Interesting, the tropical transplant protocol. Do doctors ever talk about peptides that you’ve witnessed? I’ve been curious why BPC-157 and TB-500 aren’t more common practice after surgery but I don’t follow transplants too carefully
I don’t know much about peptides either, and my doctor hasn’t mentioned them. (bromelain and papain are, to my knowledge, enzymes, not peptides)
this is amazing!!!
The timing of my HT was perfect, in that I was able to take advantage of the zombie hairs (i.e. the ones attached to the follicles that are now dead, but still attached) in a bunch of pride events in the tail end of June. You can see some redness, and if you look carefully, the recipient area looks a little different from the donor region, but I don’t mind. It’s better than nothing!
(Left) With my partner attending the pride march in my city. At the moment, my country holds the record for the largest pride march in southeast asia, with an attendance of over 200,000 people! 
(Right) My partner and I at the queer prom. My first prom as myself 
On to more practical/informative things.
It’s been 5 weeks since the procedure, and all the zombie hairs were plucked a couple of weeks ago. I’ve got some pimples now, which are frankly annoying, but I can’t complain–it’s a sign of growth. You can see a bunch of black stuff at the follicles, and I’m hoping they’re hairs, rather than blackheads or whatnot. I’ll be sending these pictures to my doctor in the morning, and ask him if I should stop by the clinic for him to tend to the pimples.
Update
Turns out none of it is growth at the moment–they’re all retained hairs (turns out that’s the term) that were irritating the surrounding tissue while being pushed out.
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My first prom as myself
Concise but huge statement, congratulations!!!
What’s the zombie hair thing about?
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What’s the zombie hair thing about?
When you transplant a follicle from donor site to recipient site, the hair remains attached, but is effectively dead, and will inevitably fall out. But it takes time for it to fall out, giving the illusion of hair growing where it actually isn’t. (It eventually will grow, once the follicle gets into anagen, but it’ll be a few months)
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so happy for you! it was a pleasure to interview you!
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Thank you! It was a pleasure to be interviewed by you
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Good news and bad news.
The good news is, the hairs from the newly transplanted follicles are definitely growing!
The bad news is, I’m having the worst hair fall since I started balding (See: 3 months after HT, huge shed. Could this still be shock loss? - #5 by pikachu)
My DHT is undetectable (And this was while taking dutasteride every other day. DHT was measured at trough, where DHT should have been highest) and I’ve been eating well, as well as exercising, so I can think of three possibilities at the moment.
- The shock loss that should have happened a few weeks after the HT was delayed because of a combination of estradiol, dutasteride, and minoxidil. It simply caught up to me.
- Some time before my HT, my estradiol was way too high–comparable to that of a pregnant woman. I’ve been titrating my estradiol dosage down to a more appropriate level, and I’m close to the endpoint. I went from 511 pg/mL down to ~200 pg/m. Post-partum hair loss (i.e. Telogen effluvium) is a thing that happens in cis-women after pregnancy ends, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what is happening to me.
- IDK maybe stress?
None of these theories are perfect.
- I don’t know if (1) is clinically sound. I don’t know if shock loss can be delayed.
- (2) is more clinically sound, but most of the hair fall is coming from the general recipient areas. If it were (2) I imagine I’d be having more uniform hair fall all over. That being said, it’s possible that I actually have more uniform hair fall, but the transplanted areas are so sparse that it’s more noticeable.
- If (3) were the case, I think the hair fall would be more patchy.
Either way, the only thing I can do is wait and hope.
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You’ll be fine! Just a shedding cycle and plus some shock loss I’m betting. 6 months from now this should be better!
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Thank you for the reassurance! How common is it for shock loss to happen 3 months after the HT?
It happens and it’s different for everyone. But three months it’s common yeah
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Hi all! So the shed got bad enough that I decided to shave again.
I was preparing for the worst, but it wasn’t super bad. It also isn’t unbelievably great either. You can still see the male pattern, but somehow it’s better than before I grew out my hair. The shed must really have been a shed towards healthier hair.
You can also see how the hair is thickest at the hairline, but gets more sparse the closer we get to the original hairline. I’m not sure what’s going on there, and I’m hoping they eventually fill out.
On the left is a nice walk down memory lane–on a lark, I wore the same shirt as in this old photo, and it was an easy pose to mimic. I feel like the hairline alone helps a great deal. Strangely, ever since I buzzed my hair, it’s been easier to live as a woman. I’m still conscious about the unevenness, but I try not to think about it.
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Thanks for updating!
Shedding can be annoying. Hang in there !!
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How about run and cold shower after? If u in min/antiandrogen it have a point to give it try?
You look great! Looks like a lot of regrowth based on the last update?
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Thank you!
I guess the regrowth question requires a point of comparison.
Is it regrowth if you compare against my Oct 2024 Post? I’m not sure honestly. I think I might still be at the tail end of a fairly long shed. Most of my hairs are 1.5 inches long by now, but I’m encountering shed hairs that are half an inch long. Do sheds last this long? But I feel better now than 3 months ago because the transplanted hairs are longer, and they compensate for sparseness.
Is it regrowth if you compare against my pre-transplant pics? Still a far cry. Especially with the fullness in the mid-scalp. I’m honestly starting to think microneedling played a huge part in the impressive results in July 2024. I had to stop microneedling after the transplant, and the timing of the shed makes sense. Further, I’ve been on minoxidil for a while now (sans microneedling, as I don’t know yet if it’s safe to resume) and I noticed that I’m nowhere near as “hairy” as when I was on my old stack. Notice that in my old stack, my baby hairs on the temple were getting so prominent that they were threatening to connect to my eyebrows. (semi-relatedly, the dark circles under my eyes are less prominent now) Right now, I’m seeing nothing of the like.
In short, I think I’m one of those people without much sulfotransferase at the scalp, and the microneedling is needed to stimulate ST activity. Without microneedling, minoxidil doesn’t do much for me. I could try getting back on my old stack, but I hesitate because the dark circles under my eyes might return. For now, I’ll try to be patient and see how things go.
(P.S. Paragraph spacing doesn’t seem to work in comments)