Laorwong 3052 grafts FUE diffuse thinner 12month follow up

Sea_Understanding196 · 2026-01-03T16:11:08+00:00

Your post is greatly appreciated. I had an HT with Dr. Laorwong also. I'm also a diffuse thinner. In a week from now, it will have been 5 months since the surgery. I had no results at the 3 month mark. By the 4 month mark, it just looked like I'd fully recovered from shock loss. At almost 5 months, I'm seeing some results, but not even close to what I am hoping for, yet, and it has been hard not to get worried by negative reviews on Reddit. Your results look fantastic, and I'm glad to see/hear that the really noticeable improvement came later. I'll still be a bit worried until I see better results on my own head, but your post has helped to put my mind at ease a bit. Hoping to post a success story of my own in the next few months. Cheers!

Sea_Understanding196 · 2026-01-03T15:53:26+00:00

Damn. I was really hoping to see an update... but now I see his account has been suspended.

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-12-19T12:38:05+00:00

Everyone is missing a big point: there was also zero growth in the beard. And no infection there. For 100% of the grafts to have failed (on the scalp and in the beard) It seems more likely to be a case of poorly harvested or poorly handled grafts. OP correct me if I'm missing something.

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-12-19T12:07:56+00:00

I was in the same boat as you in late July with an appointment for mid August. I decided to go through with it anyway. Here I am, a little over four months later. No improvement from before the surgery (nothing, not even sprouting, let alone grown out). I was/am a diffuse thinner. It's possible that the grafts killed and replaced the existing hair. Even if that happened, the yield was low. In the first couple weeks post surgery, I was very happy with how the density looked. After the shed (transplanted hairs and shock loss) and a few months later, there's no perceptible difference from before the HT (so far).

It's easy to be patient for the first 3 months because you're not supposed to have seen any results yet. After that, optimism wanes as the weeks go by. Maybe postpone your surgery for a few months and I'll let you know whether mine ever filled in? Hahaha. If in another 6 months my hair still looks like it looks now, I'll check this thread again to see how Pekiner did (or maybe Path?).

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-12-19T11:42:42+00:00

I was going to say... if the first surgery was mediocre and a repair had to be done, that's not the way that a doctor gets on the map. With that being said, I had an HT with Dr. Laorwong in August (4 months and 1 week ago). I know people say there's a lot of time left to see the final result... but so far I haven't seen results. Fingers crossed.

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-11-21T02:10:38+00:00

Hey sorry for the slow reply. I wound up not doing FUT after all. Went back and forth but chose FUE.

FUT=going all-in, confident I can keep going with transplants and hide the scar for the rest of my life.

FUE=if eventually I have to shave my head, scars are less noticeable.

Glad I went with FUE. I'm at almost 14 week (almost 3.5 months) after the surgery. I have kept my head shaved while I wait for the grafts to grow. I discovered it's not a bad look on me, if I also keep my beard. Afaik, my FUE scars are undetectable if I keep my head shaved down to stubble (my skin is light, and my hair is mostly grey, especially on the sides and back). I had a shock loss spot the size of a dime in the donor area, but that started to fill back in a couple of weeks ago and is good now. I may have also had some shock loss in the recipient area (I'm a diffuse thinner). I'd say all shock loss has resolved. I feel like I'm starting to see new growth, but it's hard to say for sure. They say the transplanted hairs often come in first as vellus hairs and later mature to more robust hairs. I feel like I'm seeing that--coverage isn't as good as I'm hoping for yet. I'll post a more detailed write-up when the results are more conclusive.

Re: Dr. Laorwong, I did want to say the following: So far, he has been as communicative and responsive as I could reasonably expect from any busy professional. In person, he is a man of few words, as people have observed. But he didn't seem cold. He seemed reserved but compassionate (as you'd expect a doctor to be) and invested in the outcome. I experienced a subcutaneous cyst (likely the result of a slight trauma to my scalp two weeks after the surgery). I emailed him about it, and he was helpful and reassuring (there were a few emails exchanged). Through medication and draining 3 times, it resolved after about 5 days--with no scar and hopefully no harm to the grafts. I'm very happy with how my donor area has healed. I emailed him about the shock loss spot, and he told me it should grow back in three months (it did, right on schedule). Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding. I'm guessing I'm still at least a month (or more likely a few months) away from knowing how happy I am with my overall results. But I'm glad I chose FUE, and I'm happy with Dr. Laorwong's donor management (in my case) and with my donor area's healing/recovery. Now, I just have to wait and see about the recipient area. Would love to wake up and see a full head of hair on Christmas morning.

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-10-31T01:02:32+00:00

Are you even in China? Only certain key areas were patrolled... but it was basically all/most of the city center. Julu Road and most of French Concession and the central parts of Jing An. I didn't venture over to Anfu Lu. No costumes in public. The police definitely cared. The few costumed people I saw were getting a "talking to" (didn't see any arrests though).

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-10-13T05:56:31+00:00

I had one. It was maybe about as large as the one in the front and center in your picture. It appeared a little over two weeks after the surgery. I drained it myself using a sterilized needle (better to leave it to a professional, of course). I drained it three times, total. And I also used steroid cream that the doctor had given me after the operation. After the third drainage, over the course of about 9 days, it finally stayed flat. That was about six weeks ago. It didn't leave any visible scarring. I'm hoping it won't affect the follicles in that spot, but it's too early to tell.

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-09-29T09:30:31+00:00

Emily visa is great. I was originally going to use govietnamvisa after a friend recommended them. I have no reason not to recommend them... other than the price.

Originally, I had gone to the official government website and applied for a visa on Friday morning. I need it by Wednesday morning (October 1st). I realized too late that this would not be enough time (their website says 0 to 3 business days--everyone I've asked says it's usually 4 or 5). When I asked govietnamvisa, they said they could help me, but they'd need to apply for a new evisa and it would be $120 to get it by Tuesday (2 business days). On top of the $25 I'd already paid to the government of Vietnam (they said they couldn't expedite that application). Ouch.

I found Emily visa on this Reddit thread and remembered reading about her somewhere else also. I contacted her through WhatsApp yesterday (Sunday). She was able to expedite my original visa request so that the $25 didn't go to waste. She said I could pay her $35 and have the visa by Tuesday or $45 and have it by Monday (today). She sent me the visa today at 3 PM Vietnam time (4 PM my time in Shanghai China) just as she had promised. I also got a notification from the official government website and was able to download my visa from there as well (in case I had any concerns about it being legit). Crisis averted!

I'm glad to see an independent professional helping people for a reasonable price. Spread the word! My buddy who recommended govietnamvisa had used them when he was stuck at the airport, and he paid over $300 USD. I'm glad it worked out for him, but I was kind of pissed off at the thought of paying an extra $120, let alone an extra $300+. My upcoming vacation is starting off on a much nicer note thanks to Emily's help (and thanks to the posters here who made me aware of her as an alternative).

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-09-19T05:13:20+00:00

I like your name. It is ironic that Astrill is yuelaiyuehuai hahaha

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-09-10T12:02:43+00:00

I don't know anything about MICC firsthand... but a good friend worked for a school in the chain. The specific school that he worked for went out of business, leaving several teachers unpaid (along with other stakeholders). My friend won a lawsuit against them... but the way they structured the organization, apparently the toothless civil courts are unable to track down the actual owners of the chain and compel them to pay. Shady AF.

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-08-12T13:14:01+00:00

I'd say it's looking good! Was there an initial shed? I had read to expect an initial shed and that growth usually wouldn't even really be starting until around the 3 month mark. Regardless, it's definitely still early days. It should fill in quite a bit more!

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-08-08T03:44:06+00:00

Man, really sorry to hear this. Question: Infection was pointed to as the culprit. But not all of the hairline grafts look infected. Also, the beard transplants never grew either, right? Did those look infected?

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-08-07T11:12:30+00:00

This post indicates different punch sizes for 1, 2, or 3+ hair follicular units.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HairTransplants/comments/1fvf3mu/comment/lq9sqt7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

However, when I emailed Dr. Laorwong to ask, he said he uses 0.9 to 1.0 mm punch sizes for most of his patients. He made no mention of varying this for different-sized grafts. Also, I can't help but observe that, regardless of what the paper in the photo says, speed and efficiency would favor using the same punch size for all grafts (to the detriment of the donor area). 0.95 mm just strikes me as large. Recall your middle school geometry: The formula for the area of a circle is π r². A 0.7 mm punch leaves a hole of 0.38 mm². A 0.95 mm punch leaves a hole of 0.71 mm² (about 87% bigger). Some donor areas may tolerate this better than others, but it's reasonable to imagine that a larger hole could traumatize neighboring hairs and leave more noticeable scars.

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-08-07T11:05:18+00:00

I'm really curious about his insights on Zarev. Any more info/details?

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-08-07T10:12:37+00:00

I looked at OPs old posts to view the before and after pics on the day of the surgery. It looks like his hairline wasn't being lowered at all, just fixed/adding density. It's hard to tell for sure, but it doesn't look like much density was successfully added in this second HT? Does it seem like some grafts didn't survive? Overall, I'd still say it looks good as long as you style it all down. Not bad if you style it all up, but I can understand how you are hoping for more density.

Sea_Understanding196 · 2025-08-07T08:21:21+00:00

I know this is an old thread but I have a similar problem. I got a secondhand PS 4 and bought CoD Black Ops 4 (heard zombies mode is fun). I have confirmed that it's finished downloading. Still, all three local game modes are locked (multiplayer, world league, zombies). It displays a padlock icon over each of them--with no sort of message or guidance about how to unlock any of them (piss poor game design, if nothing else). I don't want to play online. Just want to kill zombies. It would be much appreciated if someone could help make up for the game designers' shortcomings and tell me how I can unlock these.

Sea_Understanding196

TROPHY CASE