the most detailed consultations and examinations of any doctor around. 

In your case they seem to have used the entirety of the donor, including maybe going too high and also taking a lot from the nape of the neck. I’d be a little concerned at how liberal they’ve been in extracting outside the safe zones as those grafts will be much less resistant to DHT. Are you on finasteride?

In any case the extractions themselves seem fairly well spread out so it’s probably shockloss that you’re experiencing. 

[Al - Moderator]

39 minutes ago, JCor said:

I don’t believe they went as high as the crown.  Here is a photo taken about a week after and you can see how high they went and if they extracted too close together or not.  I had it done at Restore in Chicago.

 

In this picture you can see the extraction pattern is spread evenly throughout the entire area and there's also still a lot of hair growing throughout the entire area as well, so it looks to me like you will probably turn out fine once all the shock loss grows back in.

 

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by BeHappy

[wembley]

53 minutes ago, JCor said:

I don’t believe they went as high as the crown.  Here is a photo taken about a week after and you can see how high they went and if they extracted too close together or not.  I had it done at Restore in Chicago.

i think the extraction pattern is too high and outside "safe zone"...

[Cooper48]

The extraction may be a little high but a lot of the donor loss is in the safe area.  At this stage I would assume this is all shockloss.  You will have to be very patient here.   It could be 4-6 months before you start to see this recover.  I have quite a bit of shock loss too.  My Dr did not go outside the safe area so there is always a chance this will happen.  I have reviewed dozens of threads with people having shockloss and it almost always comes back.  It does seem to take longer than it does for the transplanted hair to grow so the key is patience.  I'm getting near 3 months and have growth starting in the transplant but donor is still lagging.  When you get a into these ugly duckling months Toppik can help cover those spots when going out.  Good luck!