My hair began thinning around age 23 or 24.  Unfortunately my hair texture is fine.  No one noticed at first except for me.  At age 27, it bothered me enough I started shopping around for a hair transplant physician.  Unfortunately, I settled on Bosley in Seattle.  I don't know why.  Mark, I think his name was, did the consult and was a total jackass.  He was also wearing a piece.  Why I didn't go running for the door, I'll never know.  Dr. Smith did the surgery and felt it was necessary to take two strips (upper and lower).  The lower scar is now visible if I go below a 6 clipper setting.  Dr. Smith did 360 punch style mini graphs.  I've always wondered how much doner hair he threw away?  The results of the surgery weren't overwhelming or necessarily bad except for the low donor scar and some scarring on top.  I have been taking Propecia since the month it became FDA approved.  It really stabalized my hair and pretty much kept it in tact until the past year.  I started noticing a little bit of thinning this past year and had been considering antother procedure after checking out this site and seeing some of the results people are achieving.  I looked at a few docs and decided on Dr. Wong.  The H&W facilities are top notch and I can't say enough good things about Dr. Wong and the staff.  They were great.  As of the end of March\08, I'm two months out from my procedure and I've experienced heavy shock loss.  So, that's very discouraging and I'm hoping that hair comes back.  If it doesn't, I think my most recent procedure will enhance the front but the middle will be worse off.  I'll try and keep my weblog updated. Hopefully, the shock loss is temporary.

Hair loss was fairly traumatic when I was younger.  After taking Propecia and getting the loss under control, I was fine and really didn't think about my hair much at all.  For me, a lot of the anxiety was caused by not knowing how much hair I was going to lose. 

Propecia

Bosley:  I would say I'm not happy.  The gains were negligible, it cost me around $6500 and I got 2 scars and most likely a fair amount of donor hair thrown away for my troubles.

H&W:  It's too early to say.  I'm currently 2 months out (3/2008).  Other people have had excellent results with them.  Dr. Wong and his staff were great.  I have experienced a lot of shock loss and I'm not happy about that.

Seriously, I would say go to the gym, get fit, eat right and shave it off.  (Keep in mind I'm 2 months PostOp as I write this.)  If I hadn't have had my first surgery with Bosley and have two scars on the back of my head, I would have gone that route. 

It's too early to tell but it has cost me a little under $19,000 so far (1st and 2nd surgery combined).

Seriously think about it before you take the plunge.  I'm not saying you can't get great results as evidenced by lots of people on this site but think about it.  Once the donor scars are there, they're not going away.  So, the shaved head route is not an option.