Just added a bit of info on experience with Dr. P

Added a few 5 month photos, well 4 1/2 months

Hey creeping,

Thanks for posting the update. It doesn't really look like you've had much action yet when I compare your pre-op and 5 month post-op frontal shots, you think? I think I can see some fine hairs starting to come through. What's your take on things so far.

LOL! You live 2 blocks from Hasson and Wong and traveled so far, what gives, my friend?

Hey Hairbank,
After a year of research even emailing Hasson and Wong asking there option of Dr.P (they were nice enough to give me a favourable one)...I decided to go with Dr. P and Bangkok as the cost difference enabled me to take much more time off of work, two and a half months in total...I felt very confident that Dr. P would do a good job..
With that said at this point I thought I would be further along with my scars healing and hoped to see a bit more progress with my recipient area. I know it takes time. but I guess I'm a slow healer and responder? only time will tell...

Where are his pre-op shots? I didn't see any...

thought I would post some updated shots at 7 months... not overly happy with my progress was really hopping for more density by now...is there much more to come after 7 months??

Creeping,

You still have plenty of time to improve, I am at 6 1/2 months and am starting to see things moving better now. I think you may be a late bloomer and your hair color makes it hard to see the new hairs in their early stages of growth.

Good luck,

You should do a quick sanity check to see if the transplanted density is indeed around 40/cm2. Get a tape measure and meaure out a rough triangle or rectangle of the transplanted area and divide that with the amount of grafts you got.

Looking at the pics it might be a bit less than 40/cm2 and coupled that with the fine tecture of your hair and the area that is need to be covered, the results could be a bit thinner than you originally expected. But pictures can be deceiving. You should PM Gorpy, he is good at estimating these sorts of things.

I mean when you consulted with H &W, how many grafts did they recommended?

Hi Creepingback,

Looking at your 2 week post-op, I can pretty clearly see where the grafts were implanted. It appears you covered an area of at least 70 cm2. If you only got 2080 grafts, then you are looking at an average density of about 30 per cm2. Plus, just eyeballing it, I would say that 30 per/cm2 looks about right.

Combine that with your fine hair characteristics and you end up with coverage, but somewhat thin coverage. Having said that, you are still early at 7 months. Although most of your grafts have probably sprouted, they are still very immature and wispy. They will mature and the hair shaft diameter will thicken over the next year. So you are nowhere near your final result now.

Hey,
thanks for your responses, I did the calculations and I seem to have an area of 50 cm2 that was covered...I traced it out using clear plastic as well to be certain I measured the widest width and the longest point and got 12w 6L and it worked out in both cases to be about 50cm2... does this seem accurate? giving me around 40 per cm2...maybe some just didnt take...

quote:

Originally posted by creepingback:
I measured the widest width and the longest point and got 12w 6L and it worked out in both cases to be about 50cm2... does thing seem accurate? giving me around 40 per cm2...maybe some just didnt take...

Uh... You said 12 by 6, right? Isn't that 72cm2 NOT 50cm2? If so, Gorpy is right.

yes that's 72 but luckily he made my hairline a U shape rather then a rectangle... I traced a U on paper using 12 by 6 as reference points, then graphed it out into cm2 and counted out 50 which was the same number I got when I traced it out.

OK cool. Makes sense now.

Also, dO you know your donor density? I mean to create the illusion of density, the recipient should be about 50% of original density.

If we assume original density is your donor density to be say 90/cm2 then in order to achieve illusion of density, the recipient should be planted with around half of that i.e. 45ish.

But ofcourse if your donor density was 80/cm2 then transplanting 40/cm2 should be ok.

In the end, 7 months is still not the end results. I'm sure more thickening will come. Thanks for sharing your progress.

These things can be difficult to calculate because it's not a triangle and it's not a rectangle. It's not even a 'U'. It's more like a crecent moon.

Your post op pics are a little dark and blurry so I could be wrong in my calculations. Your 2 week picture shows an area of pinkness, which looks like more than 50cm2, but maybe the pictures are deceptive. I thought it was deeper than 6cm. A medium sized post it note is 57.76 cm2. Do you think you covered an area smaller than that?

If you only did 50cm2 of area, then yes, you got around 40 per.

I think my pictures are a bit deceiving regarding size.....I guess my real question is after 7 months how much more growth / density can I hope for 25% 50% more...
My doctor said at 8 months I will be really happy with the results...I guess that's why I'm getting concerned now as its already 7 and only marginally better...I know it takes a year for full results...guess I just expected more...anyways thanks all for your advice.

Some people are late sprouters. Your hair shaft could thicken up quite a bit over the next 3-4 months. It's hard to say for sure.

Wow! You got a fairly small area covered. It looks larger in the picture. But now that you mention the dimensions 12x6, and it appears to be a half circle, we can calculate that area. Your radius is 6cm. Using the old pi r2 formula I come up with a 56.5 area. So, plus or minus a few and yes, you are close to 40 per cm2.

Generally I would expect 40 per cm2 to give you a bit more coverage. That's generally what I have now. But like I say, your hair shaft diameter needs to thicken more.

I might add that density also depends on hairs per graft. In other words, how many total hairs did you get, not just graft counts. If you didn't get many 3's and it sounds like you got no 4's, then that could leave you thin also.

Hey Gorpy,
I guess it is a small area...doesn't feel like it to me!
I really don't know the break down of total hair count...I am still getting pimples on my recipient area...I think I have had more the last month then the last few combined. I hoped that's a good sign.

I think that's an excellent sign.

I thought I would post my one year results....it was a very long year!! ..any opinions?

Honestly, the result looks surprisingly thin to me -- given 2100 grafts and area covered -- especially the front, "hairline" shot. It looks much thicker in the top and side shot; though, when I compared the top shot at 1year to 5months, it didn't look that dramatically different...to me, at least. The most important thing, though, is that you yourself are pleased with the results, and you have a much clearer notion of where you where you were and where you are now.

How far back did they implant grafts, btw? I can't tell if it was frontal 1/3rd, or if it went further back towards the crown.