Donor area too scarce?

[ytt248]

Hi! So I reached out to a few reputable clinics in the Istanbul area and got back mixed responses. I received 5 responses, 4 of them saying they recommend a hair transplant with grafts ranging from 3500-4500 but one threw me off and said my donor area was much too scarce for extraction and they don’t recommend a transplant. What is your opinion?

 

 

 

[Al - Moderator]

Hello @ytt248. You posted this twice, but some of the pictures were different. I removed one post and combined all of your pictures into this one. To find topics that you created, so that you can get back to them easily, go to your profile and click on "See my activity" button on the right. Then on the left, click on "Topics" and it will list any topics you created.

Now, to your question... Yes I think your donor looks thin. I think it's going to be hard to get a favorable result without creating problems in the donor areas. Be careful who you go to for a procedure. Your hair type is hard to work with because of the tight curl of the hairs.

 

[ytt248]

1 hour ago, Al - Moderator said:

Hello @ytt248. You posted this twice, but some of the pictures were different. I removed one post and combined all of your pictures into this one. To find topics that you created, so that you can get back to them easily, go to your profile and click on "See my activity" button on the right. Then on the left, click on "Topics" and it will list any topics you created.

Now, to your question... Yes I think your donor looks thin. I think it's going to be hard to get a favorable result without creating problems in the donor areas. Be careful who you go to for a procedure. Your hair type is hard to work with because of the tight curl of the hairs.

 

Thank you for the advise. I’ve been taking Finasteride and topical Minoxidil for close to 6 months. I will do it for another 6 months and see what their response is. Hopefully it’ll good new.

[Shadman]

@ytt248 with oral finasteride if you can also start oral minoxidil under a doctor's supervision I think it'll improve your donor

[ytt248]

3 minutes ago, Shadman said:

@ytt248 with oral finasteride if you can also start oral minoxidil under a doctor's supervision I think it'll improve your donor

Thank you, I’ll see if I can get my PCP to prescribe me the oral min. I hear it’s much more effective than topical.

[Shadman]

Just now, ytt248 said:

I hear it’s much more effective than topical.

Yes, my experience was great with oral. I started with 2.5 mg and continued with that

[Berba11]

Your donor area does look to have some challenges (though some pictures present a better story). What I would say is that graft estimates of close to 4,000 seem to me to be much to high for you. Afro hair has some unique challenges when it comes to extraction - not all clinics are particularly adept or experienced with that hair type. However, the good news is that you can often get a bit more bang for your buck in terms of coverage from a smaller number of grafts.

Your donor might not have 4000 grafts available but if you can revise your expectations and goals, opt for something quite conservative you might get away with a number much closer to 3000 grafts (or even slightly less). If you typically keep your hair fairly short as in the pictures, a smaller and more conservative surgery in combination with something like SMP might get you pretty close to where you'd want to be, but you do have to think about future loss down the line.

Curious to know which clinics you'd spoken to and received evaluations from?

[BeardedArbor]

On 5/21/2024 at 6:27 PM, Berba11 said:

Your donor area does look to have some challenges (though some pictures present a better story). What I would say is that graft estimates of close to 4,000 seem to me to be much to high for you. Afro hair has some unique challenges when it comes to extraction - not all clinics are particularly adept or experienced with that hair type. However, the good news is that you can often get a bit more bang for your buck in terms of coverage from a smaller number of grafts.

Your donor might not have 4000 grafts available but if you can revise your expectations and goals, opt for something quite conservative you might get away with a number much closer to 3000 grafts (or even slightly less). If you typically keep your hair fairly short as in the pictures, a smaller and more conservative surgery in combination with something like SMP might get you pretty close to where you'd want to be, but you do have to think about future loss down the line.

Curious to know which clinics you'd spoken to and received evaluations from?

Just wanted to say that this was a thoughtful and nuanced post with great suggestions.