HairRoss

I was fortunate enough to bump into Dr. Barghouthi when I went in for my last checkup at WMG when the update pictures I just posted were taken. He said he thinks I have somewhere in the range of 4000-5000 grafts remaining if needed for future operations after combing through the donor area.

Hi all, sorry I've been away in Turkey with my partner for the past week (for a vacation, not surgical reasons 😆). Here's the roughly 3.5/4 months update. These photos were taken by WMG at about the 3.5 months mark: And these photos were taken by me right after my first haircut, last week before my vacation.

All is good, no worries. My understanding is that by the 2 week mark your grafts are basically permanent and would require surgery to remove at that point. I'm not too sure about FUT scar recovery in particular but I'd personally probably just avoid things like weightlifting for a while. I think it's normal to have some anxiety post-op considering the finite nature of grafts as well as the time and money invested in the procedure so you want to make sure you're doing everything you can to guarantee the best possible result. I know I've definitely had my fair share of anxiety with the procedure too.

Really great write up and it definitely matches my experience with Dr Ted and WMG. It's a shame to hear that he's no longer taking appointments in London but that must mean his new wales based clinic is going well, which I'm glad to hear. That density and donor management is insane and I look forward to seeing your results. Hopefully you haven't been finding the recovery too rough. I found sleeping to be the hardest part.

Thank you, I'm really looking forward to seeing your write up and results - happy growing!

I'd personally just take it the next day and continue as normal, trying to stick to a schedule if possible. I miss the odd day here and there and take my doses at irregular times and haven't noticed any adverse effects. My understanding is that the level of drugs in your system builds up over time and it takes quite a while, even longer in the case of dutasteride, as it has a greater half-life, for the level to go back to baseline so missing doses isn't the end of the world.

I was quoted £8450, however I ended up paying £7950 total since WMG offer a £250-£500 discount for letting them use either blurred or full face photos for their advertising. I'm not sure if the price is any different if you go through Dr Ted directly with his Wales based clinic.

I agree, it would be good to know a rough number in case the need for a future surgery arises. I'll ask next time I go in for a review.

Great to see another patient of Dr Ted's. His FUT skills are top-notch and the FUT/FUE combo is definitely a wise choise to maximise the lifetime availability of grafts. Look forward to seeing your results 🙏

Yeah, they told me they extracted 3428 grafts (7550 hairs) after the surgery. 784 singles 1420 doubles 1150 triples 119 quads If you mean grafts as in an estimation of the number of available grafts I have before the surgery or how many I have left afterwards, he didn't say.

Absolutely, I remember when doing research a few years back it didn't seem like there were many highly rated surgeons in the UK aside from maybe Dr Ball and Dr Reddy and I was always thinking I'd most likely have to go abroad but nowadays I think the UK is a much more viable option for surgery.

Background I'm a 26-year-old male who has been slowly losing my hair since the age of 16. I have a deeply receding hairline, accompanied by minitaurization in the mid-scalp and crown regions. Ever since I first noticed it, my hair loss has caused me a great deal of grief, and I've always stuck to one type of hair style to try and cover it up. I've always been conscious of how my hair looks and have always been afraid of windy days and getting it wet, which has greatly affected my self-confidence. I did try taking finasteride before in my early 20s, and in hindsight, the results were great, and I was a fool for getting lazy and discontinuing taking it while also being paranoid about side effects. As my hair loss progressed, it became more of an issue, and I found myself more willing to do what was needed to regain my hair, so I started taking finasteride again. I've since been taking 1mg finasteride every day for the past year without any major issues and it appears to have stabilised my hairloss. For me, topical minoxidil is a bit of an inconvenience to apply, and I also find it affects the appearance and styling of my hair. Furthermore, I have cats, and so I am concerned about its toxicity to them. I am considering adding oral minoxidil to my regime to try and thicken my existing hair, but I am a bit worried about the side effects, as I am someone who has experienced some issues with heart related effects before as well as frequent headaches. I plan to assess the results of my surgery and do any relevant health checks before making any changes to my treatment regimen. Choosing a Doctor I had initially considered going abroad to the likes of Laorwong, Bisanga, etc., but ended up deciding to stay in the UK to make the recovery process as easy as possible for myself from the comfort of my own home, with the added benefit of making future in-person checkups and such much more accessible. I think it is crucial to go with a doctor who only sees a single patient a day and is involved in all aspects of the procedure. For me, the likes of Dr Ball and Dr Reddy are a bit out of budget, so I decided to pay for an in-person consultation with Dr. Manish Mittal, as he seemed to be a very up-and-coming doctor and is also forum-recommended. I found him to be extremely personable and ethical, and his work looked very good. The only concern I had was that he was not willing to do any work on the temple points. I felt that with the state of my temples, this would leave me with a pretty wide forehead, so I decided to do a free video consultation with Dr Ted since I noticed that he was one of the 3 IAHRS members based in the UK along with Mani and Dr Ball. Despite not seeing much of him on this forum aside from his recent interview with Melvin, his work looked great to me on his Instagram profile. After speaking with him, I was very impressed. He struck me as someone who was very knowledgeable, empathic, and has high attention to detail. Dr Ted agreed with me about my thoughts on the temple points, and I found that he had a good history of performing restoration in this area. I was initially quoted for 2800 grafts; however, after an in-person consultation and also a follow-up video call, we eventually settled on using ~3500 grafts to restore my hairline and temporal points while also scattering some grafts around the midscalp and crown regions to reinforce these areas in what Dr Ted likes to call a 'density mission'. Surgery On the day of the surgery, I arrived at Harley Street at around 8:30 a.m. and was initially quite anxious; however, Marzena and Dr Ted quickly made me feel at ease. I was given a number of pills and changed into surgical attire. I was placed face down in a chair and given local anesthetic. For me, this felt like a series of relatively painful, sharp scratches, similar to having a blood test. For the rest of the morning, the extraction process took place and was completely painless. I was then given time to stretch my legs, go to the bathroom, and was provided with a nice lunch while the technicians counted the grafts and prepared them for implantation. The team extracted 3428 grafts (7550 hairs), giving an average yield of 2.2 hairs per graft with a breakdown as follows: 784 single grafts 1420 2 hair grafts 1150 3 hair grafts 119 4 hair grafts I recall the team mentioning that they had to split a few of my grafts in order to create more singles, as temporal points require lots of fine single hair grafts to do correctly and my understanding is these numbers given to me are after this process so I'm not sure exactly how many grafts had to be split to achieve this. In the afternoon, I was seated upright and given another round of local anaesthetic before undergoing the implantation stage. The team at WMG is quite large and very efficient, and at times I had three people working on my head simultaneously to implant the grafts. The technicians were all really lovely and bubbly. They also kept commenting on how nice my grafts were and how easily they were coming out, which was extremely reassuring. The day flew by and concluded at around 6:30 p.m. I was bandaged up, given some post-op instructions by Dr Ted and a gift bag containing a travel pillow, a cap, shampoo, conditioner, painkillers, medical gauze, and covers for my pillows. Dr Ted also gave me his personal mobile number and told me to contact him should I have any questions or want to provide updates on my progress. On the morning of the second day post-surgery, I headed back to the clinic and was given my first wash and check-up. I was then given another wash a few days later before beginning to wash my hair myself at around day 5. On the 10th and 11th days, I removed all the scabs following a super helpful video tutorial made by @Melvin- Admin. At the time of writing this, I am now just over a month post-op and have now shed most of the transplanted hair. I am looking forward to seeing the results in a few months's time. Dr Ted has been fantastic, promptly answering all my questions and monitoring my progress. Thank you to Dr Ted, Marzena, Barbara, Theresa, and the rest of the team at WMG for making my procedure as smooth as possible. The service I have received has been nothing short of fantastic. I know Dr Ted has recently set up his own clinic in Wales and also still works under WMG in London, so I highly recommend you check both options out if you are based in the UK. I hope to see more of Dr Ted's work on here, as I think he is a brilliant and deserves more recognition. Photos Before Photos Immediately Post-OP / Photos of scabbing after a few days Photos after removing scabs /