Balding Blog

The blood supply to the transplanted area makes the skin darker than normal and I believe that is what you are seeing. It is not a problem and it will eventually become normal in color.

It was a 1,000 graft FUE surgery when I was 22. I experienced severe shock loss post surgery and lost plenty of native hair all around especially from the top. However, I did see some results in the front. I want to do another surgery to improve my situation but fear the loss of more native hair. I don’t want to be on medication such as Finasteride due its side effects. Can you’ll suggest me what to do?

Part of the reason I don’t do surgery on 22 year-old men is that they often develop shock loss, lose more native hair (a normal evolution but accelerated from the transplant when you were 22) and then you have to chase it. The real question is what will be your final hair loss pattern and will you have enough hair to follow the loss to its normal completion? I can usually answer this in young men under 26, but not in men 22 or 23. I consider doing a hair transplant on a 22 year-old like you, malpractice on the part of the doctor.

I’m a 26 yr old male, had a HT about 1.5 months ago here in the states. 2500grafts (500 in crown, rest into hairline). I wasn’t on fin at the time however started immediately after the surgery (1mg daily).

I’m experiencing major shedding on the top of my head, like my pillow is covered in hair when I wake up. I know shock loss can happen after surgery but know fin can also cause shedding. Is there any way to differentiate between the two? Not sure if that’s possible but I’m worried about my hair.

Shock loss occurs after a hair transplant. The only prevention for this is the drug finasteride which should be started at least 2 weeks prior to the surgery. The problem is that after the fact, it is not the best solution, but it is better than nothing. I believe that shock loss is largely the loss of miniaturized hairs. The miniaturization doesn’t have to be great (meaning that the shaft thickness could be off by as little as 10-20%) so hairs that can be lost are not easily identified.

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Comment from Reddit: He told me that I can use finasteride but I stopped them because of side effects.

Response: You were in a difficult place and I appreciate the problem. The price of shock loss vs the price of loss of your sex life. It is clear how one choses between them.

How much density is needed for fine hair to look thick & dense (not transparent) at the hairline? Have you ever seen cases with super fine hair, that achieved good density?

Normal density in a fine-haired individual (like what you had at 15 years of age) was never an Elvis hairline, and you know it. It is impossible to put enough very fine hair to get an Elvis hairline, but you can get the look of what you had when you were 15.

You have terrible crusting after the hair transplant. These crusts should have been removed the day of and the day after the surgery. Now, the problem is how to get the crusts off without losing grafts. The answer is to place shampoo on your head, leave it on for 15 minutes until it gets waterlogged, then gently massage with your fingertips to start rubbing them off. It may take many days and many washes for these crusts to come off.

6 months post transplant. Hair has been growing in for 2 months now. Got transplanted hair put on both temples and lowered hairline slightly. Left side temples and lowered hairline hair is coming in as expected. However, on the right side, the hair is growing in curly and is off-putting. I had a follow up with my surgeon last month and she couldnt explain it. The barber who has been cutting my hair says the hair needs to grow longer for it to straighten itself out. His thinking is that the hair is at a weird/short length which makes it curly. But I have never seen my hair be curly like this. There have been times in my younger yrs where I buzzed my hair, and my hair was never curly at a short-length, it was always straight still.

Is this just part of the “growing-pains” of the transplant hair? Will it eventually sort itself out over next couple hair cycles to be my normal straight hair? Or perhaps the technician screwed up during the procedure and angled the hair wrong?

This happens with some (rare) transplant patients. I have seen this consistently in the same patients who had more than one hair transplant, but I would say that the common change is more wavy hair, less curly and very rarely kinky.