I don’t know the details of your donor supply; however, it is common to transplant the frontal half of the head so that the man in the mirror has hair. I would want to assess your central hair mass and see if it is going with a considerable number of miniaturized hairs. This central area often falls out if it is weak, but transplanting a good hairline and reinforcing this central area work in many men with a poor donor supply; however, the details of your donor density and donor’s hair mass would tell me a great deal. I have done such transplants on hundreds of men.

I reposted this podcast for those of you who have not seen it.  It has been widely received on Dr. Gary Linkov’s Podcast site.

The photo shows good density placement of the grafts; however, I noticed the grafts were placed in lines, like soldiers standing in formation.  This will not be a problem for the patient unless his hair is straight.  Straight hair at specific lengths will show this alignment of the hairs.  This is a common finding as many surgeons have a sense of order, while Nature understood that hair groups were irregularly placed.  In my practice, I’m a copycat, just copying what Nature would have done had it had been a hair transplant surgeon.  

At 19, hair loss is very recent, so men of this age are very sensitive to finasteride and in this case also minoxidil.  He reversed his hair loss in just 6 months on this combination of drug.

Do you have advice for someone who gets water retention in the face even from 1.25 mg oral? I had no other side effects but stopped due to the puffy face. Is there a safe/simple way to mitigate that?

Maybe this medication is not for you. Theoretically, swelling can occur in hidden areas of your body, like around the heart. Speak with your doctor.

Young men with recent hair loss, like this 17-year-old male, most often are very sensitive to finasteride and can get a complete reversal in a very short period as shown here. This is an amazingly good response.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240206170882/en/Stemson-Therapeutics-Announces-Technological-Breakthrough-in-New-Hair-Growth

Hair has been cloned before. I was told that the problem encountered was when they put the cloned hairs into mice, they all died of infected hair follicles.  This was because the hairs grew in all directions and didn’t orient themselves properly; hair grew out of skin.  Think of hair as a complex organ that knows up from down and develops groups of hairs that work together in this hair organ with appropriate supportive vasculature and nerves.  If it all doesn’t go up uniformly and grows down instead (relating to the scalp surface), an infection may occur as this foreign body (the actual hair shaft is a foreign body to everyone’s scalp) causes problems.  The game isn’t over in a basketball game until the last pass is made and the clock runs out. Let’s see what they come up with.  I wish them good luck!