FUE with Dr Cole 5/15/14

[Charles Francis]

meddiffuse,
Thanks for such a detailed journal. I do have a few questions if you don't mind.
- Your consultation and surgery were on the same day? Is that typical?
- Does your hair have to be shaved to the level 0 setting?
- How many days of work would you suggest taking off? I can't imagine going into work with a shaved head and scabby scalp.
- How irritated was your scalp after the procedure?

[meddiffuse]

meddiffuse,
Thanks for such a detailed journal. I do have a few questions if you don't mind.
- Your consultation and surgery were on the same day? Is that typical?
- Does your hair have to be shaved to the level 0 setting?
- How many days of work would you suggest taking off? I can't imagine going into work with a shaved head and scabby scalp.
- How irritated was your scalp after the procedure?

Hi Charles.

Yes they were on the same day, and I believe that is typical. I had an online consultation with dr cole's office a few months before I went for surgery. I believe that you can have an in person consult anytime before the surgery with most surgeons but you would have to pay for your own transportation costs. I don't think that you need to shave to a 0 with dr cole. I did for two reasons. The first is that it was slightly cheaper, and the second is that with my diffuse hair loss, shaving the recipient area down undoubtedly made it easier for Dr Cole to see the thinning areas. My thinking is that he was able to make the incisions in the thin areas without worrying as much about transaction, and he was also better able to see the angle of hair growth and try to match the incision angles accordingly.

I would plan 10 days off if I were you, so if you can have the surgery with your surgeon on a Friday and fly down the day before, you would only need to take off a full week plus the Thursday and Friday. It should be pretty undetectable 10 days after.

Depends what you mean by irritated. It was pretty red and bloody immediately after but dried a couple hours later and the redness was mostly faded in the donor by a week after. My scabs in the recipient area came off in the shower 8 days postop.

My next update will be the two month mark around July 15th and will try to update every month or so after that until at least month 12.

[meddiffuse]

Hi everyone. I am behind updating this thread. It was due for an update 7 days ago at the 60 day (2 month) post-op mark. Assuming a normal hair growth rate of 1/2 inch per month and the fact that my head was clipped with no guard on surgery day, I estimate my hair length at this time to be approximately 1.15 inches on average. I am now 67 days post-op and here are the pics. There are nine of them. I took all of the pictures in the bathroom. The first four pictures were taken under "bright" light, because I took them with my head underneath the vanity light. The last five pictures were taken in "normal" lighting, with just the normal bathroom light for illumination. My native hair is definitely still growing at a decent clip. The longer length is helping to camouflage my hair loss a bit more, especially in normal lighting, but I can still see quite a bit of scalp in the frontal third. I am hoping that when the grafts start growing again in a few weeks, they will help cover this area.

I am not sure if I had shock loss after all in the recipient/donor after all. It has been such a long time since I have had my hair shorter than 2 inches long that I forgot what my pre-HT hair looked like at shorter lengths like it is now. It is possible that what I thought was shock loss could have just been my own shock at seeing more scalp due to shorter hair. I won't know for sure until my hair is at least 2 or2.5 inches long so I can have a better idea of how it compares to my pretransplant hair. Pretty sure that at 9.5 weeks postop there are no grafts still growing. I have read that I should not expect any growth to begin until at least 3 months post transplant (roughly 13 weeks), and that it will not be very noticeable until 6 months post transplant (roughly 26 weeks). My next update is scheduled for between August 13th and August 22nd.

Interested to hear everyone's opinions and comments on what is happening. Just click the thumbnails to open the full size pictures.

[35YrsAfter]

I am not sure if I had shock loss after all in the recipient/donor after all. It has been such a long time since I have had my hair shorter than 2 inches long that I forgot what my pre-HT hair looked like at shorter lengths like it is now. It is possible that what I thought was shock loss could have just been my own shock at seeing more scalp due to shorter hair. I won't know for sure until my hair is at least 2 or2.5 inches long so I can have a better idea of how it compares to my pretransplant hair. Pretty sure that at 9.5 weeks postop there are no grafts still growing. I have read that I should not expect any growth to begin until at least 3 months post transplant (roughly 13 weeks), and that it will not be very noticeable until 6 months post transplant (roughly 26 weeks). My next update is scheduled for between August 13th and August 22nd.

Interested to hear everyone's opinions and comments on what is happening. Just click the thumbnails to open the full size pictures.

I just pulled up your before photo where your hair is parted down the middle. Your hair looks about the same, taking into consideration your hair is now much shorter. Noticeable shock loss is very rare in our clinic's experience. For me personally, it seems my hair will take a half a step backwards before the transplanted hair begins to grow. The toughest part of the procedure is waiting for the new hair to grow. It could be 5-6 months before you begin to see an improvement in density. Usually the most dramatic improvement I have observed happens between the seventh and ninth month.

35YrsAfter also posts as CITNews and works at Dr. Cole's office - forhair.com - Cole Hair Transplant, 1045 Powers Place, Alpharetta, Georgia 30009 - Phone 678-566-1011 - email 35YrsAfter at chuck@forhair.com
The contents of my posts are my opinions and not medical advice
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

[meddiffuse]

I just pulled up your before photo where your hair is parted down the middle. Your hair looks about the same, taking into consideration your hair is now much shorter. Noticeable shock loss is very rare in our clinic's experience. For me personally, it seems my hair will take a half a step backwards before the transplanted hair begins to grow. The toughest part of the procedure is waiting for the new hair to grow. It could be 5-6 months before you begin to see an improvement in density. Usually the most dramatic improvement I have observed happens between the seventh and ninth month.

35YrsAfter also posts as CITNews and works at Dr. Cole's office - forhair.com - Cole Hair Transplant, 1045 Powers Place, Alpharetta, Georgia 30009 - Phone 678-566-1011 - email 35YrsAfter at chuck@forhair.com
The contents of my posts are my opinions and not medical advice
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

Thanks Chuck! I came to the same conclusion especially after reading my prior posts in the thread where I wrote that perhaps there was shock loss but perhaps not. I agree that the visual differences can be attributed to the difference in hair length. Regarding when I might see a dramatic visual improvement, I agree. I read something posted by Dr. Cole in another forum awhile ago stating that for transplants into areas with existing native hair, the visual improvements are not as readily and quickly apparent as they are for transplants into more slick areas. This obviously makes sense to me because going from 0 hairs in an area to 50 is going to be much more visually apparent than going from 50 hairs in an area to 75. While I did have around 2600 grafts done, I had them done over a decently large area in order to blend into my existing hair, so the changes will not be noticed as quickly as they would have been had the 2600 grafts been placed in front of my existing hairline instead, for example.

Do you happen to have the data from the surgery regarding precise graft counts by hair count (number of1-hair grafts, 2 hair grafts, 3 hair grafts?) and the measurement in cm2 of the area where they were transplanted? I remember Dr Cole had the graft counts for 1-hair, 2-hair and 3-hair grafts written up on the whiteboard but I didn't copy them down, and I'm not sure if the area where the grafts were transplanted was ever measured to determine the size in cm2. Would just be nice to know for curiosity's sake. I seem to remember not having many three hair grafts available but I would attribute that to my hair being of a naturally thin caliber even before the balding process started.

[meddiffuse]

Hi everyone. This is my day 100 update. I just took these pictures this morning, and I still have not gotten a haircut since the no-guard buzz cut Dr. Cole's techs gave me on the morning of the 15th, so following the standard 1/2 inch hair growth per month average, seeing as I am at 100 days postop, my hair should be approximately 1.6-1.7 inches long at this point. The first 5 pictures were taken in my bathroom under the light. The next four pictures (pictures 6 through 9) were taken in my bedroom under the ceiling room fan light, and the last four pictures (pictures 10 through 13) were taken in my hallway under dimmer light. I did not use flash in any of the pictures. Amazing what a difference light makes for someone with diffuse balding, right? It is like night and day, scalp and no scalp. I'm not liking how I can see scalp on the sides of my head in the bathroom light photos but I am hoping that is just due to the angle of the shot. Indeed in those pics of the sides of my head in the bathroom, the hari on top of my head looks thicker than the sides, which is certainly not the case in reality.

I still find it tough to evaluate my progress. After looking at these pics this morning, I waffle back and forth between thinking that this is similar to my pre-op hair and that I have sustained some temporary shock loss in the recipient area and donor area, just due to the scalp showing. I won't be able to make a fair judgment on temporary shock loss until my hair is 3 inches long and I can compare it to the length of my hair pre-op photos that Dr. Cole's office took. But by that point, any temporary shock loss should have resolved itself anyway and the hair should have begin growing. I know that hair growth post-transplant can start at the third month but I feel like it will be tough for me to determine. My next update should be around 4 weeks from now, approximately September 19th-September 20th. Interested to hear your thoughts, and I'm hoping that the grafts start growing soon if they haven't yet, or that I have a lot more growth to come if they have already started to grow!

[Hicks]

I had the same thoughts on mine. 5.5 months things started to get better. I'm at 6 months, they say 7-9 months it's the good growth.

I'm hoping to get to Coles office around my 7th month for PRP and newer photos.

[meddiffuse]

Hi everyone. I know I have been slacking on updating this like crazy. I was really good about it for the first free months, from mid-May until mid-August, but then life got in the way. I'll give a brief synopsis.

Looking back through my thread I'm not sure if I ever posted a graft count for my procedure. I'm not sure of the exact count (maybe Chuck can clarify if he sees my thread), but I believe that roughly 2600 grafts were transplanted in total.

Had the shaved FUE transplant with Dr. Cole on May 15th of this year and his technicians gave me a buzz cut with no guard all over my head. I just got a haircut for the first time this weekend since the procedure, so if my hair grows at the average speed of half an inch per month then my hair was roughly 3.3 or 3.4 inches in length all over my head before the haircut. I am not sure what my hair length is now but if you look back at my last update in this thread on August 23rd, my hair was roughly 1.7 inches long all over at that point 3 months ago. My hair looks shorter on top and in the front now than it did then, so I'm guessing that my hair is about 1.2 inches on top. Maybe you guys can give me a better estimate. If I am correct in my estimate, then in approximately 1 months time, I will be able to give a better comparison of how my grafts are growing, because I'll once again be comparing same length pictures with same length pictures, at least in the recipient area. You guys can get an idea of my progress though by comparing my preop pictures to my pre-hair cut pictures, because my hair was roughly the same length I believe.

I am posting pictures of my hair both before my haircut (pictures taken on Saturday) and after my haircut (pictures taken today).

It is difficult for me to make observations because I believe my hair to be roughly half an inch shorter on top than it was in my earlier update. I plan to let the hair grow out again for 3-4 more months so that I can compare longer length hair (3+ inches) 9-10 months postop with the hair that I had in my preop photos.

I am a little bit unnerved that I can see scalp on the sides of my head in some of the brighter light photos. It looks rather patchy and I am not sure if this is due to the style of the haircut or if I have some permanent donor loss there. I assume that any temporary donor loss I happened to encounter post-op would have resolved itself by this point, and I'm hoping that it is just the haircut style. I obviously don't view patchiness in my pre-hair cut photos because the hair was 3 inches in length, and 3 inches of hair from what I understand could easily cover a strip scar, let alone FUE.

I will be updating this pic much more frequently now that I am in the 6 months plus stage+. I will update once a month without fail until the 12th month at least. I have been faithfully taking Avodart for almost a decade and I am still taking one capsule once per day.

I hope that I have gotten some growth from the procedure, and I wonder if some of you with more experience can tell me if you think that (a) I have gotten some growth (from comparing my prehair cut pics 200 days postop to my pre-op pics) and b) if I have gotten some growth, what percentage of the new growth that I can expect do you think has already completed? I've seen wildly varying estimates online from different sources. Some say that only about 40-60% of the new growth is in by month 6, while others say 75-85%. I'm not going to lie that I'll be a bit disappointed if I've already seen 80% of the growth that I am going to see, but would definitely be more encouraged if you guys think that I'm only 50-60% done with it.

Anyway, without further ado, here are the pics:

Pre-haircut pictures:





















Post-haircut pictures:

[meddiffuse]

Anyone have any opinions on the Dec 1 update?
I will post another update in a week or so, which will be 7.5 months postop.

[noisette]

It's a good job ! you have a nice amount of hair
Many thanks for your updates bro