---Initial loss---

I began losing my hair at the age of 22. To say I was shocked is an understatement. Nobody in my family had any signs of hair loss at my age. My father is 70 and only has slight recession in his temple points and a little thinning on his crown but that’s it. So yeah, it was very hard to deal with. After a while, I accepted my bald headed fate. I did the propecia and minox thing for a while. I actually had good results but stopped taking it because I couldn't afford propecia and didn't know about the option of taking proscar. Boy do I regret not finding out sooner. But hey everything happens for a reason. As for getting a procedure, while I always had it in the back of my mind that one day I may get in that chair for a procedure, I never really thought I actually would. The reason is (besides hating the thought of being cut open) is that I didn't really think that I good get a good result from a transplant. I saw the ads for Bosley and MHR, but they seemed too "infomercial". Even some of their best results didn't impress me too much. So I marched on thinking that my follicularly challenged days would continue forever and didn't give much though to having a procedure for quite some time.

---Reconsidering a transplant---

Fast forward a few years. I was 26, and not in the happiest state of my life, and the hair loss didn't really help with things. Every time I would look in the mirror, I couldn't connect with the person staring back at me. The reflection I saw looked about 10 years older than I felt. I decided to start looking back into transplants and decided to give it a much more serious look than I had before. Also, knowing that I was a better candidate for a transplant at 26 than it had been when I was 22 was another reason I decided to start looking into the procedure again.

I was fortunate enough to run into Jotronic's blog, as well as Bobman's and London_lad's blog (London_lad's blog happens to be on another site). I was seriously blown away by their results. These guys initially had hair loss worse than I did. To see the transformation that these guys had was just awe inspiring. I couldn't believe that I didn't find their stories the first time around, but I guess I wasn't doing the required research or the blogs weren't available :) After seeing their results, I knew that I could very well indeed have a great result from a hair transplant.

---My Decision---

And so I started to dig deeper. While doing my research, the one thing I kept noticing was the clinic of H&W. The best results on the web were mostly guys from H&W. I would constantly see over and over the results that this clinic was chruning out and I was amazed. I put H&W on the top of my list, it was a no brainer. My research led me to pick between two clinics, one of them of course beeing H&W. Ultimately I picked H&W over the other clinic, and the reason besides having more amazing results featured than the other clinic is because they took the time and called me while the other clinic responded only through email. That to me spoke volumes. A few days after I sent in my consultation pictures, Mike Ferko from H&W gave me a call. Now I must mention that Mike knows more about the intricacies of hair transplants than the average person would ever need to know or would want to know. Mike answered all of my questions and then provided me with information I wasn't even aware of. He told me upfront about all of the BS out there and made sure I knew what to steer clear of. Mike did not sell me on getting a procedure with H&W. All that Mike did was inform me of everything I needed to know and then led me to make my own decision. Mike's time and willingness to educate me wasn't the selling point for me. As nice as it was to have a consultant give me that much information, Mike has something that you can't fake, and that is a passion to help people. Mike's passion certainly resonated through the phone. Add that, his knowledge of the procedure and the results that Hasson and Wong featured on their site, I was convinced that this was the clinic for me. I wasn't sure of which doctor I wanted but Mike assured me that if one doctor was better than the other, then he wouldn't book people to the doctor who wasn't as good. That made a lot of sense to me. I told Mike to book me with the doctor that was available for that day. Both doctors had produced amazing results so I knew I could not go wrong with either.

I'll be honest, being from NY, I had my hesitations traveling all the way to Vancouver. However, I knew that those hesitations would have to be put aside on the simple basis of me getting a procedure that would last me for the rest of my life. This wasn't something that I could hide if done incorrectly. So if the best surgeons in the world were located in a specific part of the world, then that's where I needed to go. I will say this to anyone considering a hair transplant, please do not let travel be a factor in your decision. This is something that will hopefully last you for the rest of your life. Why let a plane ride stop you from going to someone who can provide you with an amazing result?

---Arrival for first procedure---

I will start off by saying this: Vancouver is an amazing city! I absolutely fell in love with the city right off the bat. If you haven't been, do yourself a favor and go. Vancouver has a unique mixture of a metropolitan city mixed with the beauty of the mountains. I arrived pretty late in the day. My surgery was scheduled for 6:30 am the next morning so I went straight to my hotel room and then to bed. When I woke up I hailed a cab and told the cab driver to take me to 1001 West Broadway. The cab driver said, "oh you want to go to Hasson and Wong?" I was amazed that the cab driver knew :) When I arrived at the clinic, I was given some antibiotics, had my blood pressure taken, was given some paperwork to read, and then met with Dr. Wong who outlined what he wanted to do. After that, I was set to go.

---First procedure---

What can I say here, it was pretty standard protocol. The needles to anesthetize the donor and recipient areas weren’t bad at all. It's a pinch that lasts for about a second and then you don't feel a thing. I was in absolutely no discomfort when the strip was being removed nor was I in any discomfort when the slits were being made. There were a few pinches here and there when the grafts were being put in, but trust me, it was no big deal at all. The only time I started to feel some discomfort was late into the surgery in my donor area. The numbing had subsided and I started to feel that the area had been cut open earlier in the day. I informed Dr. Wong of this. He numbed the area again and I was good to go after that. The surgery lasted from 6:30 am to about 9:30 pm. It was a very long day but the staff kept me as comfortable as possible. I watched a lot of TV, saw a few movies, had a great lunch and dinner and just sat in the chair while the techs (who are amazing and such an important part of the procedure) did their thing.

---The results---

Due do what Dr. Wong described as amazing laxity and donor density, he was able to extract 5833 grafts. To say I was excited is an understatement. I was scheduled to get about 4000-4500. To hear that the final count was 5833 definitely put a big smile on my face :)

The wait for the results to come in was hard. It definitely tested my patience. After about month 9 or so, that's when things really started to come together. At around the 9 month mark, I noticed my hair was as thick as ever, and more importantly, I could now style it! I can't stress enough how hard the waiting is. The surgery is a breeze compared to the wait. I think the wait was especially harder for me since I was a slow grower. I remember posting my 7-month results on another forum and had responses saying that it looked really thin. I never questioned the skill of Dr. Wong but I was very nervous at around month 7. I thought that maybe I was one of those poor saps who would not have a good result because my head wasn't meant for this type of procedure. And bam, 2 months after that, I was rocking a great head of hair :) So guys, remember, waiting is HARD!

So back to my results. I can't even begin to describe how amazing it feels to look in the mirror and seeing the reflection of someone with a full head of hair. After years of thinking that I would have to deal with being bald and now knowing that that isn't the case is just an amazing feeling.

---Second procedure---

So why did I have a second procedure? Well since this forum is about honesty I will admit that during my first procedure there was a very minor set back. Apparently I have very thin blood. This was evident by the fact that when I had a septoplasty about 4 years ago (a correction in the lining of the nose to help a person breath better), I had to keep the gauze in my nose for about a week longer than normal due to exessive bleeding. I could bring up another situation but you get the point. A few days after my hair surgery, I developed a hematoma (a minor blood clot) in the middle of my donor area. I do not blame Dr. Wong for this, I blame it on me having thin blood lol. This was not a big deal at all. It was a very minor setback and the only thing that needed to be done was for the hematome to be drained, thats pretty much it. As a side note, I think a lot of us forget that this is surgery. While this is not major life threatening surgery, it is still surgery and complications can and do happen. This in my opinion is another reason why I feel that if you are going to have this type of procedure done, you need to go to one of the best surgeons available. Dr. Wong has many years of experience in general practice medicine. Knowing that put me at more ease because I knew that he would be able to take care of me better than 99% of the doctors out there. Back to the hematoma. since I was back home and couldn't see Dr. Wong in person, Dr. Wong was nice enough to send me to another top hair transplant doctor in my area to drain it. I won't say who this top doctor is because I am not sure he would be comfortable with me writing about him, but I will say that this doctor was as nice as can be and very helpful. He also was very honest and told me that he doubted that he would have been able to get as many grafts as Dr. Wong did. Hearing this doctor say that solidified to me that I had made the right choice in going with Dr. Wong.

The area where the hematoma developed did cause that part of the scar to be a bit wider than I would have liked. It really wasn't a big deal at all but me being the perfectionist that I am I wanted it taken care of. Dr. Wong was gracious enough to offer me a free scar revision. Dr. Wong drove me home after my first surgery, made the arrangements for the hematoma to be fixed, kept checking on my progress, and then offered to revise my scar free of charge when he was in no legal obligation to do so. If that doesn't say customer service, then I don't know what does :) So after 11 months I made my arrangements and it was back to Vancouver for me (which I didn't mind cause I love the city that much)!

---Arriving for the second time---

I will say that the second trip for me was day and night compared to the first one. I knew what to expect, and I knew the city so my nerves were definitely at ease this time. The day of my arrival, I had dinner with Mike, Doug and Joe. To put it shortly, these guys are hilarious! Also, they are extremely nice! We spoke about a lot of stuff and it just made my trip that much more enjoyable. Guys, if you are reading this blog, thanks again for making my trip more fun! :)

---Second procedure---

Dr. Wong was certainly happy to see me and my new hair doo as was everyone else in the clinic. I can say with certainty that when a patient is happy with their results, the clinic is just as happy. You're not just a number or a name in some file cabinet, you are part of a family. Dr. Hasson even came by to take a look at my results. He graciously introduced himself, took a look at my head and said "hmm, looks like Jerry has been watching my work" lol. Dr. Hasson is a riot :)

Back to the procedure; I basically told Dr. Wong, in addition to the scar revision, "whatever you can do for me to improve my result and have me set for future procedures if I need it (I don't think I needed to tell this to Dr. Wong as he would never put a patient in jeopardy for the future) then do it". Dr. Wong checked my laxity, drew up some new temple points and said he would aim for about 1500 grafts. Once again, the surgery was standard protocol. The graft number came about to be about 2400 grafts! I was ecstatic. I couldn't believe that I was part of the 8000+ graft club. Un-freaken-believable! Dr. Wong is a master of his craft, I can't stress this enough.

---Second procedure post-op---

I decided to stay in Vancouver for a bit longer than I did for my first procedure because I wanted to make sure I would be around in case I had a similar issue as I did last time. I came in everyday for an observation and a hair wash up until my last day there. Thankfully there were no issues this time around, whew.

---The waiting game part deux---

So now I am anxiously waiting for results from my second procedure. I will certainly keep everyone here posted.

---Thanks!---

I would like to offer my thanks here to everyone at H&W for helping me along the way. If it wasn't for the staff at H&W, I don't think I would have had such an amazing result or a result anywhere close to the one I have. Also, I would like to thank all of the folks who had the courage to post blogs. If these blogs and forums weren't available, I don't think I would have ever had the procedure done. A big shout out to Mike, Doug, Joe, Christina, Candice, the amazing techs who worked on me, and last but certainly not least, I would like to thank Dr. Wong who is an amazing surgeon and a nice and humble individual. If I forget anyone, I apologize. Thank you all for welcoming me and treating me with such graciousness, dignity, and respect.

It made me feel a lot older than I am and just didn't make me feel like I was myself.

Propecia and minox when I was using it.

Absolutely!

It really depends on your situation.

It made me feel better about myself and that there are few instances in life where something that looks too good to be true can actually be true.

Do your research. Picking a doctor is one of the most important decisions you will ever make in your life so treat the decision with the cautioness and respect as you would in any other important decision.