Dear All

Happy New Year to each and every one of you! You will remember that I posted a while back about me being booked in with Dr. Rahal on New Years Eve. I had my surgery yesterday and I wanted to share my experience(s) with you.

I am so glad that I decided to travel thousands of miles to see Dr. Rahal. What a gentleman! There are no words to describe how at ease he has made me feel and the lengths he has gone to make everything as comfortable as possible.

I arrived at his office at 7am (landed in Ottawa 8 hours earlier and without any sleep) and went through the consent forms with Adrian. Everything was explained to me in a no-nonsense no-BS manner ??“ which is something that I really appreciated.

The good Dr. (and gentleman) arrived at 8am and went through my expectation with me. He LISTENED to what I wanted and was forthright with his evaluation.

(A quick synopsis - I had surgery done around 18 months ago in Barcelona with a renowned plastic surgery clinic (they are well known in Spain for nose jobs, breast implants etc.,) and number many famous people as there clients. I was led to believe that hair surgery was one of their fortes and that I would get a state-of-the art procedure. The hair did come in but it was sparse and it was noticeable that I had surgery done. It was only after seeing Dr. Rahal have I realized that the surgery they performed on me was micro and macro grafting!!! I still do not know how many grafts I got because the surgeon still has not told me. I was also knocked out for the entire procedure so do not remember much)

Dr. Rahal and I decided that the best course of action was to tackle the areas that affected me the most i.e. my crown and sides that were weak and where it was noticeable that I had previous work done before. We managed to get 3300 grafts with 1900 going into the crown and 1400 strengthening the sides.

I was in the chair from 9 until 6pm. I was comfortable throughout the day taking toilet breaks when need and was fed lunch. Dr. Rahal harvested the strip and made the insertions (the Dr. was able to exercise my previous scar which was not a tricho-closure). The techs doing the insertion have been with the Dr. for many years and are very skilled. Dr. Rahal was in and out frequently checking up on me and making sure I did not require any further freezing (which I did on a number of occasions!)

To top it all off and to further highlight what a gentleman the Dr. is not only did he drive me back to my hotel but had gone out at some point towards the end of my procedure and picked me up a very nice salmon supper for me to take back to my hotel! He also called me at the hotel to make sure I was ok.

Its new years day today everywhere is closed. It is snowing heavily outside but the Dr. still opened the clinic so that he could ensure everything was evolving the was it should. He was kind enough to drive me back to my hotel after we had finished. I cannot speak highly enough of Dr. Rahal. Talented surgeon he is but more importantly he is a wonderful human being too.

Now of course begins the hard part .....waiting!

Damn..those old grafts look vicious -- and they were done but 18months ago! It never ceases to amaze me how these "sophisticated" plastic-s clinics in major, wealthy cities promote such archaic methods of hair restoration.

Anyways, you are truly in the best of hands right now and from here on out!!

Congrats on finding and being able to go get work done by such an elite HT surgeon, this is going to be a good year for you indeed.

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*A Follicles Dying Wish To Clinics*

1 top-down, 1 portrait, 1 side-shot, 1 hairline....4 photos. No flash.

Follicles have asked for centuries, in ten languages, as many times so as to confuse a mathematician.

Enough is enough! Give me documentation or give me death!

M_D,

Congratulations on your recent hair transplant with Dr. Rahal. Seeing your old work is a reality check that shows that there are still physicians who have not adapted to the latest techniques. I am pleased however, to see that you selected a first-rate hair transplant surgeon to perform this surgery.

I hope you post monthly pictures so we can follow your hair restoration journey.

Bill

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Managing Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog and the Hair Loss Forum and Social Community

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To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

I think your going to look completely fantastic in time for 2009! haha damn that waiting...

Dr. Rahal is the man

You're going to look like a new man soon. congratulations.

Thanks everyone for your support. Bill I will definetly be putting up monthly pictures for everyone to see, after all it is the least I can do for the support that this forum has provided me over the last couple of years

I don't understand the shaving of existing hair. How do you explain that to people if you're using concealants, and people have no idea that you're using concealants. All of a sudden you show up at work with a shaved head and incisions all over the scalp.

Doesn't the doctor work with you on that? I'm not singling out Dr. Rahal, it's something that seems to be happening with a lot of doctor's these days.

Truth,

Many hair transplant patients struggle with the same things that you are regarding shaving the recipient area. Shaving definitely causes a temporary inconvenience, no doubt about that.

This is why many hair restoration physicians perform quality hair transplantation without shaving the recipient area. Many first-rate hair transplant surgeons use paralel (sagital) incisions which more easily enables them to get in and between natural hairs with the incision tool, minimizing the risk of follicle transection.

But many other elite hair transplant surgeons prefer perpendicular (coronal/lateral) incisions in which they feel they can more easily dense pack follicular unit grafts more closely together. Shaving the recipient area however, becomes more necessary using this approach in order to minimizing the risk of natural hair follicle transection.

In my opinion, shaving the recipient area provides an optimal environment for the hair transplant surgeon no matter which type of incision is used. This is especially true when hair is being transplanted in between and around a lot of existing natural hair.

But clearly there are many hair transplant surgeons that perform state of the art hair transplantation whether or not they use laterals or sagitals, whether they shave or not.

Knowledge is power. It is to your great benefit to be familiar with the various techniques and philosophies out there. However, the key is to select a hair transplant surgeon that impresses you the most and has a proven track record of producing quality results regardless of their particular technique.

Bill

__________________
Managing Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog and the Hair Loss Forum and Social Community

Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Subscribe to our Newsletters | How We Recommend Physicians

-----

To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

Hi Truth,

There's a good topic on the shaving aspect from last week in which there is some goode information (including one the lead tech's from Shapiro) shave or not shave for FUT

Truth,

The work looks great and will no doubt make a pretty drastic improvement for you. Personally however, I would keep sporting around the look that Dr. Rahal provided you on surgery day. What a cool hairdo. You could start a trend. LOL

Best of luck to you with healing. You will look like a million bucks soon.