Good evening! I am fairly new on this forum and wanted to share my story with you guys.
I made the decision to undergo FUE surgery a few months ago and the big day is approaching as are the nerves growing.
My alopecia started when i was 18/19 years of age and was a big hit to my selfestime as I had always had long curly hair and it was part of my "identity" I guess and my crown had always been quite thin. On top of that, I have a triple crown and fine hair so these factors haven´t helped whatsoever.
I started using minoxidil when i turned 22 (I am now 27) and continued for a year combining it with nizoral and this only seemed to worsen the matter so I stopped.
A couple of years later I tried with Finas for a couple of months and had problems both with my semen and erections and decided to stop, for good.
Two years ago I decided to shave it all off very short and combine it with Dermmatch, which has been a battle too as I have had to be consistently aware of it incase it came off or smeared and not staining pillows when staying over at my partners house or even lying on the sofa, getting up before anyone to run to the bathroom and touch it up first thing in the morning... I tried minoxidil again for a year and no results. For me, the situation really came to a head and I started looking into the possibility of a FUE transplant.
I spoke with two experts. One told me that my donor area was fine and you could easily extract between 5000-5500 (2500 each session) and this would completely solve my problem. Another told me that my donor area was poor and a maximum of 4000 could be extracted and possibly 800 from my beard (which concerns me as i always leave my beard longish). After speaking to the latter in more depth, I decided to take the leap of faith.
My concerns are that my donor area is worse than expected. I fear that 2 years of shaving it to 1mm every three days could have damaged it even more as I don´t remember my hair being this thin 2 years ago when I had it this length. Is this possible?
My hopes are to continue to be able to shave the sides and back shortish and leave the top longer and reconstruct my hairline at the front, but the longer my hair grows as I approach the intervention, the thinner and less optimistic I become. Granted, it is still very short, but other donor areas I have seen at this length look far thicker than mine. In addition, my hair was shorter than now when I was assessed for the operation.
Here are some different photos from the past month:
It would be great to hear your thoughts and any advice as I feel very nervous and have doubts about what outcome to expect from the transplant. Thanks in advance
I made the decision to undergo FUE surgery a few months ago and the big day is approaching as are the nerves growing.
My alopecia started when i was 18/19 years of age and was a big hit to my selfestime as I had always had long curly hair and it was part of my "identity" I guess and my crown had always been quite thin. On top of that, I have a triple crown and fine hair so these factors haven´t helped whatsoever.
I started using minoxidil when i turned 22 (I am now 27) and continued for a year combining it with nizoral and this only seemed to worsen the matter so I stopped.
A couple of years later I tried with Finas for a couple of months and had problems both with my semen and erections and decided to stop, for good.
Two years ago I decided to shave it all off very short and combine it with Dermmatch, which has been a battle too as I have had to be consistently aware of it incase it came off or smeared and not staining pillows when staying over at my partners house or even lying on the sofa, getting up before anyone to run to the bathroom and touch it up first thing in the morning... I tried minoxidil again for a year and no results. For me, the situation really came to a head and I started looking into the possibility of a FUE transplant.
I spoke with two experts. One told me that my donor area was fine and you could easily extract between 5000-5500 (2500 each session) and this would completely solve my problem. Another told me that my donor area was poor and a maximum of 4000 could be extracted and possibly 800 from my beard (which concerns me as i always leave my beard longish). After speaking to the latter in more depth, I decided to take the leap of faith.
My concerns are that my donor area is worse than expected. I fear that 2 years of shaving it to 1mm every three days could have damaged it even more as I don´t remember my hair being this thin 2 years ago when I had it this length. Is this possible?
My hopes are to continue to be able to shave the sides and back shortish and leave the top longer and reconstruct my hairline at the front, but the longer my hair grows as I approach the intervention, the thinner and less optimistic I become. Granted, it is still very short, but other donor areas I have seen at this length look far thicker than mine. In addition, my hair was shorter than now when I was assessed for the operation.
Here are some different photos from the past month:
It would be great to hear your thoughts and any advice as I feel very nervous and have doubts about what outcome to expect from the transplant. Thanks in advance
