7 months post op - looking for advice

[kajl]

7 months ago I did a live consult to check if i'm eligible for a hair transplant. I proceeded with it in Malta which probably should not have been done. After the transplant I have been verbally told around 2800 grafts were used for the hairline and around 400 for the crown. Don't have anything written anywhere.

Around 2 weeks later started having alot of concerns.

1) Unsure how the hairline connects to the temple points even unsure of angles. (Never raised with doctor) even when swelling went down i'm seeing it a little bit too low.
2) Double grafts in the hairline (when i raised this with the doctor he said he could do another procedure with 100 single grafts)
3) donor area patchy when cutting hair a little shorter. (raised with doctor but said looks ok)
4) Too many grafts taken for the hairline considering my family history. (also I think i was/am already diffusely thinning) - Doctor said I'm taking medication and is fine.

5) Bumpy skin (check below comment )

Since my family history hairloss wise is very bad (every male member i know is bald apart from my grandfather who at my age had more hair than me) I don't think its wise to even try to repair this with single grafts and improve temple points (at the time I had no idea we had around 6- 8k disposition in our donors) so i had in mind
removing the curved odd connection of the hairline to the temples for now and when the time comes and I continue balding remove the rest. Today I decided to shave that area to see how it looks and like it better. To my horror though the skin is very bumpy. I had already mentioned this to the doctor around late december - 
he said it is not cobblestoning but healing skin. first he prescribed a cream called protopic which did absolutely nothing then suggested for another appointment and was going to suggest microneedling and PRP. Before doing anything else (invasive or not) I want to do further consults.

Would appreciate some honest feedback from the below pictures. This has taken a huge mental toll on my well being and these last 7 months I have been struggling professionally in what should be a high performing job.

Preop

 

 

 

 

 

Post Op - Immediate - I was told 2.8k grafts hairline - 400 - crown.

 

 

 

2 weeks  - post OP

3 weeks Post Op




Donor - 3 weeks post op

Donor - 5months Post OP

 

 

 

Present

 

Present skin (Note this area was shaved with clipper 0 guard today as sides were starting to bother me. 




Present -  diffused thining ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 4 by kajl
removing duplicate pics

[Berba11]

Hi mate, sorry you're going through this. A few thoughts:

• Doesn't remotely look like 2,800 grafts for the hairline work
• Lots of grafts that are far too thick in the hairline and it all lacks the kind of soft, natural-looking refinements we'd hope to see. Luckily most lay people won't really know the difference
• Skin has definitely been irritated by those grafts one way or the other - possibly cobblestoning as you suspect
• Overall it's not great work, but its far from the worst case to ever pass through this forum

 

The good news is that this would be fixable. Those implanted grafts can be punched back out and even put back into the areas of your donor that you feel are most compromised. Usually punching the grafts out will also help improve or even eliminate the cobblestoning.

The bad news is that these kind of repairs are quite a bit more expensive than normal surgery - expect to pay more for the fix than the initial surgery - and can often require two or three sessions to get everything out and then get everything looking soft and natural again. The number of outstanding surgeons for this kind of repair work is a little limited. I'd recommend reaching out to Dr Feriduni in Belgium, Dr Bisanga (also Belgium) and Dr Laura & Sever at Hattingen for consultation/evaluation. If you're in the UK I'd also suggest a visit to Dr Ball at the Maitland clinic in Portsmouth.

EDIT:

Also, rather than shave off the offending corner grafts, you might find a better solution that doesn't expose the cobblestoning is to pluck out the most offensive grafts in an irregular pattern to create a bit of break-up. Definitely do not go back to this clinic for any more work though!

Edited March 4 by Berba11

[kajl]

Thanks for your reply. Just wanted to make sure this was not all in my head. 

My only problem with trying to fix this is my family history. I can maybe do 2 -3 sessions to fix everything but seeing all these grafts were wasted plus family history and to make matters worse - weak beard and chest hair.

I don't think it makes sense to continue pursuing this. If 1.5k grafts were taken from behind I think would make sense but I already feel my donor was shattered (god knows how many they transected) so fixing it would just be a temp fix 3-5 years then i'm screwed again and will be ineligible for future hair transplants because of the donor.

[Berba11]

12 minutes ago, kajl said:

Thanks for your reply. Just wanted to make sure this was not all in my head. 

My only problem with trying to fix this is my family history. I can maybe do 2 -3 sessions to fix everything but seeing all these grafts were wasted plus family history and to make matters worse - weak beard and chest hair.

I don't think it makes sense to continue pursuing this. If 1.5k grafts were taken from behind I think would make sense but I already feel my donor was shattered (god knows how many they transected) so fixing it would just be a temp fix 3-5 years then i'm screwed again and will be ineligible for future hair transplants because of the donor.

I'm not sure you've understood what I was suggesting you seek consultation about:

I'm saying you could have all of those grafts from the front punched back out again and placed elsewhere on your head (including back into your donor area), essentially resetting you to where you started (albeit with an emptier wallet). If you then wanted to just move on and allow your hair loss to progress however it will, then so be it. Here's a case in which a HT was totally reversed and the grafts put back into the donor to mask an FUT scar:

 

And here's another ongoing case of something very similar:

 

As for future hair loss... Have you considered taking finasteride?

[kajl]

Ah ok I thought you were saying to fix by removing grafts and redo the hairline with softer hairs gotcha now. 

I am currently on finasteride 1mg per day been on since feb of last year.  After the hair transplant my mental well being suffered and still is bad to this day and ended up eating junk everyday with no exercise.. and not sure if certain side effects I have now are due to finasteride or just mental + diet. I have been on fin with no side effects from feb till july which is when I did the transplant.

I am based in Malta but where I work we have in office in belgium so going there will be a no brainer. Was think of looking at Feriduni, Bisanga and Mwamba. and see what they suggest.

 

Again thanks for your help

[kajl]

And to think - I know 6 people who got hair transplants done at hair mills - cinik and serkan - all of them maybe had decent results just some thick grafts at the hairline but hairline and even their donor was spread correctly. Then theres me who tried to avoid the gamble of going to mills - got on here found a doctor (not forum recommended) but there were a few reviews and thought I was doing a wiser decision......... 

[Berba11]

21 hours ago, kajl said:

And to think - I know 6 people who got hair transplants done at hair mills - cinik and serkan - all of them maybe had decent results just some thick grafts at the hairline but hairline and even their donor was spread correctly. Then theres me who tried to avoid the gamble of going to mills - got on here found a doctor (not forum recommended) but there were a few reviews and thought I was doing a wiser decision......... 

 

Edited March 6 by Berba11
Surgeon's name removed at request of patient