Excellent doctor. He is an expert in his field, has been doing this forever and he is brilliant at it. Honest and doesn't try to rip you off, like all the other surgeons. Don't go anywhere else! He is the best.
I have had two procedures with this clinic in the past few years when I have visited Australia. The surgeon is friendly and informative. On both occasions the procedure was very straight forward with no after effects, although the duration was for several hours.What I was not happy about was that on both occasions chunks of hair were shaved off that were nowhere near the donor area and I was unable to tie my hair up until a for year later, when the bald patch was less noticeable. I advised them of this. When I remarried and returned to Australia earlier this year I requested an appointment but received no response to my email. I had referred many people to this surgeon and I really expected more professionalism and courtesy.
This will be my third FUT hair transplant with Dr Russell Knudsen. The first was in Feb 2014 (400 hairs) to thicken up my hair in the temple area and the second was in Nov 2014 (1000 hairs) and this was to bring my hair line forward as I had a rather high hairline. The third FUT hair transplant is scheduled for 14 February 2016 and will be for another 1000 hairs as I feel that the new hairline would look better if its slightly thicker. I believe it is relatively common for a second hair transplant to be required to increase density. I'm hoping this will be my final hair transplant and give me the desired density. As you can see from my pictures, I had a decent amount of hair to start with, I was just wanting to thicken up the temple area and bring my hairline forward by 1cm due to my naturally high hairline. I will update after the hair transplant to let you know how I went. Updated on 24 Jan 2017: Here are some more pictures of my current hairline after I had 1000 hairs transplanted back in 2014. The plan is to get the hairline thicker with an additional 1000 hairs in less than 3 weeks (14 Feb). Dr Knudsen may fill out my temple area too so that its not quite so angular but we'll see. Excuse the grey hairs haha. Updated on 18 Feb 2017: The day of my hair transplant finally arrived. Woke up early and had a proper breakfast (because you’re sedated during surgery you need food in your stomach to stop nausea). Anyway my operation was at 8:30am and I got to the clinic in Brisbane with about 30 mins to spare. Doctor Knudsen and his team of nurses (who flew up from Sydney the night before) turned up not long after I arrived and I was taken into a side room where I put on a gown and then Dr Knudsen discussed exactly what I wanted done (even though we’d previously discussed that I was having 1000 hairs to the frontal hairline area and temples to thicken up the last hair transplant) and he drew on with a marker where the hairs would be placed. He showed me everything in a mirror so that I was happy . Once all agreed he shaved the donor area at the back of my head where the donor hair would be taken from and then I was taken in to the operating room where I met the team of three nurses. Once on the operating bed I was sedated (so you are in a twilight state) and local anesthetic injected into the back of my head (donor area) and hairline for where the grafts would be placed. To be honest after about 30 mins I fell a sleep so I don’t remember much but I didn’t experience any pain just some light tugging when the donor strip was being removed from the back of my head and that was about it. Once the donor strip was removed the team of nurses separated the individual hair grafts, while Dr Knudsen made the incisions in the front of my hair line and temples. Once all done Dr Knudsen and another nurse started implanting the hairs into the tiny holes made in my hairline and temples. After dozing for about 3 hours I was allowed to get up and go to the bathroom and then continued with the implants. Everything was all done after about 5-6 hours and I was given some food and drink and given my post op instructions and meds and told how to care for the new grafts and the donor area. Every 15 mins I was to apply a solution via a spray bottle to the grafts that contained saline and PTP. My friend then picked me up at 3pm and I went straight home for a cup of tea and I felt really good if not a bit delicate. I kept applying the saline and PTP solution every 15 mins. By about 5pm I started to feel really tired and achy though so just lounged on the couch and ate and drank lots of water as I was really thirsty and felt dehydrated. Went to bed about 8pm and took a Neurofen plus and a sleeping pill as instructed and slept pretty well, although it was hard to find a comfortable head position with the incision on the back of my head and the transplants at the the front and temples. I also had to sleep in a shower cap to keep the grafts moist. I woke about 3:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep and was really hungry so just watched TV. Updated on 22 Feb 2017: I just wanted to include this photo so you can see my temples from the side. This was taken the day after surgery. I'll update with more photos soon as the scabs have now all come off but the new transplanted hairs remain for now... Updated on 22 Jun 2017: So its now just over 4.5 months since I had my hair transplant with Dr Knudsen. Really happy with the results so far and way more hair has started growing through than I thought would have done at this stage. I was actually going to wait until 6 months but there have been a few requests for updates. I'm still expecting a lot more growth through as the new growth is still a bit patchy and not as thick as the rest of my hair, but like I said its only been 4.5 months. My only complaint is that the scar at the back of my head is quite noticeable. My hair is obviously cut to hide it but it would be nice if it wasn't there. Whether this can be dealt with by Dr Knudsen at a later date I'm not sure or whether I'll need FUE to hide it. Anyway I'll worry about that in the future. Anyway other than that nothing more to report other than I will post again at 6 months and hopefully the growth will be even more extensive :) Updated on 9 Nov 2017: Here are a couple of pictures of my hair transplant after almost 9 months. I think most of the hair is through now although apparently you don't see the full results till about a year. I anticipate the texture will change and the transplanted hairs will become softer as they are quite course at the moment. Overall I'm really happy with the results. My hair looks and feels thick and it matches the rest of my hair. I don't anticipate I'll need anymore hair transplants in the future, however the scar at the back (after 3 surgeries) is quite large. It's not really an issue disguising it as my hair is pretty thick. I may consider FUE in the future to fill it in but otherwise I'm not too worried about it as no one sees it unless I show them. I'll get my flat mate to take some pictures of it so you can all see. I have a follow up appointment in December with Dr Knudsen so I'll see what he says.
