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2000 FUE at Vinci Hair Clinic in London - Dr Lucianni Carneiro

E

ElCielo

Member
This looks like superb growth! Congratulations!

How was the post-op recovery for you? Did you have to apply saline spray on the recipient area and how often each day?

Best Regards
 
gregor100

gregor100

FUE Patient - 2000 Grafts
Thanks, it seems i've responded pretty well as I know others don't have this kinda growth 4 months in. Also aware loads of others do have this much though haha, seem to just be in the luckier group I guess..

Recovery was ok. Not gonna lie the first 8-10 days are horrendous. Could never get a proper sleep and was more or less house bound. I would go to bed and take ibuprofen, paracetemol and a Nytol (Sleep aid, probably has different brand names in different countries) - I would get to sleep alright but with some discomfort, then i'd wake up twice every night in quite a lot of pain and have to take more paracetemol and ibuprofen. This was the worst part by far.

I used saline spray on the front for like 2 weeks approximately, maybe a bit less. Basically used that to ease the itching because you obviously can't scratch it. Once I was able to stand under the shower I kinda slowly stopped using the spray to the point I felt I no longer needed it. For the donor area I used 'Cicaplast' which is a skin repair balm type of thing. This wasn't recommended by the clinic but it was something i'd used before and had in my house, it is a really thick cream so it felt good when applied which soothed the area immensely. As you can see from my pictures my scabs are now undetectable, i'd recommend that cream for the donor area personally but I must admit i've never seen anyone else use it. This is probably the part where someone will school me on why I shouldn't have done that lol, but yeah it worked great for me. I've heard of people using vaseline etc though.


And in reply to renwick999 - are you from the UK? unsure if you read that I was originally booked for Malaga, in hindsight i'd honestly say it's probably 6 and half a dozen going to malaga or London time wise, for me anyway coming from Edinburgh, after you take into account the sheer hassle of getting in and out of the city centre of London i'd have been just as quick, if not quicker, actually going to Malaga haha. Think we ended up near enough 2 hours on a bus to get into London after we'd landed, pain in the arse but worth it in the end obviously. We sorted our own flights though as the guy at the clinic was finding really late times at airports that were miles away, ended up just booking our own flight home via SkyScanner, the clinic were totally fine with it and just deducted the amount, or transferred me it or something can't really remember haha. Ended up flying out of London at 9am the following morning so was home in time for lunch.

Also the aspect of my GF forcing me to go on sight seeing tours the day before when in reality i was just bricking it the full day thinking about the op hahaha, I can imagine Malaga would be a bit more chill.
 
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renwick999

renwick999

member
Yeah from Livingston. So we are probably only 20 mins away from each other)(_::.
I seen you mentioning that the first 8-10 days were pretty rough. Did you take this time of work or were you working?
Also how soon after the procedure would you say it's safe to start wearing hats?
 
gregor100

gregor100

FUE Patient - 2000 Grafts
Haha Livi is really close to me. I'm in West Lothian too. Yeah in all honesty they were pretty bad. It's mostly the lack of sleep that gets you, you kinda manage to settle then the pain wakes you up because you've been lying on the donor. A vicious cycle of that for about 8-10 days. But it does obviously stop eventually and is just about manageable with ibuprofen, paracetemol and some type of thick cream to soothe the donor (I used cicaplast as I mentioned).

I took 2 weeks off work yeah, was a pain using all those holidays to basically kick about the house, squeezed in a trip up north but didn't do an awful lot. I work quite a labour intensive job so it was out of the question going back to work. If i worked in an office i'd have gone back in a week but there's no hiding it. I was really open about it though so just walked in day one with it on display, got all the slagging out the way and that was that haha. Appreciate some people might not be this comfortable with it but in my opinion you're gonna seriously struggle to hide it for the first few weeks, just being honest.

I didn't wear hats at all for the first couple of weeks but that's because i wasn't that fussed. You COULD wear a hat the second the procedure was done but you need to be really carefull. It's just not worth dislodging grafts for the sake of feeling self conscious for a couple of weeks. I'm pretty sure Vinci actually gave me a hat, can't really remember though as I didn't want to wear it for the reasons stated. To answer the question though i'd estimate about a fortnight to be completely safely wearing hats.
 
renwick999

renwick999

member
Small world!

I'm not fussed about hiding it with the people in work either or out in public tbh. It's not something that can easily be hidden.


How's the progress looking now??
 
gregor100

gregor100

FUE Patient - 2000 Grafts
Just 2 weeks short of the 6 month mark now so i'll post another update.

In these pictures i've applied a small amount of 'toppik' hair fibres along the hairline, but it just goes to show you how decent it can look with the powder added at this stage.

The hair is quite thick by itself now, but if i apply the toppik and hairspray you really cannot tell i've had a transplant at this stage. I only use it if i'm going on a night out or something though as it's probably not great for a growing hair transplant to weigh it down with products etc.

Anyway here's some pictures with the toppik applied, under natural lighting.
YNTQken.jpg


7DrOQJ5.jpg


ygHUPlZ.jpg





Now onto the 'negative'...

Now it's thickened right up i'm definitely happy with it, however it's noticeable that the right temple area has been designed better than the left, the left is slightly higher and goes back a bit further and the 'temple point' sort of area isn't as nicely crafted, while not massively noticeable with my hair styled you can see this if you look back at the earlier pictures in this thread where the redness and scabs are still visible. I'll attach an older straight shot as it's more apparent when my hair isn't styled.

Excuse my very poor photoshop skills but this kinda emphasises what I mean;

cLU7DXE.jpg



If you draw a line straight across from left to right you can see it's higher on the left side.

I definitely wouldn't sit through another transplant procedure any time in the near future to have this fixed as it's not a maaaassive deal and I don't want to say I'm 'disappointed' but I would just have rathered this wasnt the case haha. I appreciate forum members here probably wont notice it as much as me, but i'm sure you all understand you're far more critical of your own appearance.

Anyway - I'd say I'm 8/10 happy overall. Still haven't been to a proper barbers/stylist to get a decent cut, the mother has been on trimming duties haha, but i'm growing it out from now for a few weeks so I have some length then gonna head to a stylist and get my first proper cut and style, looking forward to it!


EDIT - I'll add another couple of pictures I just found. The first one is the hairline drawn on in the clinic. You can see the shape in this picture how it goes higher on the one side. Was this intentional? I obviously didn't notice at that time as this was just a quick snapchat sent to a couple friends, but looking back you can definitely see it.


gdaG9Io.jpg




And this final image is a picture that made me 100% sure the transplant was the right decision! This was me the day before the procedure visiting buckingham palace, no product in my hair and a gust of wind caught me off guard, not a good one! But funny to look back on and see how far my hair has come, worth it!

AlCJ2Q7.jpg

 
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gregor100

gregor100

FUE Patient - 2000 Grafts
Here's some better pictures. These are from today with no toppik fibres in, under the same lighting.

Also managed to get a better focus.

It really is looking good now.


zILrGVG.jpg


V9qGePw.jpg


fVhqlWy.jpg


 
Bigmac

Bigmac

Administrator
Staff member
Its looking very good. You must be happy how its progressing.
 
gregor100

gregor100

FUE Patient - 2000 Grafts
Been a while since i've posted so here's an update.

Hair has obviously thickened up even more, i've been to the barbers 3 or 4 times now. Getting a fade up the sides with a bit of texture on the top, feels good to be able to go in and ask for a normal hair cut haha!

It's still not 100% as you can see but normal people in daily life never notice. I had a new barber today and never said anything and they were shocked when i told them at the end. This is my hair cut a few hours ago and with matte clay through it to style.


Being able to put matte clay through my hair and just style it normally without it looking all thin and gappy/clumpy feels amazing!


As previously mentioned the right temple side is a bit better. The donor area looks good however as you can see there are possibly a couple of spots that arent 100% dense. Not really noticeable but they can be kiiiiinda seen in the picture!


The cut in this picture was taken down to a 1. I had it to a 0 last cut and you could JUST see the white scars if you looked closely, i didn't particularly like it at a 0 anyway, a bit too severe.


Overall, happy.




sv6XzBd.jpg


NzjbN1Q.jpg


adsUJww.jpg


nh1LL0I.jpg


 
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V

Vinci Hair Clinic

Valued member
Thanks for updating gregor100, looking good for around 7 months, more growth and maturing of your hair to come. Good growth!
 
SADbutTRUE

SADbutTRUE

Valued member
Looking great so early in growth phase, did clinic use atp spray post op?_ acell or special solution in grafts, the word begins with a h , but i dont remember what its called.Anyway your hair is looking great n its only going to get better, happy for you. Thnks for sharing .
 
Bigmac

Bigmac

Administrator
Staff member
It is looking good at 7 months, a big difference from your picture outside the palace. The growth and density should even out as you near the 12 month mark. Your slightly higher temple is hard to notice until you point it out, ordinary folk in public won't notice anything.
Thanks for the update.


 
gregor100

gregor100

FUE Patient - 2000 Grafts
All going well still, i'll post another photo after I get my hair cut tomorrow.

In response to SADbutTRUE, i'm not sure to be honest mate. Nothing like that was mentioned but I can't say either way for sure.

Something that I find a little strange though, what's happened to my Doctor? I wonder if Vinci could answer this.

I am quite happy with my result obviously and don't have any complaints but it makes me slightly uncomfortable that the only trace of Doctor Lucianni Carneiro on the entire internet seems to be my thread here, my thread on another site and a couple of random backlinks etc.

He's also gone from the Vinci website, the only other trace there used to be of him on the internet, did he get sacked? Move on?

I dunno... Doesn't really matter now I suppose but it's just strange that there seems to be no records anywhere else of, what appears to me, to be a pretty decent hair transplant doctor?
Having had the procedure now, i'm happy and all but knowing what I know now i'm unsure if i'd have gone ahead with it without a decent amount of information on the Doctor. I was hoping my thread would maybe be able to let some people see that he is, in fact, a real doctor who has done real transplants but now he seems to have vanished!
 
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gregor100

gregor100

FUE Patient - 2000 Grafts
Here's some pics. So this is 9.5 months after the procedure.


Doesn't look too much different to my last update. Slightly thicker all round. You can still see there's a little bit of density probably still to come through more so on the left side.
Slightly higher left temple is also apparent.


Probably the last photo update i'll do before the 12 month mark, unless something drastic happens.


To the untrained eye you wouldn't have a clue but if you zoom into the last image you can see the FUE scars on the donor area. 100% worth it but i've got to admit I wasn't really aware of FUE scarring before the procedure, so just be aware if you're thinking of FUE that there are scars, no surgery can be COMPLETELY scarless, and some people can get quite unlucky with them just depending on how their bodies heal.



Most of the time they're fine though but i've seen a couple of absolute horror shows.

Direct link - http://imgur.com/a/m2FFW
ywWHcl0.jpg


W9IKnix.jpg


7R3QzD1.jpg


BOD117s.jpg

 
Bigmac

Bigmac

Administrator
Staff member
Hi Gregor, looking good at 9 1/2 months. You're right about the healing and scarring, every surgery will leave it.
I'll look forward to seeing your final 12 months pictures.
 
V

Vinci Hair Clinic

Valued member
Hi gregor, Doctor Lucianni is at present studying other forms of surgical procedures and not able to perform hair transplants, so we removed him from the website for the time being until he returns. Good growth to you.
 
renwick999

renwick999

member
Hi Gregor,

Results are looking very good now! I fly out to Malaga this week for my procedure.

I'm very nervous / anxious but also extremely excited to see the results. Do you have any recommendations on how to sleep at night for the first few days / weeks following the procedure?

Cheers
 
V

Vinci Hair Clinic

Valued member
Hi renwick999, look forward to meeting you. Nerves are normal in my opinion, you don ´t choose to do this every day. I can meet you at the hotel in the morning if you wish and take you to the Clinic. You ´ll also be given comprehensive post-op instructions after. Phil
 
renwick999

renwick999

member
Hi Phil,

If you are around in Malaga on Thursday morning yes you could meet me at the hotel.

See you Thursday
 
gregor100

gregor100

FUE Patient - 2000 Grafts
Good luck, let us know how you get on.

With regards to sleeping, it's pretty bad for the first week or so not gonna lie haha. As you've read I was up multiple times per night woken by the pain.

I basically slept flat on my back, with a couple pillows slightly elevated, and put like a travel/neck pillow round my neck to stop me from rolling over in my sleep.

Popped a couple paracetemol and ibuprofen before bed and also kept the packets there so when I woke up i'd just take another of each, managed to sleep about 5/6 hours most nights waking up once or twice.

I also had Nytol, unsure if this helped to be honest, maybe help keep me asleep a bit longer or put me to sleep a bit faster.

Once the donor area heals a bit it's fine though. I'd say I was sleeping 100% normally after 3 weeks, but it wasn't too bad after a week or so. And yeah.. I survived so wouldn't worry too much, just power through.

And cheers for the answer about the surgeon. More money in other ventures? )(_::
 
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