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Hair Restoration Research Forum Hair Transplant Experiences and Surgeon Reviews JakeVig HT with Ron Shapiro 1344 grafts (Personal Album)|
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| Pre and post op pictures of my HT with Ron Shapiro. I had about 800-900 grafts placed to fill in my receeding hairline and the rest placed behind my front tuff to add density to my 'horse shoe' thinning. Initially opted for 1200 grafts but ended up with 1344. Ok guys I have officially joined the club! as of the 14/06/06 when I had my first HT with Ron Shapiro of SMG. My initial consultation with Matt Zupan was only 1200 grafts to fill in the receeding hairline. First a little bit about my journey. I have been considering a HT for the past 8 months ever since my receeding hairline was so severe that I was very self conscience about it and hated looking at the mirror every morning and tried to avoid having my picture taken. At this point in time I knew I wanted a HT since I have been on propecia for the last couple of years of which time I had lost most of my hair. During this time I had severe dandruff to the point that I was literally scratching my hair out trying to cope with the itch. I just thought that this was the process of balding. But now I think that If I used Nizoral earlier my hair would've been in a much better condition than it is now. I was initially going to just go to the best HT doctor I thought in the UK since I didnt think that it mattered much since a HT was just a typical procedure that everyone was capable of performing. Boy was I glad I did some more research and found this site - it is an absolute godsend the information found here I invaluable and I believe helped me assess the best path with the limited donor supply I have left. My hairloss has affected my self confidence greatly. To the point that I would happily trade all my material positions to have a full head of hair and not be susceptible to MPB anymore. This is why I dont understand how some people would not go on the meds because they are too expensive. Proscar and generic minioxidil is the most effective and inexpensive treatment for hairloss. Cost should never be an issue as you can always get more money in the future - this is not the same with your hair. There maybe other reasons why people would opt out of using the meds but cost should definately not be one of them!!! I sent out a few consultations to some of the best doctors recommended on this forum and they quoted me between 1200 - 2500 grafts. I ended up choosing Ron Shapiro because for me cost is not an issue and I appreciated the fact that SMG recommended only 1200 grafts initially since I am young (just turning 27) and they dont know how far along my balding would progress. After a few years if my hairloss has stabalized than we could consider going even lower. Before the consultation I decided to completely shave my head with a razor to see if it was an acceptable look since I know that I would not be able to shave my head after a HT. Unfortunately it is definately not for me so I continued with my HT. I dont think anyone should shave their head with a razor maybe a #4 buzz cut or something to get an idea of how they would look - but never completely bold with a razor. My hair grew back so thin that I never think it will ever grow back as thick as it was before I shaved it (as seen in the previous 2 pics) - Im not sure why this is, but I can only recommend that people dont do it. Initially my 1200 grafts was only to fill in my receeding hairline and to lower my hairline a tad. But after seeing how thin I was after a month of hair growth I decided that I only wanted to fill in the receeded hair lines and add some more density into the thinning 'horse shoe' behind my tuff of hair. ------------------------------------------- My Procedure with SMG ------------------------------------------- My first contact with staff at SMG was with Matt Zupan it was comforting to know that they knew who I was and was already expecting me (a benefit of only having one HT per day). Being that this was my first surgery I felt that Matt's positive attitude helped alleviate my initial nerves about the procedure. Then I met Ron Shapiro who came in to draw on my head until we were both happy with the procedure. He was initially more conservative on my hairline than what I had in mind but because they didnt exactly know of my future progression he said that I may have to laser off some of the hairline in future to bring it back to a natural look. The thought of having to laser hair (i.e. wasting grafts) in future did not sit well with me as I wanted to make the most optimal use of my limited donor supply (unless I am 100% sure of hair multiplication or gene therapy in future). So we ended up 'negotiating' a hairline that we were both confident that we could maintain in the future - so we were both happy. Adding density behind my 'front tuff' was my idea of 'future proofing' the HT as I imagined that I would just get thinner and I didnt think that the meds would help at all in the hairline. Ron did suggest that adding density in the mid scalp area rather than at the hair line would decrease the aesthetic impact of the grafts (So I dont expect my result to be as good as someone else with the same no of grafts). but I was happy to trade a little higher hairline for adding some 'future proofing' to my HT. Adding density is actually a hard thing to do and in order to do this my hair needed to be cut really short and Ron had to use his state of the art 10x magnification to find spaces for the grafts without affecting the native hair - which is the reason for my bad hair do  My donor hair is average at around per 90 grafts per sqm. (Normal density is between 80-100 sqm). And my hair is of medium coarseness. With that being said I was a little disappointed that it looks like I only have 6000 grafts in total. So I think I only have at 5k left. I am so jealous with people like Jotronic and Bobman being able to get 7000+ grafts, no wonder they have a fantastic results! Its hard to imagine that Jotronic could've even have more hair had he gone to top surgeons for all his HT's. Anyway Ron took a strip of around 10cm x 1.2cm strip from only the right half of my scalp (expecting around 1200 grafts). I believe his reasons for doing this rather than making the strip symmetrical is that it leaves me with a completely virgin half of my scalp to use later as I wish. As well as being able to use stronger back hairs as well as weaker side hairs to blend in to my hairline to make it appear more natural. I was happy to find out my strip ended up yielding 1344 grafts! Another great thing about having a leading surgeon like Ron Shapiro operating on you is that you get to pick his brain. I asked him about a million questions I felt I should've also been charged a consultant fee for his feedback As has been documented many times the most painful part of the procedure was the application of anestecia. The good thing about knowing the HT process before having one is that we know that the anestecia is the worst part and that it is basically the rest is smooth sailing from there. One thing that I liked about Ron is that he approaches the surgery like an artist, he will ask for some strong 1's put them in the hairline and then get ask for some weaker 1's. Then takes a look back and makes his next request. Im sure this is standard practice in most top surgeons he uses different size incisions depending on whether he is putting in 1's 2's 3's and 4's - so the slits fit perfectly. I ended up getting around 50 grafts per cm for my receeeded hairline and a similar count (including native hair) to the area behind my tuff, so it should blend in well with my existing tuff. Basically Ron does all the incisions and places the hairlines himself. The area behind the hairline is placed labourishly by his friendly experienced technicians. Even though I had a relatively small number of grafts my HT ended up taking a long time, finishing around 6:30pm. I believe this is because of the time and dillegence Ron spent in adding density making sure not to affect the native hair. I believe the after care was excellent as well I was able to go back to SMG a couple of times to get the nurses to shampoo my hair. Each time Ron came in to check on the progress to make sure everything was going well. Although he didnt recommend it Ron was happy to prescribe me Avodart and prescription strength Nizoral shampoo upon my request. At the moment Im just a few days post op and believe am progressing well, using the Graftcyte spray and other meds dillegently as instructed. I believe I have learnt a lot from Ron and Matt at my time at SMG. I believe some of their thoughts are contradictory to what is being said here I will try to add everything I've remember in a different thread. Anyways I will try to keep my pics posted as I progress. |
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Hair Restoration Research Forum Hair Transplant Experiences and Surgeon Reviews JakeVig HT with Ron Shapiro 1344 grafts (Personal Album)