FUE Hair Transplant. 4800-4900 grafts. 48 yr Old Male.

[mostwantd1]

Hi I thought I would share my journey with my fellow baldtruthtalk'ers. I will definitely try to hit on the important points that I felt need to be shared.

I am a 48 year old male living in Houston TX and started a slow gradual hair loss in my mid 20's. Around age 30 I started taking Finestride 1mg and believe it significantly slowed the progression even though it didn't fully stop it. In my estimation, the hair loss stopped around 4-5 years ago and that is when I started thinking about doing a permanent solution to the hair loss. As the pictures show I needed help in both the hairline and crown areas. I have become an expert at using Toppik hair fibers where pretty much no one knew the extent of my hair loss besides close friends and family.

At any rate, my extensive research locally pretty much priced it our of what I wanted to spend (between 20-30k), mainly because of the fact that I have thin hair genetically and would need more grafts that one might expect. So I started looking at these forums and was very close to booking with one of the better known Turkish doctors (will not name names) until my brother in law told me about two of his friends who had gotten good results at one of the clinics in my country of Iran (name of clinic is Royan Beauty). I saw the before after pictures of his friends and since they were actual pictures they had shared of their before/after it made me a bit more certain as to the fact that they were not selectively chosen by a clinic and put on their website. I am not bashing any of the other clinics and their before/after pictures, but just sharing my own feelings about it.
The flight took approximately 20 hours including the layover in Frankfurt and was uneventful.

Some of the things that were surprisingly interesting to me about the clinic were how modern their methods were. They use the same method as below to extract the grafts:

https://www.baldtruthtalk.com/threads/28761-Introducing-New-Hair-Transplant-Technology

they also used painless needle-less numbing in the front part of the hair (still used needles in the back) which was a plus. I was told I would need approximately 4500-5000 grafts due to the fact that my donor hair was naturally not coarse.

OK this was the introduction here are my before pictures. I will update these daily. I am currently on my day 16 post op but really want to make this as detailed as possible and because my job is so demanding during the day will take a few days to get everyone up to date, so bear with me.





Consultation day consisted of them putting my head through a robotic scanner that analyzed my donor and recipient area, my hair type, and other things I guess to determine the best course of action. The computer attached to it came up with a plan of action that separated the areas of need and possible follicles needed in each area as well as the best donor areas to use. Here are my pictures the day before surgery




The surgery took almost 8.5 hours and it was very arduous at the end as I was very tired. There was a break where a good lunch was given, and I was also given fruits in between breaks. My blood was taken before hand to be used to store the extracted follicles in. The overall process was rather painless but not pain-free completely. The doctor himself created that holes in the scalp initially but the rest of the process (extraction and placement) was done by 3 nurses who were aided by two technicians who constantly kept my vitals etc in check. Here are my post-op pictures.

[mostwantd1]

OK my lunch break I will update as much as I can.

I was given two full bags of post-op items including medications for pain ( I virtually had no pain so did not use any), antibiotics, and vitamins. Also included were saline/ATP solution spray which I was instructed to use every half hour for the first 2-3 days, and another spray bottle to spray on my scalp when I went to bed for the first 2-3 days (it was some vitamin / moisturizer solution). I never stopped taking Finestride and that did not change post-op. Here is my 7 day post updated photos. I started washing my hair on the second night with a foam spray that I was given and continued doing so every night. The scabs came off by the day 7 so that was out of the way. I am taking 10000 Mcg Biotin and B12 alongside my normal vitamins. The donor area seems to be healing good even though it is still reddish.

[mostwantd1]

15 day update

Here is updated photos 15th day post op. I have started Low Level Laser Therapy every other day using the iRestore PRO. The clinic supplied me with a spray bottle that is a solution of Minoxidil, Latanoprost, Clyndamycin (antibacterial), and Betamethasone (antihistamine). I am spraying that every night on implanted areas. This regimen is supposed to continue for 2 months and after that I am free to use (or not use) rogaine or whatever.

Also the redness is getting a lot better in both donor and recipient area (it is almost totally gone in the recipient area). I seem to have started the shedding process as the recipient density is now less than before.