Planning a second hair transplant (first were 3800 grafts with Dr. Yaman in Dec. 21)

[enes]

Hello guys, I had a hair transplant back in the end of 2021 with Dr. Yaman. 3800 Grafts were transplanted all over my head. I am pleased with the outcome, but would like to add more density and have a slightly lower and straigther hairline. I am now 30 years old and my donor area is not the best, but i have very thick beard hair. I need a doctor who would be very careful with and good at extracting the grafts. He should also be good at exctracting and using beard hairs. So manual FUE would be the best for extraction I assume. 

Long story short: I am searching for a doctor, who performs manual FUE and uses beard grafts, too. I think that I would need around 3000 grafts for a good result. My budget is around 5000€ at the moment, but I am open to save more and get the procedure later, if so advised by you. I dont use any medication and dont plan to. 

Thanks in advance  

[baddecisions]

Donor seems overharvested.

You need to find a good doctor this time, so you need to save more money.

Consulting top doctors such as Bisanga, Feriduni, Ball or Muresanu would be a good starting point.

[Ccd99]

Do you happen to have any pre-op and immediate post-op photos? 

The donor looks thin but what makes it worse is the obvious overharvesting.

If the donor was thin to begin with Dr Yaman should never have extracted that many grafts and set more realistic expectations - did you express this concern to him?

[laverita]

Yes, I never really got to understand this occipital only approach for harvesting, and more so for a hair line that needs finer hairs.. The problem is the hair line can be too harsh and then the donor also has the richest part severely depleted. I would just love one day for any doctor to come on and explain the benefits of this approach sanely. It find it a very short sighted approach personally to surgery. I am sure the experts can explain why this is beneficial though.  Also manual FUE is not going to guarantee a good outcome, more the hand performing it and 5000 Euro budget for 3000 grafts you are talking hair mill prices and more so for repair and beard work, so yes I sincerely would say do nothing at present.  

[enes]

@baddecisions yeah, unfortunately its overharvested 

@Ccd99 I told him that the donor area is my biggest concern and asked him to be very careful during harvesting. Will post more pictures in my next post. 

@laverita do you mean I should totally forget about getting a second procedure or just safe more money for a better surgeon? 

 

What`s your guys opinion on HLC Ankara? 

 

[enes]

this is all before and shortly after my hair transplant

[laverita]

18 minutes ago, enes said:

@laverita do you mean I should totally forget about getting a second procedure or just safe more money for a better surgeon? 

I would say be careful with your budget and more so once you are a repair and need body hair then things can be more costly and best to budget for elite clinics. Price does not equate to value usually so for me doing nothing is better than poor surgery. See some very good clinics and have quotes. I would hate to see you spend 5k and not be happy. 

[enes]

I actually thought about getting a small procedure on my hairline and temples to have a nicely framed face. And getting SMP afterwards for the shaven look. I think it would bei the best option for me under the circumstances of having a poor donor and most likely many years of balding to come... 

[laverita]

Be careful with temples if you don't know where your loss will go. They can take a lot of grafts and no one had strong temples with any aggressive loss naturally. Yours look more than fine and use these hairs for a rainy day elsewhere. This is just my personal opinion but they can be better used with body hair for more coverage elsewhere. 

[SY7]

How do decent clinics like this one overharvest still? I saw some good results from Fuecapilar, maybe that is possible with your budget? Not sure. 

[enes]

there are some good clinics in my price range but I'd rather spend more to get the best possible option than taking the risk of having an even worse donor. I researched a bit and think that HLC could be a good option. I like that they use manual FUE and the stick and place technique + they have experience in using body hair. unfortunately they are very expensive in my book (2,7€ per graft). I'll save more and research more to make the best possible decision

 

[wembley]

Your result in recipient area looks good and you had high survival rate of grafts. Donor is nor over harvested and looks ok with a short hair cut and it will get a better homogenization with a second procedure. Because you are only 30 i would wait a few more years to see if something changes, because now your result is pretty good and i dont think it would be good idea to a a second surgery now. 

[Lengsson]

On 7/27/2024 at 4:43 PM, wembley said:

Your result in recipient area looks good and you had high survival rate of grafts. Donor is nor over harvested and looks ok with a short hair cut and it will get a better homogenization with a second procedure. Because you are only 30 i would wait a few more years to see if something changes, because now your result is pretty good and i dont think it would be good idea to a a second surgery now. 

If this is not an overharvested donor area then I don't know what is

[mr_peanutbutter]

for beard consider hdc cyprus, pittella, eugenix, bisanga, mwamba…

[enes]

guys it's now been 3 weeks since my initial post and I researched a lot in this time. 

1. I am freshly 30 years old with aggressive, ongoing diffuse hairloss (heading towards a NW5, maybe 6)

2. My donor area is weak and overharvested

3. Best case scenario I could get a second hair transplant in the future with maybe 3000 Grafts (2000 scalp, 1000 beard donor)

4. I will never get on medication

 

After researching for a while and being honest to myself, I don't think that I stand a chance against my hairloss.. Because of my weak donor area, I could maybe get a last HT done and win a few years but for a high price financially and the risk of a completely destroyed donor.. The hairloss would still continue and a few years later I won't have enough donor hair for another procedure

In your honest opinion, would you agree, that it would be best for me to stop fighting MPB and buzz the hair off, when my actual status starts to dissatisfy me.. I hate to admit it but I think this is the best solution for me: financially, physically and mentally

plan would be: rock my actual hair for as long as it looks good for me. buzz it off when it doesnt any more. get an SMP for the shaven look. move on with life.

what would you say? 

[Al - Moderator]

Only you can tell yourself what you are OK with. Everyone feels differently. For myself I know I don't ever want to shave my head, but there are some guys who end up liking it and rocking the shaved head and beard look. As I said, that's not for me. Everyone is different. You have to decide for yourself what is best for you.

I'll throw my opinion out there anyway though 😄

If you are seriously thinking about calling it quits on continuing with hair transplants then do noting for now. Wait until you get to the point where you feel like you'd have to shave it all off and then decide if you are good with that or not. You can always decide at that time to look into another hair transplant.

 

[Al - Moderator]

If you do decide to try anther hair transplant then I'd try taking grafts from below and above the area that looks depleted to give you a more homogenized look plus try to use a lot of beard grafts.

 

[enes]

thank you for your answer

i like the idea of using different areas to create a homogenized look

when you say a lot of beard hair, how much are we talking about? furthermore: how much can be taken away without it being visibly thinner?

[Lengsson]

 

On 8/14/2024 at 12:35 PM, enes said:

guys it's now been 3 weeks since my initial post and I researched a lot in this time. 

1. I am freshly 30 years old with aggressive, ongoing diffuse hairloss (heading towards a NW5, maybe 6)

2. My donor area is weak and overharvested

3. Best case scenario I could get a second hair transplant in the future with maybe 3000 Grafts (2000 scalp, 1000 beard donor)

4. I will never get on medication

 

After researching for a while and being honest to myself, I don't think that I stand a chance against my hairloss.. Because of my weak donor area, I could maybe get a last HT done and win a few years but for a high price financially and the risk of a completely destroyed donor.. The hairloss would still continue and a few years later I won't have enough donor hair for another procedure

In your honest opinion, would you agree, that it would be best for me to stop fighting MPB and buzz the hair off, when my actual status starts to dissatisfy me.. I hate to admit it but I think this is the best solution for me: financially, physically and mentally

plan would be: rock my actual hair for as long as it looks good for me. buzz it off when it doesnt any more. get an SMP for the shaven look. move on with life.

what would you say? 

If you're still only 30 and notice you're still losing a lot of hair and refuse to stabilize on medication then yes, i think you're right it's a losing battle. You shouldn't have even had a hair transplant in your age if you knew you would never take medication because you may end up creating bigger problems for yourself than simply going bald. As you now have an overharvested donor your options for more surgeries are compromised. Not saying it will be impossible but you will be fighting a long and expensive battle and you need to ask yourself if its worth it. I would honestly just buzz it and get SMP to hide the scarring. 

[Matthias]

On 8/17/2024 at 1:48 PM, enes said:

when you say a lot of beard hair, how much are we talking about? furthermore: how much can be taken away without it being visibly thinner?

I'm in a very similar position as you.

As a general rule of thumb, up to 30% of the hair may be beard hair in a well balanced mix.

The top surgeons can extract a lot more than what you would think so don't lose hope. Look at @Doron Harati's third repair case, e. g.

[Doron Harati]

One of the optiical plans is to spread the punching space all over to balance your donor properly, I'm after 4 HTs and still have some extra grafts in my bank.