8.5 Months (a week after a hair cut)

The 8 month mark came and went - still reasonably happy with the results so far but growth has not been quite as thick or quick as I expected. The back third of my head hair is growing, but it's taking longer than I thought it would. I keep telling myself it'll thicken up in time. I hope it will!

Overall I feel much more positive about my hair and the way it looks - in these pictures I feel it looks better than it does in the mirror! But then I'm usually under a light in the bathroom which is never flattering. At the least I don't think you can really tell from the donor area that hair has been taken from the back and sides.

Oblique view. If you zoom, you can see that the new hair still has some thickening up to do, but it's coming along. I'm happy with the angle of the hairline. 

Front view. I used to have a big gap right in the middle of my hairline. That's mostly gone although you can still see the hair is thinner (because it's all transplanted hair) under lights. 

View from the top - still thickening up (this is the bit I'm most anxious about) 

View from behind - hopefully when the top thickens this part will be less noticeable

Side view : can you see the strip scar?

Front hair line @ 7.5 months

Not much change really, but my hairdresser left the top longer this time which is a mixed blessing. Somehow the hair seems much finer when it's left longer. But I'm able to sweep it across so maybe it covers more baldness, I'm not sure. I'm still pretty happy with the front and just now waiting for the top / crown to grow in more. I keep seeing the new top hair (which is very fine) and saying to myself that it'll thicken up. Hopefully it will!

Fine hairs on top (7ish Months)

I'm starting to see more fine hairs on the top of my head - they're getting quite long but still quite thin and wiry. I'm hoping these are going to thicken up and cover the thin patch on top. If that's covered, I'm going to be a happy man. Maybe at 9 months it'll be better...

Top view, 3 month & 6 month comparison

The slowest progress seems to be on top, towards the back. I'm not sure if that's because the multiple-FU grafts take longer to grow or simply because the area was thinner initially. But anyway, encouraging to see some of the hairs are growing and thickening. At 3 months I had some new hairs but they were very fine indeed.

As it is those hairs are still very thin, so I'm hoping for more thickening over the next three months

An intermediary before/after hairline @ 6 months

I know the colouring is all a bit messed up, but you can see how I looked before and how the hairline has been filled in. It should thicken up even more over the next few months with any luck. 

6 Month Update

I said I would reserve judgement until 6 months, so here goes!

My position at the moment is : I'm happy with the hairline, even though a lot of the new hairs are quite wiry. The area further back on my scalp has not yet filled in fully, and I expect it to take a few months to thicken up. But I am seeing growth back there. Again, the new hairs are growing, but they're individual strands (from 2 or 3 follicular units), so I hope they will improve over time and reduce the visible thin patch towards the back of my scalp. 

In terms of how far back Dr Ilker went, I can see now that there's still going to be a thin patch on top once everything's grown in. But hopefully I will be able to hide it with clever styling or just plain old concealer (my crutch of choice). A different surgeon might have put fewer grafts in the front third (behind the hairline) and covered my whole crown, but what he did was probably a better long-term strategy. I can have the crown filled in at a later date once I've established how much more hair I'm going to lose. Hopefully the Finasteride will counter some of that loss, or at least slow it down. 

The main thing is to concentrate on the positives so far and not worry too much about how it's going to grow in later. I've had a few hair complements, which is amazingly gratifying! A friend who I'd told said her boyfriend noticed something different about me, but couldn't figure out what - and another who said they liked my 'new haircut'. 

I'm still self-conscious about the back of my head, but I think having an actual hairline is amazing! By the autumn hopefully it will all have thickened up nicely. 

Hairline closeup (5 months)

Took this a couple of weeks ago before having a haircut. You can see where the new hair is coming through and is still quite fine. Hoping it will thicken up over the next few months