So.. what you're saying is.. it works? drawing blood works and regrows hair?
Well. I had gone on an AA at this point and had a massive shed of what hair I had left. So, I added two things here that both take months, if not years to play out and then I topped that off by using retin-A and minoxidil as a carrier. I later, about 16 months or so, added oral minoxidil. All three for me, seemed to work independently but I am no good really empirically because my runaway regrowth occurred under high-dose estradiol (I dropped the AA, spironolactone), microneedling with minoxidil one a week vigorously and going forward, less vigorously but with deeper needles and then what might be called, high-dose oral minoxidil.
I think anyone combining those three treatments is likely to see substantial hair regrowth which doesn't help you. But here's how I know that microneedling does something substantial and this in particular was a goal of mine. I had read that if anything, microneedling is even better for healing scar tissue which resembles balding scalp in many ways. If you look at the bald top of the head pic, you can see scarring all over the top of my scalp. That's what was left of a rather substantial 1990's hair transplant that only marginally took. So, the answer is yes, these grafts can exhaust themselves and then a person was screwed basically.
I had substantial scar tissue all throughout my donor areas to the point where the punched areas hurt to comb. I was a diffuse thinner and the guy never even told me about the possibility of being one who scars excessively or was he just a butcher? But he had no business operating on me at such a young age when minoxidil had just come out since he did in fact subscribe the mighty minoxidil 2 percent for me. Many of these people are just salesmen without any substantial background in skin grafting or refined techniques and they might lack the magic hands that many dentists and surgeons have, meaning issues with placement dexterity.
When I starting microneedling, every single week for the first say ten times, I saw substantial scabbing over all over my scalp. The grafts would scab and heal and blend in and be smaller/less cobblestoned. I could see them integrating because before, even the ones that did take often took at weird angles and guess what else? Some times the hair is crappy even when they do take, meaning wiry or circular or misshapen in some way. So, my recovery wouldn't have even been possible without restoring the areas containing this dead/partial follicle tissue. Still, the thinnest areas on top are the areas where the grafts continue to integrate better but still haven't completely plus they are lighter in color so they reflect light. I also do all of my fringe areas each week and it no longer seems to hurt to comb them and they scar tissue is shrinking which makes the hair look thicker.
My transplant results figuratively scarred me for decades even though compared to some people, maybe they could have been worse. seeking surgery so I probably wouldn't have gone down that road. So, I have found three things that all seem to effectuate massive improvement and for guys, that's microneedling and oral minoxidil and no excuses. Make them part of one's regime or eh, a person is just flailing at this. It still hurts to reflect on some of this but I have posted all of the chrome dome pics so people can see what the transplants themselves (they have to be better now) look like after 30 years. When you are 26, like I was, you tend not to think, "hey, what's this going to look like in 30 years?" "What if my fringe essentially dissolves below my transplanted hair?" Without finasteride, these issues probably would have happened much earlier and I might have dipped lower or suffered worse Dupa, which never seemed to respond to anything.
