Hello doctor, long time no talk. I recently found this on the internet regarding a hair transplant where the patient took hair from his leg and arm. The results look good.
Caution: Some pictures might be a bit bloody for some readers
https://hairsite.com/serendipity/authors/27-sofarsogood
Also, I notice that a lot of patients who have HT’s seem to grow their hair longer after the transplant and keep it that way. Is it because they want to cover up the other balding areas with the long hair? Can you get a HT and keep your hair short and still have that “full look?”
I am having difficulty with the first picture on the referenced site. This is not a hair transplant, but someone with a thick, natural head of hair. From a legal point of view, the inference that this representation of a transplant is fraudulent and violates consumer laws in most states. It may have just been an example of what the patient wanted, but to have it presented in the same reference with before and after photos is poor form.
Many hair transplant patients elect to comb their hair back or to the sides and keep it long. Longer hair covers better, but with good densities transplanted, short hair is not unreasonable. I tell patients that when they get a hair transplant, they create the illusion of hair, not the reality of it. Long hair with good grooming goes a long way to do this. The illusion I am talking about is basic to the math in hair demand/supply hair economics (see Patient’s Guide — How Many Grafts Will I Need?). If a person loses 60,000 hairs and gets a transplant that makes him look good with 10,000 hairs, then this is clearly an illusion, not reality. I have found that in people with good hair characteristics, low contrast hair to skin color, wavy, and coarse hair can get great results with as little as 20% of their hair returned through transplants. That, of course, requires an artistic surgeon and the budget to afford the process.
With regard to your situation with 15 hair transplant procedures, you may be running out of hair. Body hair may be a solution, but there really is not good data on it so you would have to be a guinea pig for human experimentation. This is not standard care. I would give you a one on one consultation if you are in the California area.
You are correct. Nearly every hair transplant doctor seems to recommend something different. There are no scientific studies that indicate that one post operative care is better than the other. 
Some people can have some side effects of drugs that are used for sedation after a hair transplant. Every medication has side effects, but most of the medications we use have few detectable side effects at the doses we utilize. If there are any lingering effects from these drugs, they may last a day or two at most. There has been a rare occasion where a patient was recently sick with the flu just before a transplant, so it would be logical that the same thing could happen after a hair transplant. Perhaps he caught the flu and it was coincidence. I really can’t tell you, as I have no idea.