Hair transplant diary (ongoing)

Yes I did. Got year's supply wheras Dr Nel only gives you 8 months. It's a bit complicated as I had to use Revolut to pay.

I had them shipped to the UK and then a delivery company delivered them to Ireland.

Have you been able to find any work from the doctor in other clinics? Finding it hard to track down any of his other work

So it's been 6 months since I am using Topical Finasteride & Minoxidil Spray. I got it from Hims UK (used anpost service to get it delivered to Ireland).

I am very happy with the results and people giving complements on my hair and overall appearance (they don't know about the hair transplant).

Confidence has gone up!!!

Cheers

I think it was just over 200€ for a 6 months supply (I can't find order details).

Absolutely, no side effects except some bumps on the forehead in the first few weeks.

There was an import charge of 8€ or so by AnPost. Plus another 7€ or so for the AdressPal service.

Overall it was less than €300, my memory serves 250 range for a 6 months supply.

Just got a hair transplant with Dr. Nel and team last week. Very happy with the experience. Of course won't know for a few months the actual results but he was happy!

Yeah sure,

I kind of detailed it below for myself and in case anyone wanted to know what it was like:

Get an appointment and go in to Dr. nel, discuss pre agreed HT plans . I went in January for initial consultation for €250 and they went through everything (medication, type of HT needed, grafts etc). I wanted the HT so booked in for April. I needed two days for what I wanted. 

Mine was: 3,400 grafts

FUE

Cost: €13k

Going abroad was not an ideal option for me due to a medical condition I have. Peace of mind was key.

On the day of the procedure:

You meet the team on the day. 

You are brought into a private room to get your scrubs on.

Then you go into a room where he draws the hairline and shaves your head to the required length and takes confidential pictures of your head at different angles.

Dr. Nel will call you into the treatment room. You sit on a hospital bed that reclines up and down. They then put you lying back slightly and begin the anaesthesia in along the top side of your head. These are stinging more than painful but nothing to be worried about, doesn't last long. 

Dr. Nel does 90% of below:

 There is a tv in front of you, I watched Netflix for a couple of hours while he started doing the incisions. Along the way if you feel any kind of pain you can just let him know and he will top up the anaesthetic where needed which results in near zero pain throughout. The head is then bandaged and I was sent home for the night. If you don't live close by book a hotel just for the ease of getting there and back.

Next day started at 7am. You can have some breakfast there, toast and that. You then go in for extracting from the donor site. This consists of multiple needles in the back and sides of the head again but probably a 5/10 in pain so manageable and they do everything they can to keep you relaxed. Once this happens they then take the grafts that they will eventually place into your incisions site (wherever you are getting your hair transplanted). Again this is very little pain and if you feel any your friend anaesthesia is there to help.

This is a long process so depending on how many grafts etc, you will be lying in different positions for a couple of hours. I fell asleep for an hour during it. Once all grafts have been pulled from the donor sites it's time to implant. Dr. Nel then sat over my head and along with his team, implanted the hairs into each incision made. Again, painless. It's like a conveyor belt of 4 staff all doing different jobs to get the hair implanting device into Dr. Nels hand, it's an impressive flow. Again he implants a hair every few seconds but with thousands of grafts, this takes time. There are a couple of 20 minute breaks for food which they provide. 

Once all grafts have been implanted you are done. They clean the site and bandage it up well. Dr. Nel then gives you a set to use when you get home. It contains a cover for any leakage etc, sprays for your hair every 30 mins while you're awake and an airplane cushion. He also instructs you how to sleep for the next 10 days. 

In total I was there for 6 hours day one and 10 hours day two. 

Next day 

Back into Dr. Nel to remove bandages and he washes your hair. He then gives you a package care a discusses the next week off caring for your hair with you. A follow up is organised a week later. 

All in all I was very relaxed and they are all extremely professional.

I would have stopped taking Finasteride.

Interesting. Each box of finasteride should come with a year's supply of condoms :)

Topical Finasteride goes systemic, so the same rules apply as oral Fin, in this case.

Men are advised not to take Finasteride 6 months before a pregnancy, not because it causes birth defects, but because there is no evidence to show that it doesn't. It is untested in such a scenario, in humans.

There is evidence to show that it doesn't cause birth defects as plenty of people have had healthy offspring while on it at the recommended dosage for hair loss prevention.

I wouldn't call it worthless if there has been no recorded birth defects in humans taking the drug.

You could theoretically say that Aldi Vitamin C tablets have no evidence to show they don't cause birth defects because they weren't tested in that scenario in humans.

That really just means it lowers your chance of a sperm reaching the egg, but it still possible for sperm to reach the egg

presume you would have to stop it for entire pregnancy, you would lose a lot of ground between trying and actual pregnancy. Dr nel said no need to stop it just make sure pregnant women dont touch cut pills. Its on the market since the 90s, i would imagine we would have heard about birth defects at this stage as lot of men with prostate cancer take it too. I have thought more and more about it recently as could be in that situation in near future. WAs hoping some alternative may be available to maintain. FDA snippet interesting/reassuring.

https://californiahairsurgeon.com/news/safety-finasteride-fetus-separating-online-myths-proven-record/