8 Months post FUE and I am worse off. What can I do? (Photo)

Dear titansfan777,Thanks for writing in your question.  8 months following a hair restoration procedure is plenty of time for the new hair to grow in, and if you have more scalp showing in the treated area than prior to the transplant procedure, there is a chance that some or all the grafts did not grow.  There are many factors that can contribute to a poor result following a hair restoration procedure.  The ones that are patient based are fairly limited, and include tobacco use, which tends to lead to poor growth.  Most of the factors that result in poor growth are on the side of the physician and his team of technicians who worked on you.  Transplanting a hair follicle is technically called a "free-tissue transfer."  Typically when tissue is moved around on the body, it stay attached to the body for purposes of blood supply.  Blood supply is critical to keep tissue living and viable and hair that grows.  However, with hair follicles, the microscopic blood vessels that feed are obviously not transferred from the back to the front; the hair follicle is stripped of all blood supply and placed in a holding solution, then replanted into the areas of need (in your case, the front of the scalp).  What happens to the grafts when they are outside of your scalp is very important to their continued survival in their new location.  Things that can affect poor growth include allowing the grafts to warm up, allowing them to dry out, keeping them outside the body for too long, mishandling the grafts, using the wrong holding solution, trimming the grafts too much under the microscope, etc, etc, etc.  Hair restoration is its own specialty now, although many providers are adding "hair restoration" to a long menu of services and literally trying their hand at it.  However, hair restoration surgery is a complicated procedure, lasts all day, takes a surgeon and a team of assistants, and there are hundreds of subtleties and nuances that can affect the outcome.  A dedicated, talented, experienced, board-certified surgeon with a team of full-time technicians is key to a great outcome.I would return to your provider and ask about the growth, and why you're not happy with it.  Good physicians will help you resolve the issue and make sure you're happy with your new hair.

Maybe your surgery was a failure.  Impossible to say without an exam or a BEFORE picture.At this point you need to follow up with your doctor and have a check.

The initial shedding you experienced
is referred to as a shock hair loss, which is usually a temporary phenomenon,
and in time this hair should grow back. It
may take up to a year to see full growth following a hair transplant procedure,
but at eight months you should see some hair growth from the transplanted
follicular unit grafts, so the delay you are describing is unusual. It may be best to return to your surgeon for
an evaluation.

By 8 months, a hair transplant patient should have a fairly
good idea of the growth. While it's true that it can take longer (.... even up to 18
months), the vast vast majority of patients experience some nice growth by 8
months. There is no harm in waiting a bit longer - but improvement is (statistically speaking) quickly unlikely.  





Fortunately, poor hair growth following hair
transplantation is not something that happens all that often. But when it
occurs the surgeon will need to explore many, many possibilities, including patient factors,
physician factors and scalp factors. All in all, anyone with poor growth needs
to sit down with their physician to review things in detail.



PATIENT FACTORS



There are a few patient factors to
consider - and many are centred around post op care
of the grafts. The other patient factor that is important is
smoking. Occasionally, smokers have poor growth for reasons that are not
completely understood. Other factors one might think about under patient
factors are medications that impair hair growth or cause excessive
bleeding. There are a few other factors as well that a surgeon will review
with a patient with poor growth.





PHYSICIAN FACTORS



Physician factors also include the physician and his or her hair transplant team. These factors  include overly tight packing
of the grafts (too tight, too packed can lead to poor growth) improper depth of
grafts, rough handling of grafts by technicians, harvesting of grafts,
temperature of grafts and poor hydration of the grafts. All these things are important. Sometimes the density is too high to begin with in certain areas. But these are the things
to think about in the "Physician Factors"



SCALP FACTORS



This is also an important categories.
Some scalps (because of excessive sun damage or other factors) may take up
grafts less efficiently and this leads to poor growth. Some scalps bleed more
than others are this can rarely impact growth due to post operative
"popping" of grafts. Infection post surgery can impair growth as
well. And finally some patients have scalp diseases that are either present
before the surgery (but could not be detected) or some patients develop new
scalp diseases after the surgery that impairs the growth of the grafts. This is
rare.
For example some individuals rarely develop alopecia areata or rarely develop
scarring hair loss problems after their hair transplant. These scalp issues can
impair growth partially or completely. A scalp biopsy is sometimes needed to
diagnose these problems.CONCLUSION 



As you can see there are many, many possible
reasons and only with a careful evaluation and a bit of "detective
work" can a few possibilities be uncovered. That said, sometimes hair transplants don't generate the results that were expected and the next time they do. Any surgeon will tell you in a busy practice, there are occasionally patient's the have less than expected growth. Hair transplant is a fascinating science - but not an exact science.  Far from it. 

Full results will take further 3 -4 months to appear.2000 fuel grafts are not sufficient to give high density in front arras specially in top views.If u want high density u might require 2 nd sitting. 12 monthd After 1st procedure.   That's y I advice to do F U T for baldness like u to have fuller look in one go .around 4000 grafts are easy to extract by FUT with trychophytic closure technique almost invisible scar on back.

Do you have before pictures?  Not all hair transplants work but you should follow up with your doctor to see if they have other options and or suggestions. 

it may take up to 18 months for all the hair to grow in. You still need to be patient as most of the hair comes around the nine to 12 month mark.  If you still experience sheddin of your native hair you need to start some sort of medical regiment such as rogaine or propecia to slow down the hair loss.

You talked about "a had a massive shed at day 14". That would most likely be your natural hair that shed. I would therefore assume that you were not on finasteride, which would have prevented the shock loss you reported. Unfortunately, the new hair that may have grown may not have offset the hair that you lost from shock loss. What is further unfortunately, is that the hairs lost from shock loss were most probably miniaturized hairs, which usually do not return. The saving grace would be the new hair transplants assuming that they grew. Speak with your doctor. He can judge the new hair growth and compare it to the before pictures to determine the shock loss and quantify it.  Ever young man I transplant is put on finasteride (Propecia) to prevent this phenomenon from happening. see discussion below in the web-reference.