robbie

Bald class: 3V

Procedure 1

Day 95

robbie

Bald class: 3V

Procedure 1

The story with before and after pics ..... 3/1/09Got into Vancouver early at around 1 PM From Texas. I've been flying all day and I am tired of just sitting. I told Mike Ferko, the chief marketing guru for Hasson and Wong, that I was excited that I had 2 of the best hair transplant doctors in the world that were right next to me. He said Who? Dr. ********* in Texas!? I told him no, Dr. Wong and Dr. Hasson which are located relatively close. I had read a post the other day about a guy who flew from Australia to get his hair transplant done. Think about that - he flew all the way from Australia because he knew that this was the most important decision he would make about his physical appearance. If he choose the wrong hair transplant surgeon the results may not be optimal; or worse he could look like he had a hair transplant!That's the goal - have a hair transplant done, but make it look like it wasn't. The gentleman that came from Australia, I believe, is like me. He did his homework and found the best doctor that he could find for his condition. Thank God we live in a time when information is so readily available. Without the internet I might have fallen prey to the best ad campaign on TV, or the slickest salesman\doctor which promise everything but deliver little. I think everyone realizes that if you are going to have a hair transplant that EVERYONE will see you have to go with the best, and that is why I am in Vancouver this weekend.I started losing my hair in my 20s and wanted to hold on until something miraculous came along like a cure. So over the years I have tirelessly searched the internet for a medication or treatment that would reverse my baldness or at the least delay it. I hate to think about all those nights reading blogs and advertisements about the latest thing that promised to be that miracle. Not only did I lose sleep and time, but predictably they did not work (and I tried a lot of them). If I could have saved the money that I wasted on these products and rolled it into this hair transplant I would have been much better off. I will say this; I have been using rogaine foam for about 3 years now and it was helpful to somewhat slow my hair loss. I had to stop the Rogaine for 1 month prior to the surgery and I could notice a difference in the thickness of my hair when I stopped after a month. It just goes to show you that there is more money for the drug companies in a "treatment" rather than for a "cure". Everything began at 6:15 am at Hasson and Wong's office. If you have to be there that early the front door will not be open. You have to go to the back of the  building and enter through the parking garage. You will see elevators. Use those to go to the 6th floor. Everything should be open from there. I first met Angie, one of the high caliber techs that would be working on me that day. I sat in the front until Dr. Jerry Wong came up to introduce himself. When you meet Dr. Wong you will be surprised because he is a compact guy with a buzz cut. Nice guy considering the time of day it was. We started with baseline vitals, listened to my heart, followed by a buzz cut and pictures. Dr. Wong drew in my new hairline. I told him that I would like it a little lower if at all possible and he gladly acomodated my request. After re-drawing the line we went into the Operating room and this is when the fun began. I was laid face down on an adjustable doctors table. Think of one of those massage tables with the face rest. He began to use this device that vibrates as well as administering injections of lidocaine. I will say this, I have a low pain tolerance. I am one of those guys that when I rub my neck a couple of times it gets bright red. Having said that the injections felt like little more than mosquito bites. The vibration makes the discomfort go away. I guess it's like the same principal of when a nurse gave you a shot as a kid and would then rub it - it always felt better. So now that I am thoroughly numbed up Dr. Wong puts Normal Saline under the skin to expand the tissue. A nice touch to separate the layers of skin. Followed by that he begins his incisions - believe me when I say this - YOU DONT FEEL A THING. It just sounds weird if you have earphones on because you can hear the scalpel cutting into your skin. If you don't want to hear that take out your headphones or blast the music. You will be on your back for about 2 hours. My advice to you is take the pillow that they give you and put it under your abdomen to give you a little support so your lower back doesn't sag.  Besides some mild discomfort in my back there was no pain associated with this procedure. After Dr. Wong had excised my strip from the back of my head he closed me up. He used internal sutures and external staples. (Note: when the doc puts in the staples it feels like he is really stretching your skin. With the extra lidocaine and normal saline that you have in your head it should feel tight - don't worry, the swelling should go down and you will feel normal again). While the techs dissect the folicles, Dr. Wong begins to use his lateral slit technique and made those incisions which lay the groundwork for the techs to come back in and implant my donor hair that was just harvested.There is no down time in the clinic. You never have that feeling like you are being left alone and therefore you don't feel like your time is being wasted. This clinic has it down to a very efficient schedule. When one is done with their job a new team takes over and they rotate like this throughout the clinic to make sure no time is wasted. The techs started with me face down again for about an hour stating it was the easiest position to place those hairs (I don't care how they put me, as long as it looked good I would have let them place me upside down). After part of the crown is done, the ladies will have you rotate on to your back and Dr. Wong will come back in and perform the lateral slit technique again to the front and mid scalp. After about an hour of this (and no pain) the techs came back in and started to do the implantation with 3 of them implanting my follicles ( one on the left side, one on the right side and one in the back). This was the most tedious part of the procedure. They take those 1, or 2 hair follicles and meticulously plant each one in the area where Dr. Wong had previously done his lateral slit technique. I had to tell the techs only one time that i could feel the area where they were implanting and needed more lidocaine. When they inject the lidocaine it does 2 things - 1) reduction in pain (obvious) and 2) vasoconstriction - as lidocaine constricts the blood vessels in the area I had

robbie

Bald class: 3V

Procedure 1

Pre op Post op

robbie

Bald class: 3V

Procedure 1

Post op

robbie

Bald class: 3V

Procedure 1

Day 6 8 Day 8 - Let me tell you I cannot stand these staples in the back of my head so I took them out myself. Since I'm a nurse it wasn't really an issue. The first one hurt, but after that it was smooth sailing. If you don't feel comfortable with taking staples out then DON'T DO IT! After the staples were out I felt good, and looked a hell of a lot better. Since I had shaved the side and back down to match the shaved look on top, I looked pretty even all around (except for the scar). For the first time in as long as I can remember I have an EVEN hairline. That night I went to play in my volleyball league and got a couple of compliments about my hair - that I looked better with a shaved head. (If they only knew). Only my closest friends knew what I had done. Since they were there that night they could not resist busting my balls about it. I laughed with them and gave them some back. It's all a process. In 6-8 months I know I'm going to look better than I have in a long time and I'll have the last laugh. 

robbie

Bald class: 3V

Procedure 1

Day 32 Day 28 - Well it happened - almost all of the new grafts have fallen out and I am back to looking normal (except for the scar line which should clear up nicely in 4 months or so). So the wait is on! I have so many things going on with the business and life in general that time should pass quickly until I get the new sprouts. Day 31 - I went back to Nebraska to see my brother, his wife and their new baby girl. Amazingly, he and my mother did not say a word about my appearance. The sides and back grew out so you can't really see the scar. In truth it looks like I got an uneven haircut. I didn't look like I had much done except for a slight amount of redness along the front hairline which looks like an insignificant sunburn. Wish I had a little more hair, but I'll tell him what happened around the 8 month mark when I have something to show. What the hell happened to all my new hair ?! (ugly duckling phase)