28 Yr Frontal Transplant (~2100 Graft) 8 Months

[Speran28]

Hey Everyone,

I appreciate the comments and thought I would follow up. I am currently exploring getting a second procedure to fix this result. The two top surgeons I am looking at right now are Cooley and Shapiro. I had a consult with Cooley who is confident he can fix this.

Here are pictures at 11 months. I'm at a bit over 1 year now and had my follow up call the other day.
The doctor (Mcgrath) stated he is not happy with my result himself and wants to fix it free of charge.
He stated he is not sure what happened here and why my growth is so poor, but that he wants to fix it and he rarely ever sees this.

The Doctor was Dan Mcgrath who is a IAHRS surgeon, I thought I was in good hands with recommendations from youtube videos and the patient advisor (Steve Cook). This is the video that originally led me to call Steve and be brought down this path (David Dimuzio advertises them in all his hair transplant videos):

Steve talked to me a lot before surgery and continually stated that Mcgrath is one of the best in the world on par with Hasson & Wong, Cooley, Shapiro, Etc.

I declined to have a second procedure and instead asked for a refund to help pay for a procedure with another doctor to fix this. He said he wants to wait 4-6 more months to see if I get late growth, but if by then there hasn't been much improvement. He will give me a 50% refund.

 

[Nimatus]

It's Craptastic . Why not a FUE ?
You need density packing. Get someone who can do density packing .

 

[SteveTabernack]

The motherfucker should give you a full refund

 

[kj6723]

I declined to have a second procedure and instead asked for a refund to help pay for a procedure with another doctor to fix this. He said he wants to wait 4-6 more months to see if I get late growth, but if by then there hasn't been much improvement. He will give me a 50% refund.

Wait another 4-6 months? And for 50%? That's f*****g bullshit. By that point you will have waisted a year and a half on this poor result. Dude should be giving you a full refund asap no questions asked. I feel for you man

 

[Johnmpb]

Did u ask him why he thinks it may have happened? He has to at least have some ideas. If he doesn't know why it happened why would he just want to blindly go in again and perform another procedure even if it's free?

 

[Speran28]

Updated pictures at 15.5 months out that I have sent to him for refund last Friday. Still waiting to hear back. They did call me last week offering the free transplant again. No mention was made about the refund.

I am not sure why they keep wanting to redo the transplant. Perhaps it is less costly? Regardless I am not going back and am just happy they're at least willing to do 50%. I did sign a bunch of forms that likely said we are not entitled to refund you and anything can happen etc.

Regarding why this happened, he said it could be a number of reasons and he honestly does not know why. He stated he follow the same procedure and uses same techs everytime. They do have good reviews on Yelp and Google so not sure what happened here.

 

[Murkey Thumb]

They should give you a full refund. You paid for a cosmetic service that you clearly haven't got its them who are in breach of contract. Have you spoken with a legal council as i believe you could sue for emotional distress.

 

[Cue Bald]

well people on here are saying you should get a full refund; i am not sure how many people actually get any money back at all from bad hair transplant results. has anyone actually gotten a refund? legally I am sure the majority of hair transplant clinics have contracts that in legalese basically state if 1 hair grows the surgery was a success. i'd be happy taking the 50%.

i have seen david dimuzio's videos on youtube and his hair looks good, but the third hair transplant in that video seems to be an extremely minor procedure so you can't really tell how good it was - he has had 2 hair transplant's beforehand that seem to have filled in most of his hair; i'll have a look around to see if I can find any more of this surgeon's results but I must admit the result seems to be bad because the work was bad (and not due to the patient having poor growth response etc) - you can see how spaced out the grafts are so there was no way it was going to look any different.

 

[Speran28]

UPDATE:

I just had my transplant to fix this with Dr. Cooley. Let me say that this was a night and day experience!

Dr. Cooley is beyond thorough and I can't thank him enough.

Here's how the day went.

1. He started by spending over 30 minutes discussing exactly what I wanted while actively encouraging me to show examples to him and explain all of my concerns
2. When then moved into his photo area where he himself took the photos (a tech took them in my last procedure). Then he spent ~30 minutes analyzing my hair from every angle, measuring my head and hairline, and discussing what may be needed as long as I was okay with it.
3. At the end of this, it was decided my hairline was created too low, with far too little density, along with grafts being thicker one hair grafts then he would have used. He ended up removing, it seemed like around ~100 grafts all along my hairline with electrolysis to really clean it up and create a more appropriate hairline to match my head shape and facial structure. I can already tell!
4. Then we moved into his surgical room, he spent a long time carefully removing the strict and old scar. He has to take extra care because there was a lot of scar tissue and he did not want to transect any follicles. He closed up the donor using a double tricho closure (i had a single last time) and also stuffed it full with Acell to further promote healing. I am to keep the suture in for 3 weeks, it was only 10 days on my last procedure. I am confident this will greatly help with my scar.
5. From there he started creating incision using different size tools based on where the hair was placed, this was an extremely methodical process with only maybe 50% being done then, while the rest were created later using the stick and place method.
6. ~5 techs dissected hairs delicately into 4 categories. FINE single hairs, normal single hairs, doubles, and triples or higher. The fine single hairs are especially important for me because of my coarse dark hair on light skin.
7. Then, we took a lunch break, with an amazing lunch they wheeled in for me.
8. After lunch he injected PRP all along my scalp to help with thinning areas and also promote healing where he placed the graft and in the donor area.
9. Finally, they started with graft placed. The amazing thing to me was that Dr. Cooley was there every step of the way. I believe he actually placed the majority of the grafts himself, I mean it when I say this guy is a machine. It is absolutely amazing what he does and how well practiced the process felt from start to finish.
10. After that, he gave me a bag of medication, topical solutions, and sprays. This also included very detailed instructions all nicely written down for every step. He went over them verbally with me as well.

Truly a night and day experience. I think the post op photos here will speak for themselves in comparison to my post op photos from my past surgery of which you can find at the beginning of this post.

NOTE: Again, the large red splotches are from electrolysis removal of old grafts. These should fully heal in less then a week.

 

[sunchyme1]

UPDATE:

I just had my transplant to fix this with Dr. Cooley. Let me say that this was a night and day experience!

Dr. Cooley is beyond thorough and I can't thank him enough.

Here's how the day went.

1. He started by spending over 30 minutes discussing exactly what I wanted while actively encouraging me to show examples to him and explain all of my concerns
2. When then moved into his photo area where he himself took the photos (a tech took them in my last procedure). Then he spent ~30 minutes analyzing my hair from every angle, measuring my head and hairline, and discussing what may be needed as long as I was okay with it.
3. At the end of this, it was decided my hairline was created too low, with far too little density, along with grafts being thicker one hair grafts then he would have used. He ended up removing, it seemed like around ~100 grafts all along my hairline with electrolysis to really clean it up and create a more appropriate hairline to match my head shape and facial structure. I can already tell!
4. Then we moved into his surgical room, he spent a long time carefully removing the strict and old scar. He has to take extra care because there was a lot of scar tissue and he did not want to transect any follicles. He closed up the donor using a double tricho closure (i had a single last time) and also stuffed it full with Acell to further promote healing. I am to keep the suture in for 3 weeks, it was only 10 days on my last procedure. I am confident this will greatly help with my scar.
5. From there he started creating incision using different size tools based on where the hair was placed, this was an extremely methodical process with only maybe 50% being done then, while the rest were created later using the stick and place method.
6. ~5 techs dissected hairs delicately into 4 categories. FINE single hairs, normal single hairs, doubles, and triples or higher. The fine single hairs are especially important for me because of my coarse dark hair on light skin.
7. Then, we took a lunch break, with an amazing lunch they wheeled in for me.
8. After lunch he injected PRP all along my scalp to help with thinning areas and also promote healing where he placed the graft and in the donor area.
9. Finally, they started with graft placed. The amazing thing to me was that Dr. Cooley was there every step of the way. I believe he actually placed the majority of the grafts himself, I mean it when I say this guy is a machine. It is absolutely amazing what he does and how well practiced the process felt from start to finish.
10. After that, he gave me a bag of medication, topical solutions, and sprays. This also included very detailed instructions all nicely written down for every step. He went over them verbally with me as well.

Truly a night and day experience. I think the post op photos here will speak for themselves in comparison to my post op photos from my past surgery of which you can find at the beginning of this post.

NOTE: Again, the large red splotches are from electrolysis removal of old grafts. These should fully heal in less then a week.

good luck mate

keep us updated

 

[ICUman]

Good luck! Excited to see the new pictures when you're ready.

 

[Speran28]

Newest update at 5 weeks out from surgery.

My thoughts:
I had hoped the electrolysis marks would heal sooner, but Dr. Cooley says I am right on track. I had to go to a pretty formal conference this weekend and it has not been fun trying to hide the redness under my hair. My hair thin in the front and even with combing it forward, you can see through a bit in direct sunlight. (see pictures)

So, keep in mind if you get electrolysis it can take some time to heal. I am thinking it should be fully healed around the 2 month mark. I am applying something called Serica 3x a day to the area to help accelerate healing.

Hair growth seems to be starting already? I see a few small stubble hairs showing up, surprised it's happening so soon. I also had a fair bit of shock loss in the rest of my hair from the prp I received, hoping that can reverse and thicken up the rest of my crown. Will keep everyone updated on that.

Lastly, the donor region has healed incredibly well! I had the sutures taken out at Dr. Cooleys office at 3.5 weeks and he stated that the results could not have been better. The currently still healing scar at 5 weeks is better then my scar with from Dr. Mcgrath was at 8 months. See first picture (new scar at 5 weeks) vs second picture (old scar at 8 months).

Hope this helps anyone looking into a hair transplant! Feel free to ask me any questions.

 

[stachu]

:| I am sorry mate.

 

[Speran28]

2 month update:

Donor Area:

Scar has healed a lot more, and is very flat, I have a hard time finding it now vs my old one which had keloid issues and hurt even a year after surgery. I barely feel this one. The downside is that even though I have been very careful and followed Dr. Cooley's instructions, it seems to have maybe stretched a bit? It is a double tricho closure though, so maybe in the next 2 months hairs will grow through.

Transplanted area:

No hair growth yet that I can find, this is to be expected at 2 months. All transplanted hairs fell out at around 3-5 week mark. I think by the 4 month there will be noticeable growth. As far as the electrolysis, you can see my head does still slightly noticeable markings, but it is healing nicely and I expect it to be completely healed by month 3.



Feel free to ask questions if you have any!

 

[realself]

Hey bud, it's been a while since your '2 month-update'. How is it looking, are you happy with this 2nd procedure? Thanks for all the pics and updates, it has been really helpful. Thx

 

[Speran28]

Yes, very happy. Just started living my life and not worrying about it. These aer pics at the worst possible angle, but I'm very happy. Could use a tiny bit more but it's good enough and the scar is way way better (although I still want to get it filled in)

 

[realself]

Looks really good...congrats on your success!

 

[Nimatus]

Looks way better, but why didn't you sort out hairline, make it straight You still have that zero hair on temples

 

[vegetassj]

Glad that u made it.
Fue in the first place was stupid your donor is triple aaa

 

[on64]

do you mind posting an update?
Thank you