HST Advice Appreciated

[Barron]

Hey guys

I was hoping to get your HST advice. I'm planning on going in for an HST early next year, and, as many of you have experience with this procedure, I would love to get your thoughts/recommendations on whether to go through with it or not.

I'm 27, and have some fairly severe, Norwood-6-heading hairloss. My temples are receded; My entire frontal forelock is thin and diffuse. Luckily, the crown is fairly solid. I have a relatively poor doner area. Propecia doesn't work for me (gynocemastia), and nothing else is strong enough to slow down the loss significantly.

My saving grace is that I look great with a buzzed/shaved head (grade 1), and have no problem at all using concealers (Toppik) or non-medical/non-surgical solutions liberally. I prefer buzzing my hair down to a 1 - I feel that look reflects my personality better - and Toppik matches my black hair color perfectly, making the concealer impossible to discern, at a grade 1, on even my peach-fuzzed temples.

The plan in my mind is to get a low-density, wide-coverage HST (augmenting every couple years as necessary), and use temporary SMP to fill in the thin areas as needed. I'm hoping that will look decent at a grade 1 buzz.

With Nigams out of the picture for the time-being, Mwamba a year and a half away from anything definitive, and Pilofocus specifics still up in the air, do you guys think an HST is the way to go? If so, what do you think is the lowest and most conservative density I can go for to achieve the desired effect (buzzed down to a grade-1 and augmented with SMP)? I'd like to use my grafts wisely and to always consider the long term.

gc83uk, if you happen to read this, do you feel your density when you posted the photo below would be suitable for this sort of thing? What was your density at that time?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g24982k97830wmu/20130619_223526.jpg

Thanks all. I really value the opinion of the posters on here and respect the combine knowledge on these forums.

I'm pretty tired of worrying about this whole thing, and want to find some sort of a solution, even if un-ideal, so that I can live life focusing forward again.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

[gc83uk]

gc83uk, if you happen to read this, do you feel your density when you posted the photo below would be suitable for this sort of thing? What was your density at that time?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g24982k97830wmu/20130619_223526.jpg

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Hey Barron, I've yet to see anyone who isn't suitable for HST in all honesty, especially if you're already shaving down to 1.

That picture you have posted of me will show around 40-50 grafts per cm2. The density is slightly denser at the front and sides, which was done deliberately to blend the existing unaffected hair with the bald area. The hair cut in the photo is probably a #2 but I've been going down to a #1 and sometimes even shorter, especially when I first started this journey.

Just to be clear there wasn't any hair at all in that area before I started HST, in case you didn't know that.

To answer your questions it might be easier for you to post a photo, doesn't have to be amazing quality of what your situation is, including a photo of your donor area.

Also not sure if you know this already but Hasci will only implant 35cm2 on the first pass, they won't go any higher than this, but if you're a NW6 then I suppose you'd be wanting to go much lower than this and spread the new hair thinly across the entire balding area?

If you have a balding area of 150cm2 and Dr Gho tells you that you can have 2000 grafts on the day, then this is only 13 grafts per cm2. That wouldn't be very noticeable in all honesty! However if you did this every 9 months with 3 passes then you'd be at around 40 grafts per cm2. Which might be sufficient considering you will probably have some existing native hair already, something which I didn't have!

Without seeing your photos it's difficult to guess, but probably focusing a slightly higher density in the frontal + mid areas and progressively less towards the crown area.

It should also be said that the avg number of hairs per graft in HST in my procedures was around 1.4, but in a regular FUE you can get around 2 hairs per graft. Having said that most if not all of the implanted grafts will grow in the recipient, but in FUE you'll probably only grow about 85% of them. That's how I understand it.

And it's scarless of course.

[Vox]

... I've yet to see anyone who isn't suitable for HST in all honesty, especially if you're already shaving down to 1.

You talk perhaps about balding guys, because as of now there is no hair transplant technique that could do anything acceptable to the completely bald ones in the NW6-7 realm.

Also, what are the numbers 1 and 2 in hair cuts? Which is the hair length left in mm?

[cocacola]

i thinking posting a picture will be the best for us to give any suggestions

[gc83uk]

You talk perhaps about balding guys, because as of now there is no hair transplant technique that could do anything acceptable to the completely bald ones in the NW6-7 realm.

Also, what are the numbers 1 and 2 in hair cuts? Which is the hair length left in mm?

Acceptable to you, perhaps! What's acceptable to everybody else will vary. Some people are happy enough going from e.g NW6 to NW3.

The point I was making in the earlier post was I haven't seen anybody who isn't suitable for HST. Because even if you're conservative with just 1 HST procedure, then what is the worst that can happen? There are no scars to worry about. Compared to NW6/7 with FUE/FUT would most likely mean forever having a longer hair style to cover up the scars especially if you ran out of donor to finish the job to a satisfactorily state. I would hate to feel like I couldn't shave down because I have a cheese head.

The numbers you asked about, I can't remember exactly but I think #1 is something like 2.5mm and #2 about 5 or 6mm.

[Vox]

Because even if you're conservative with just 1 HST procedure, then what is the worst that can happen?

I don't see what is the benefit from a single HST procedure on a NW7. Going to NW6.5-6? That's it.

I value immensely the scar-less procedures, because any transplant is by definition an invasive one. But if your donor is in the levels of a NW7, transplants are of no use without some kind of multiplication. I think.

[gc83uk]

I don't see what is the benefit from a single HST procedure on a NW7. Going to NW6.5-6? That's it.

I value immensely the scar-less procedures, because any transplant is by definition an invasive one. But if your donor is in the levels of a NW7, transplants are of no use without some kind of multiplication. I think.

Because you can go to a NW6, then 5, 4 etc in subsequent procedures, to be honest I can only talk from my perspective, but seeing as you're asking

When like my situation your head is completely slick bald, (because I had a form of alopecia which was scarred and never to regrow).... A few hairs sprinkled over the whole area is already better than none. It takes that cue ball effect away and give me something to shave lol.
I've now had 4 HST's and getting closer to something normal, I couldn't have done that with regular FUE or FUT and been able to keep my hair short. The reason for keeping the hair short is simple, it seems to give the illusion of more hair!

As for multiplication, I believe there is some multiplication going on, but it's not as high as many initially hoped for, still its a net gain of hair and for me that was/is important.