Ok, 4 month mark is finally here….. however, as excited as I was up to 3 months where I saw lots of hair pierce through my scalp on my now hated magnifying mirror, Its been status quo for about a month ?!?

The left side of my head is coming along fine, where I see the fullness taking part due to those hairs that got me all excited at the 2-3 month mark which are growing to a lenght that actually start covering my scalp.

The right side however where activity started the soonest after the operation, has yet to show any new growth for the last month !!! which is why I mention earlier that I now hate my magnifying mirror….. Its completely dead on that side… nothing, zip, nada !

So I am hoping that even if no new growth are showing through, they will come soon and start comforting my worries that if they aren’t there yet, they just might never show up….. After all, it is said, that the sleeping phase lasts between 2-4 months… So come-on gang…..We’re at 4 months, wake-up !!!

I know I have to be patient, which is not my best quality,  most likely in a few months, I’ll remember today and smile…… I hope 🙂

Well, even if I shaved my head again when stitches were taken off on day 14 to help with scar maintenance, I can say that 1 1/2 month later, the scar is completely covered by the hair and therefore has disapeared.

Recipient area is still a bit pink, some of the hair is definitely starting to grow and scalp feels like a 2 day beard upon touch therefore more stubs should appear soon. Been having a few ingrown hairs and was told to leave them alone.

Looking forward to more coverage….

Cheers!!!

Best feeling in a while… Looking forward to a good night sleep… Been 2 weeks since I slept well due to the stitches stabbing my wound everytime I tried to rest my head on a pillow…. But it’s all over now….. So everything is holding-on thight and all crusts and scabs have fallen. Fealth good to take a shower and actually no be afraid to let the flow hit my head.

So, straight baby shampoo it is for at least another 2 weeks. started monoxidil today to help to get the best and fastest results…. and polysporin on the scar for another 3-4 days, until the scar ain’t red anymore.

Also, was great to wear a baseball cap. for those interested, I got the stretch fit model cap that fits loose but looks tight. also, that model has its dome high enough that it doesn’t touch the scalp up top at all and the back is low enough to not touch the scar either. I have an Under Armor cap that fits exactly the same. It is my opinion that one should foresee the need for such a well fitting cap before his or her procedure.

cheers,

steph

Was a pretty boring week 🙂 I’m one of those guys that have the hardest time sitting still. So being at home and doing nothing was a great challenge to me !!  Working out is part of my life and I usually have a hard time sleeping whenever I have to miss a work-out !!! Even if I have the best excuse ever, I still feel guilty. But there’s no way I’ll jeopardize the results of my operation,  therefore I just shake it off !!!

Now, here’s my findings…. first, I guess my results are similar to others at this period. No hair has fallen yet, but then again, on my previous operations, I kept most of my transplanted hair and only watched the ”natural hair’ fall due to shock loss. But as stated on my previous post, the procedures were not even close in graft numbers and the impact on the scalp was much less important. But I’m still wishfull and hope I’ll be lucky again.

When I wash my hair I can see all the dead skin most likely due to swelling just hang on the short hair and looks like oatmeal… no wonder it itches so much. On the scar side, I got some analgesic polysporin that I apply after my evening wash before going to bed. Last night was my first application and I slept much better. Can’t wait till this coming thursday to get the stitches off…… Will sure feel good !!!

Now, onto the supplied pics…. You’ll most likely see familiar results if you’ve looked around at the other guys stories. However, the scabs on the middle of my head are due to my banging my head on a faucet head on day 4 as I wanted to lean forward to have my wife complete the clipping around the scar to ease the polysporin application. Can you imagine how much I  freaked out  when I stood up to see a flow of blood coming down my forehead !!!! So I called the clinic and they asked me to come down….. Good thing I’m only half an hour away !!! They immediately took me in and ”fixed” the damage. A total of 7 grafts had been dislodged.

Sorry about the picture quality !!!

Later !!!

Alright, here goes….. First, I am 47. I have no picture of pre-op and immediate post op, cause, well….. Pre-op is unfair in the way that the present intervention is my 4th one. Yep, 4…. The previous 3 were performed in the 90′s. At no time during my life did it ever show that I was suffering from hair loss.

The first was done by a downtown Ottawa company that had me believe that the intervention would be done locally in Ottawa, until the last minute where I was told that the surgery was gonna happen in Montreal. Had to ask my brother to come along. I had received some 250 graphts which was standard at the time.

Once I realized that the purpose of staying close to home in Ottawa to avoid travelling became impossible at the time. I decided to simply go to the best surgeon at the time directly in Montreal for the 2 subsequent ones. That Surgeon was known to have done most of the Quebec comedians and signers. Second intervention was 350 graphts and the last one, 450.

That Surgeon has retired now and sold his practice to others that I don’t know. I called them, but the absolute biggest intervention is 1400 graphts…… Kind of dwarfed big time that the Rahal team which I understand go all the way to 4500 if not more.

Needless to say that I went with the Rahal team… sincerly, these guys are the best.

Immediate post-op is exactly like the other guys say and look. One tip, have them shave your whole head before the surgery. I chose to keep the hair longer at the back to hide the scar…mistake… for one, it makes it harder to maintain the scar. so the day after surgery I had them trim it down to a number one to fix that. Second, You have no choice where they shave the receiver area and you look absolutely worst than your worst nightmare….. You got it… thick over the ears and around the back with a shaven top and front to give that 1970`s uncle look…. YUK!!!

During day 2,3 and 4, swelling hit me big time. By day 3, my left eye was swollen shut.That side has gone down to my cheak now, while the right eye is acting up…. But hey… it is normal. They say to sleep on your back at a 45 degree angle to limit swelling as much as possible. I found that the fresh scar that goes from the top of one ear all the way to the top of the other was simply way too painful to allow me to actually sleep on my back… So I chose to endure the swelling.

So all in all, my fourth and most likely last FUT ended up being 2900 graphts. That’s alsmost 3 times the amount of graphts with my 3 previous FUT combined…. Wow !!!

The reason I decided to go ahead one more time, is that last spring was pretty bad, shedding wise… I lost all of my remaining ”natural hair” in the crown area and was basically left with the hair from my previous FUTs… Needless to say that the hair was thin. Manageable and still very presentable when tactically positionned right, but wind and rain had become a definite problem that I had to avoid at all cost.

Will be posting pics as I go along the way, towards the 2,3,4,5,6 weeks, for I think that these pics would have helped me quite a bit in figuring out what I will look like in these coming weeks, to help plan for restaurant diners, week-ends out with my wife, etc….