I want to know what I would look like after surgery (typical look). For instance, what impact will the surgery have on my appearance at various intervals after the surgery, especially since we are talking about grafts to the front that everyone will see when I meet them. I am also concerned that if I currently have miniaturizing happening in the front what this area is transplanted (I have had very recent hair loss and erosion of the hairline and frontal area). I am concerned that the addition of grafts could negate the densifying goal of the surgery. In other words, the existing miniaturizing hairs will leave due to the shock of the implantation of donor hair.
I would have to see how much miniaturization you have in the frontal area to estimate what you could lose. Taking finasteride usually protects against shock loss (those miniaturized hairs). Your overall appearance will look like you did before the surgery (assuming you don’t get instant growth or the rare patient who develops pimples) and as the new hair grows in, it is like watching grass grow, never see it but sooner or later, the lawn will look green. Here are some examples (good and bad)
- https://baldingblog.com/terrible-post-operative-care-after-hair-transplant-photo/
- https://baldingblog.com/one-day-post-op-2150-grafts-photos/
- https://baldingblog.com/post-op-photos-6-days-after-3320-grafts/
- https://baldingblog.com/one-day-post-op-with-photo/
- https://baldingblog.com/two-post-operative-patients-photos/
- https://baldingblog.com/another-patient-one-day-procedure-1600-combined-strip-fue-surgery/
- https://baldingblog.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3823&action=edit
- https://baldingblog.com/transplanting-the-frontal-corner-6-months-post-op-with-photos/
- https://baldingblog.com/had-3000-fue-grafts-1-week-ago-what-are-the-cracks-on-my-head/
To answer the question about miniaturization, see this post: https://baldingblog.com/creating-a-personalized-master-plan-for-present-and-future-balding-photos/. As you can see at the bottom of the post, are excellent photos of cut hair follicles so that I can actually count (a) the hairs per follicular unit thereby calculating the total permanent donor supply of the individual because these photos were taken from the donor area as marked, and (b) I can count miniaturization if he had it. To do this, I would count all hairs in the field and then count all miniaturized hairs in the field. From that I can determine how much miniaturization is present. In this man, there is no miniaturization of the donor hairs which is almost always the case, except in a man that might have Diffuse Unpatterned Alopecia (DUPA) a condition that dictates that a hair transplant should never be performed. For men who have significant miniaturization, a hair transplant can kick out these miniaturized hairs but for men on the drug finasteride, this risk is significantly reduced.