Mr T. is a poster on this site from the United Kingdom who visited us in New York for 3000 grafts packed into the frontal third of his scalp.
Here are his photos before, during, and after one year of growth.

From what I can tell it looks like theres a big difference from the dense pack.

3000 -4000 more behind that would look really good

Dr. Feller,

Yet again, fantastically natural-looking results.

I think it's also helpful to all of us to illustrate that it takes a LOT of hair to create density -- especially for those of us with big heads...!

Well done...

Benjamin

PGP and Ben,
Thanks for the reviews.
The only method that would have worked on a head this big is a dense pack. Because he had some native hair any less of a pack would have not made any cosmetic difference and the frontal third would still be bald.

At the time of the surgery he wanted to wear his hair in the downward pointing ceaser style. But now that he has some density in the front he has decided to comb the hair backward (which is the style I prefer). So for his second procedure we dropped his hairline. I will post these photos in a few days.

Dr. Feller

Dr.Feller, Did you also take care of his crown?

An improvement, but seems rather minor for that many grafts to the front third especially considering he aleady had some hair there. His hairline still seems pretty fragmented (definately wouldn't recognize it as HT which is a good thing I guess).

I guess I would compare to these recently posted pics:
http://hair-restoration-info.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2566060861/m/6171050573 -
only 2000 grafts to pretty much bald scalp but yet his hairline and front third density APPEARS to be much better.

I will say that Dr. Feller posted much better pics (top view, etc) but I don't quite understand the difference.

Hairthere,
No, his head was way too big to implant the crown as the same time as the front. Also, because of his age we weren't sure how much hairloss he would have at the sides so we decided not to address the crown at this stage.

Hairloser,
Thanks for the comments. You bring up a few important points that should be addressed:

1. The first is that not all patients will look alike even if they've had the same procedure performed by the same doctor. Results will vary from person to person. The reason for this (assuming competent surgical technique) is individual physiology. Never look at any doctors photos and think that your results will look exactly like the ones in the photos, even if you possess similar features.

2. As for this patient, his results are actually quite impressive in person (which is why he returned for another procedure) but I agree it's hard to tell on him from photos because of the size of his head, the size of his bald and thinning areas, and the fact that he still had alot of native, albeit miniturized, hairs within and around the target recipient area.

3. We only transplanted one third of his rather large head. This left the other two thirds untouched and uncovered. When viewing photos of him, especially from the TOP-DOWN angle, the eye is naturally drawn to the empty areas. I know this, which is why in one of the top-down angled photos I drew in an outline of the recipient area before surgery and one year later. It is obvious that the recipient area is competely covered with considerable density. Had the other two thirds of his scalp still had his original hair, these results would be stunning even at a quick glance.

4. Without "back-up" hair, transplants do not seem that impressive at first glance, which is why you will see most doctors posting only before/after photos of patients who already have most of their own hair and/or never posting results at angles that show the areas that were not operated on.

5. What you have to also keep in mind is that most of the native hair that he had in the recipient area prior to the surgery was dying off. In fact, most if not all of this hair was expected to fall out within a year, and that's exactly what happened. The density within the recipient area in the one year photos is purely transplants. There is virtually no residual native hair. This is why I insisted on packing the hair only into the front and not spreading it out. I good HT doctor anticipates future loss and acts accordingly.

The best before/after photos are in patients who still have their surrounding hair, or have had multiple transplants already. An example of one of my patients in whom I performed the same exact surgery as in the one above is presented here in the link below. He had the same surgery, but he also had is surrounding hair. His results are identical to the patient above within the recipient area, but the overall effect is more impressive because he had most of his hair behind the transplant and his head was proportionately smaller:

http://hair-restoration-info.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2566060861/m/7391024573

Those results (in Dr. Fellers last message) are incredible! It looks like he's one of the lucky ones looking 18 again.

Dr. Feller,

Thanks for such a detailed description. That makes sense. If most of his native hair in that area is now gone then the results do seem much more impressive. Any idea if he's ever used fin or minox? Wonder if that would have helped hang on to some of the native hair. Also, maybe some of the native loss was shock loss?

I agree about the other patient, his native hair helps a lot. Even though he had a buzz cut prior and grown out after you can tell his only real option prior was a buzz. Sometimes it's misleading though because it's hard to see just how much native hair some guys have left when the before shot is a buzz cut. As you mentioned, this is why most of these get posted because they produce a WOW response.

Thanks for all the recent, honest pics. Your work looks top-notch.