I had substantial temporal area hair loss on the sides, in addition to thinning on top at the front. To hide the hair loss on my temporal sides, I grew my hair longer on the top to drape it over the sides toward the ears and thereby keep these bare temporal areas hidden. I was really tired of this and ready to try hair transplants to fill these areas in.
Before I get into my whole story and the background, I would like to say a few words on why I chose Dr. Gabel to do my HT and what I really liked about the session with him. Dr. Gabel was my top choice after I had had prior consultations with him and 3 other respected HT surgeons including another coalition member. In consultation, I found him to be very informative, engaging, and an excellent listener in soliciting my input and goals. I really liked his approach to the process and his enthusiasm for what he does. His credentials as a board certified surgeon in head, neck and facial reconstructive surgery gave me additional confidence in his abilities. They also gave me a booklet called "Hair Restoration Instruction Booklet" which provided a lot of helpful details of how to prepare for the procedure and what to expect afterward.
During the HT procedure, Dr. Gabel was very hands-on throughout, personally removing the donor strip, inserting at least half the grafts himself and directly overseeing all grafts being placed. It is obvious he is devoted to being involved, clearly is top notch in his technique, and has a strong team assisting him and preparing the grafts. He is not wedded to just one technique, but said he chooses either lateral or sagitorial insertions based on the situation and surrounding hairs. I was delighted that he could work around my existing longer hair without any need for clipping it or without it being a problem. I was surprised how long a strip he was able to harvest from the back of my scalp - about 10 inches! But in retrospect, his knowledge of head and neck anatomy is likely a strong factor in allowing him to assess how large a strip can be taken without compromising too much elasticity in the skin while minimizing potential scarring from sutures. He and his team dedicated the entire day to one patient (me) for my session, which is great because it did end up taking a very full day as there were additional grafts found. He and his team seem to be perfectionists when placing each graft and in making sure all surfaces in the procedure area are clean and sterile (clearly, a good thing).
For a fuller account of my story, please keep reading:
After having been a "lurker" on this hair transplant network web site for months reading and learning so much from others experiences, I felt it important to share my story and give back. Besides my situation is a bit unusual in that I had substantial hair thinning in my temporal sides. I had grown my hair longer on the top to try to keep the sides covered to hide the very thin and missing hair. Meanwhile the hair on top had also started to get thin towards the front.
During the original consultation, Dr. Gabel had drawn a proposed hairline on my head and took pictures (see below). I still wanted some additional opinions of hairlines so when I got home, I asked my hair stylist as well as my wife's hair stylist to draw their best outline on my head and had them take pictures (see below). Although I have tremendous faith in their artistic eye on hair and hairlines, in the end I thought Dr. Gabel's original drawing was actually a more natural hairline for my hair at my age. Still, I took 8x10 prints of all these various hairline drawings to Dr. Gabel's office the morning of the procedure, plus a picture of myself 15 years earlier showing good detail of my hairline at that time. We used all these pictures plus Dr. Gabel's insight and after about 1 and a half hours of discussion and redrawing, arrived at a hairline design that took the best aspects of all of them. I was glad to have my wife there too as she had some great suggestions and tweaks to the hairline, and Dr. Gabel was patient and very interested in incorporating all our input to the hair outline before moving on to the procedure. I highly recommend this approach as it gave me good confidence in the final hairline: First, during consultations, take pictures of the hairline drawings on your head made by all the HT surgeons you consult with for later comparison. Second, consider having someone independent whose artistic view you trust (barber, hair stylist, etc.) draw a hairline outline on your head with an eyebrow pencil, have them modify it with your input, and take pictures. Third, find a good picture of yourself of years ago showing your hairline as you hope it might be today, considering age appropriateness. Fourth, compare and evaluate these pictures of various hairline drawings, etc. with input from those you trust. Finally, bring large size prints of the best ones (plus your picture of your hairline before thinning) on the day of your procedure so that you and your HT surgeon can use them as starting points when discussing and drawing out your new hairline before the procedure. |
PreOp with proposed hairline drawing
