Well you should never have had a transplant that young especially with this much hair loss. Any good doctor would never do this because the potential for you to keep going bald is too high. In other words, you only have 6000-7000 transplantable grafts total. You may not have grafts to cover future loss later. The sad fact is the best age for a hair transplant is in the 30s. Now you may be faced with shaving your head and if you have fut, you will have a scar. It’s possible you can have scar revision if it’s bad. You can also have what’s basically a hair tattoo where they take a shaved head and place tiny dots to simulate hair follicles as well as hide the scar. You have other options but not everyone has the correct head or hair for a transplant.

This man is right on!

I figured I would offer my opinion here since the reader asked for a reply from somebody who had a similar experience and the response doesn’t really answer the question. I used Propecia about a decade ago and developed general sexual dysfunction (not just ED) that continues to this day.

Unfortunately nobody can provide you with the reassurance that you say you desperately need. You won’t know for sure if the side effects will be permanent unless you stop taking the drug. The doctor highlights that you risk “catch up hair loss” which provides an incomplete picture to the decision you need to make. On the other hand, if you continue taking the drug you risk “catch up side effects” because the side effects can get worse than they are today. You need to think about what is most important to you and how much you value your general health versus your hair in order to make a smart decision. There is uncertainty in making a decision like this which is stressful but the right decision is different for everybody.

In my practice, when a new patient goes on finasteride and has sexual side effects, I tell him to stop the medication. I have them report back to me about their sexual side effect which usually goes away within a month or so.  I have not seen any patient tell me that after stopping the drug, the side effects continued.

I would love to see the statistics on this claim, but thought is worthwhile to post it. Reference is a newsprint.

Short, white men more likely to go bald: study from tressless

The crusts that you had clearly must have pulled out your grafts during their critical period when they were being secured in their recipient sites.  If the crusting remains, the grafts are not secure for up to 12 days after the surgery and any attempts to pick off the crusts have the risk of pulling out the grafts, including the growth centers. See our article on this, which explains this risk here: https://newhair.com/pdf/mp-2006-graft-anchoring.pdf.

Yes, you are miniaturizing with thinning and wispy hairs that exceed 20% of the hairs that you are looking at. This is the early part of the balding process which often progresses with eventual loss of these miniaturized hairs. I put a few arrows to give you different stages of miniaturization in your hair, from thread-like to half a hair shaft volume. See arrows below.

I like the density count in the article which does show an increase in hair density following PRP.  More data and more patients are required but the study is good.

file:///Users/nhi/Downloads/sjy029%20(1).pdf

My doctor implanted hairs over my existing hairs. The result of what he did destroyed my hair and my donor area. He told me that he had to do this because I was going to lose it anyway.  I’m a mess now and am ashamed of what I allowed him to do on me. Now what to do?

 Some doctors take advantage of young men who are scared to death about losing their hair. Some doctors are like predators and look for men who will fill their pockets with money.  You need to find a good doctor who can assess your situation and give you a plan on what to do. Most good doctors can help you but a second mistake is not an option so be careful in finding a doctor.

There is nothing to be embarrassed about. Even Donald Trump takes finasteride.

I’m currently on the fence about taking Finasteride. In your experience, do you suspect the rate of side effects is as the Merck studies have stated? Do you believe PFS is real? Thanks!

Yes, the known side effects are maybe as high as 1.4% as recently reported. The PFS is still in question, but more and more doctors are jumping on that bandwagon, possibly because of the potential malpractice risks. I can state that in my 25 years in practice with 20 years prescribing finasteride, I never saw a case of PFS, but that does not exclude that this as real.

I have thousands of patients on finasteride and it is clearly holding on to their hair. When and if they stop it, the lose huge amounts of hair and then we have quite a conversation. Most want to get back on finasteride but some don’t fully go back to their hair status from before they stopped it. I have seen this effect in young men in there 20 and 30s and in men in their 60s and 70s as well.

Can fin work by itself ? from tressless