Parasol
member
Hi everyone! My name is Ryan and I'm 37 from the USA. My topic may be a little bit different than most. Perhaps we can view it as a cautionary tale (hopefully one with a redemption arc!
)! I had two pretty successful FUT procedures with Dr. Scott Boden in Connecticut back in 2009 and 2010, totaling approximately 3,750 grafts. Although the very frontal hairline and the left side of my hairline near the temple weren't as dense as I had hoped (Dr. Boden and I agreed I could use a few hundred more grafts), the result was all in all pretty life changing.
So of course I took it for granted, stopped taking Finasteride because I had somehow convinced myself my frontal half was mostly transplanted hair anyway, and lost so much hair over the last decade it even shocks me looking back at my post-op photos.
2009 before any surgery (my hair was pretty long then and we went with no-shave both times so these are the best photos I have)
2011 final result, taken at my 1 year follow up after my second FUT procedure
It's pretty crazy how quickly after these photos were taken how aggressively I lost more hair! I never looked at these photos until recently or took new ones to compare. As time went on, stopping Finasteride about a year or two after surgery, and taking no other preventative measures, it just thinned out more and more until I realized about a year ago, wow, I'm basically bald again!
Right as COVID started about a year ago, I decided to get back on Finasteride and started Rogaine foam, and began researching clinics again. This time I knew I wanted FUE, so I could get some grafts put into my strip scar, which had stretched quite a bit, while we were at it. Originally, I was thinking of going to Dr. Boden for a third pass, but when I discovered he uses ARTAS for his FUE procedures (something I decided I wasn't comfortable doing), I hit the forums here pretty hard, looking for the best in the business in frontal half scalp work and hairlines.
After getting some consults, I decided on Dr. Maras at HDC in Cyprus, and had surgery last Monday and Tuesday.
Pre-op
Hairline and area design
Graft breakdown
3773 grafts (approximately 300 placed in strip scar)
834 singles
1599 doubles
1340 triples (HDC didn't say whether I had larger graft units, and if so, whether they were included in this number)
2.134 hairs per graft (based on my math)
After two days of surgery
Firstly, I want to thank my advisor @Doron Harati rep . For the last several months, no matter the time of day, no matter how ridiculous the question, he has been there for me no matter what. Regardless of how this result turns out, Doron is phenomenal and is clearly in this business because he cares about people. It feels really good to know I'll have his support through this.
I also want to thank the entire community here, for helping and comforting me along this journey. You may remember me from here:
Stretched FUT scar. Looking for advice on what to do next | Hair loss Forum - Hair Transplant forums (hairlossexperiences.com)
I also need to say....wow. The recovery has been much worse than my last two procedures. I absolutely feel 10 years older. Currently, I'm 8 days post op, and already managed to bang my head and lose a graft, and get prescribed an anti-biotic due to some poor scab healing. It's also a real pain trying to sleep when you can't sleep on your scalp grafts or your FUT scar grafts.
For those curious, right now I'm taking 1mg of Finasteride daily (and have been for roughly the last year), some collagen and plant based protein powder daily (along with eating really well and exercising regularly...though the clinic wants me to wait a month to start working out again), and just ordered some MSM tablets to hopefully help speed up the growth. I'm also currently debating on whether or not I want to begin Rogaine foam again. I'm reading different things recently on whether it's a good thing to use or not, and am a bit torn on it at the moment. The clinic wants me to wait 4 weeks to apply it again if I chose to do so, so I have some time to decide.
Anyway, I do hope to continue to document my journey here. I'd love to get some feedback on how I'm healing in my upcoming posts, and how the growth is going once it starts.
So of course I took it for granted, stopped taking Finasteride because I had somehow convinced myself my frontal half was mostly transplanted hair anyway, and lost so much hair over the last decade it even shocks me looking back at my post-op photos.
2009 before any surgery (my hair was pretty long then and we went with no-shave both times so these are the best photos I have)
2011 final result, taken at my 1 year follow up after my second FUT procedure
It's pretty crazy how quickly after these photos were taken how aggressively I lost more hair! I never looked at these photos until recently or took new ones to compare. As time went on, stopping Finasteride about a year or two after surgery, and taking no other preventative measures, it just thinned out more and more until I realized about a year ago, wow, I'm basically bald again!
Right as COVID started about a year ago, I decided to get back on Finasteride and started Rogaine foam, and began researching clinics again. This time I knew I wanted FUE, so I could get some grafts put into my strip scar, which had stretched quite a bit, while we were at it. Originally, I was thinking of going to Dr. Boden for a third pass, but when I discovered he uses ARTAS for his FUE procedures (something I decided I wasn't comfortable doing), I hit the forums here pretty hard, looking for the best in the business in frontal half scalp work and hairlines.
After getting some consults, I decided on Dr. Maras at HDC in Cyprus, and had surgery last Monday and Tuesday.
Pre-op
Hairline and area design
Graft breakdown
3773 grafts (approximately 300 placed in strip scar)
834 singles
1599 doubles
1340 triples (HDC didn't say whether I had larger graft units, and if so, whether they were included in this number)
2.134 hairs per graft (based on my math)
After two days of surgery
Firstly, I want to thank my advisor @Doron Harati rep . For the last several months, no matter the time of day, no matter how ridiculous the question, he has been there for me no matter what. Regardless of how this result turns out, Doron is phenomenal and is clearly in this business because he cares about people. It feels really good to know I'll have his support through this.
I also want to thank the entire community here, for helping and comforting me along this journey. You may remember me from here:
Stretched FUT scar. Looking for advice on what to do next | Hair loss Forum - Hair Transplant forums (hairlossexperiences.com)
I also need to say....wow. The recovery has been much worse than my last two procedures. I absolutely feel 10 years older. Currently, I'm 8 days post op, and already managed to bang my head and lose a graft, and get prescribed an anti-biotic due to some poor scab healing. It's also a real pain trying to sleep when you can't sleep on your scalp grafts or your FUT scar grafts.
For those curious, right now I'm taking 1mg of Finasteride daily (and have been for roughly the last year), some collagen and plant based protein powder daily (along with eating really well and exercising regularly...though the clinic wants me to wait a month to start working out again), and just ordered some MSM tablets to hopefully help speed up the growth. I'm also currently debating on whether or not I want to begin Rogaine foam again. I'm reading different things recently on whether it's a good thing to use or not, and am a bit torn on it at the moment. The clinic wants me to wait 4 weeks to apply it again if I chose to do so, so I have some time to decide.
Anyway, I do hope to continue to document my journey here. I'd love to get some feedback on how I'm healing in my upcoming posts, and how the growth is going once it starts.