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I guess there was a small bit of ridging but it isn't very apparent. The original transplants were 12 years ago and the skin smoothed out quite a bit. I remember having some pitting early on but it seemed to go away at some point.
I am not 100% certain. I remember Dr. Feller and Dr. Cole both mentioning that they were the "smallest punches available."
I had a lot packed in to a small area. My hairline had only receded about 1/4 of an inch or so when I had the transplants so they were all really close together. If the doctor is too aggressive, the punches will overlap or "run together" and then you get scarring issues. Having said that, Dr. Cole is pretty aggressive and is somehow able to get a lot more at once than you might think.
They do not suture the individual punches. Those are so small they just close up and heal over on their own. Dr. Feller did not do any suturing at all. Dr. Cole sutured up the entire hairline with a "baseball stitching" that sort of compressed the whole hairline. He said it is not necessary to add that stitch and that it probably won't affect the final result, but that he feels it speeds up the recovery. After doing a procedure without the suture and one with, I think he is probably right.
I am white with pretty average skin tone - not too pale and not dark. Dr. Cole says that when they do have hypopigmentation issues, it generally comes on African Americans or guys with darker skin. However, the patient I mentioned before who had the reversal of 2,000 grafts is half black and he said he had no white dots at all.
Are you talking about the first repair or the initial HT? The initial repair job by Dr. Feller was pretty much healed by the time I had the second procedure 10 weeks later. However, there was still a lot of transplanted and some native hair camouflaging the area even though there was not residual pinkness to speak of.
Oh God no. The only discomfort was the injections of the local anesthesia. I didn't need pain meds either time and I think I popped a couple of Tylenol for about two days. I was able to sleep fine and take a long walk the day after. Two days after, I went to the gym. There is literally no downtime like there is with a HT and you don't have to be concerned about damaging grafts.
I haven't had FUE from a donor area since my HT's were done via a strip. I was told by Dr. Feller that the back of the head contains more nerves and has more healing time than the forehead.
I am very fortunate to still have quite thick hair and a hairstyle that covers my hairline so nobody had any idea that I had work done (except for my wife).
Dr. Feller charged me $2,000 to remove 200 grafts. This seems to be the going rate based on estimates from Shapiro, Bernstein, and a few other docs. Dr. Cole was considerably more. You basically have to pay him for either a half day or a full day and I needed the whole day with him. I also got work done on my scars, PRP, Acell, and some other stuff he had and it all totaled around $10K. I figure by the time this is all said and done, I will be in the $20K range. For me, this is a small price to pay to put this whole ordeal behind me.
The thing is, you already probably have some scarring from the HT. If you can shave down the site with a razor and are happy with the skin appearance underneath, then I'd say go for the laser. But the pitting and ridging is actually taken away when the tissue is punched out with FUE. After talking to all the docs and seeing quite a few results, I am pretty convinced that the FUE punches, if done correctly, leave behind much less scarring and do not add more.
I am going to look at all my options once the area heals. I am hoping that it looks good on its own, but I will consider some laser treatments if Dr. Cole thinks it will improve the result.
I guess there was a small bit of ridging but it isn't very apparent. The original transplants were 12 years ago and the skin smoothed out quite a bit. I remember having some pitting early on but it seemed to go away at some point.
- What size FUE punch was used to remove the grafts?
- Why weren't all the grafts removed at once?
- How did the suturing work? I don't know how it would be able to close such small wounds.
- What is your skin tone like?
- Do you have any lingering pinkness/redness from the initial procedure?
Was it comparable to your original HT?
- When you say there is no downtime I assume this is comparable to FUE donor healing?
- How did you explain your repair to coworkers/friends?
- Can you ballpark the cost of the removals?
I have to say the biggest concern is the scarring for me. If there really was hardly any evidence then I would go for it. Right now my biggest problem is pitting... it seems very mild but I'm not sure without shaving down and looking at it on a macro level.
Have you considered laser after your removal?
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