Is my transplant a failure ?

[Law]

Thanks for sharing your opinion.
I sure haven't been butchered but I expected more. 3900€ is an investment for me.

I try to understand the reason of that. Is that pure stinginess or is there something, technically speaking, who could restrain them to densify the zone ?!

Right now I feel like they wasted the space on my head. It's like when you have 3 parking's places. When two cars do not park properly the third place become unusable and is wasted.

I'll speak with them on monday to see what can be done. If nothing I'll just take my check back and tear them off. I paid an account already (1/3 price), they did nothing on my head but an account. Also the pre-op quotation invoice mentionned "recessive parts", it obviously hasn't been done. Work is incomplete so why should I pay.

[CriticalObserver]

Hi Law,

First off, I would say don't panic.

The hairline the grafts were placed in looks spot on - the work looks clean enough - just as the other posters have said, it isn't very dense.

There is a reason for this, and it's the same reason that hair transplants of old were always 'pluggy' and spaced wide apart - the graft is injected using a 'punch' rather than a 'slice'. I recently met with Dr Feriduni and he showed me the difference between using a more refined modern (manual) blade and an old type. Wheras you can slice through a piece of paper 50+ times with the new blade, the old one leaves 'bumps' - like when you push a pen tip through paper.

I suspect that the automated equipment which was used on you was similar to this, preventing the grafts from being placed too close together.

HOWEVER, as was the case in the olden days, this is why you were often asked to come back in for a second procedure (perhaps a year later)- because the area inbetween the grafts can still be used for placement of more hair - you haven't 'used' up your car parking spaces. It's just that your surgeon was delivering your normal sized car using a lorry which is 2 spaces wide - so he couldn't get a car in every slot.

My advice to you, is, don't worry at all. Let it all grow out for 1 year - and see if you're happy with the result. If not, head over to Belgium, meet up with Dr Feriduni and Dr Bisanga and ask them to thicken the hairline up. It would be a relatively easy job for them and you'll have the thickness you wanted.

Cheers and good luck!

[mattj]

You aren't being stingy at all. 3900 Euro is a lot of money. It does amount to over $10 per graft, though, so it's not exactly good value for money.

It sounds like your surgeon will work with you on giving you the result you hoped for, so that's good. However, you should leave it a while before going back and having more grafts placed in the same area.

[CriticalObserver]

Just to add to the above, I meant 50 slices per sq cm. If you try doing that with a small pen tip you'll end up with a big sq cm hole. The doctor was probably being responsible not playing your grafts too close together given the equipment he was using.

In terms of 'recessive parts' - this does mean the areas of your head which have already receded - the bits the surgeon did look to be the right areas.

While you may want him to go further back into your thinning area, many top surgeons would refuse to do this because you risk losing or accelerating the loss of your native hair - which is already going through some miniaturization and could suffer greatly from 'shock loss'.

To answer your question - yes, the punch is used in both the donor and the recipient area.

[topcat]

Law you have to wait at least 1 year before doing anything. And going back because something is free is not necessarily a good idea.

[Tracy C]

I'll give one month to my grafts to heal.

I am so glad to hear that. I was worried about you there for a while. I personally think you should wait 10 to 12 months but I am not a doctor so I can't say for sure.

[Law]

Thanks everybody.

I will wait untill the end of the summer at minima. I've indeed heard before about good hair transplanters in Belgium like dr Devroye or Feriduni. Can we consider those surgeons at the same level than the best surgeons in the US ? National pride apart

I'll look for the best next time. Thing is a few hundreds grafts will probably be enough to complete the job so I hope it's not gonna be too expensive.

I never had a decent hairline. I always had deep gulfs even when I was 15. I was really enthousiast about having a REAL HAIRLINE ! Dang I'll have to wait more !

@CriticalObserver thanks for the infos. It seems I should not look further again with the same surgeon considering he's not able to offer what I'm looking for. It's such a pain cause I'd like to profit more of him considering the price I paid.

Anyway the important is the results.

Thanks.

[Still-Researching]

Hi Law,
To answer your question about FUE docs in Belgium. Believe at least two of them are world class: Feriduni and Bisanga (last one I do not know personally but seen good results).

Have a look at my 20 day old FUE HT with Feriduni under Hair Transplant Veterans follow this link:

http://www.baldtruthtalk.com/showthread.php?t=7446

Gives you an idea of their skills - got 2463 grafts and further down in the post you can calculate the price per graft. I am not associated with the clinic at all, just a, so far, happy patient.

Docs that comes to mind after my ton of reseach that will be able to do a great FUE job on you to name a few:
Feriduni, Rahal, Feller and Bisanga

Also will echo what has been said above, seems very small number of grafts for the area that has been treated, so you risk having a thin looking result. You have to wait app 12 months (just like me) to see the final outcome before you do anything. Also would not return to such clinic even if its for free, as a bad hairline will be visible everyday in the mirror for rest of your life or until you get it fixed by a first class doc.

Good luck.

[Winston]

The best FUE surgeons in Belgium are Dr. Feriduni and Dr. Mwamba who trained with Dr. John Cole in Atlanta Georgia. All three are IAHRS members. You probably only want to go to IAHRS hair transplant surgeons, but I have heard very good things about Dr. Bisanga also. Personally I would only trust going with an IAHRS surgeon. I think most people who have researched hair transplantation feel the same way.

[Folly]

While you may want him to go further back into your thinning area, many top surgeons would refuse to do this because you risk losing or accelerating the loss of your native hair - which is already going through some miniaturization and could suffer greatly from 'shock loss'.

Can you completely lose native hair from a HT, when grafts are placed in close proximity to native hairs ? Terminal native hair that is. Obviously, if your terminal hair goes through shock loss after surgery, it will come back thinner and hence, you have accerelated your MPB. But is it possible to lose terminal hairs completely after surgery? Does this mean you should never allow a surgeon to implant grafts in areas where you still have a high density of native hair?