Overview:

2623 graft FUE with Dr. Hasson on December 19, 2016. I am 27 years old and wanted to share my experience start to finish with Dr. Hasson from Hasson & Wong. Here is the graft breakdown of the surgery:

1's - 432 2's - 1642 3/4's - 549....Transcetion Rate 1%

Background:

I have always been pretty vain about my hair and noticed thinning when I was 19/20. I didn't do much about it other than take longer to style my hair to make sure every hair was "perfect". 2012 I got a consultation done with a hair loss institute and ended up buying a laser comb and starting taking Continuite by Ross Shampoo/conditioner. I used the comb 3/week 20 minutes at a time and even introduced a DHT blocker with a massager about a year later. This seemed to slow thinning down a bit and it seemed like I was maintaining fairly well.

For those out here I am sure you are familiar with becoming obsessed about your hair, constantly checking the mirror and heaven forbid someone touches it playfully! It consumed my thoughts every time I had to get ready I would take extra time and I just started to wear hats as often as I could when I worked out or went out. Not that it was that bad but just to put my "head" at ease. None of my friends or even girlfriend at the time knew that I was that vain about it because it didn't seem that bad as neither of them really ever commented on it that I was losing my hair. But I knew Of course you get jealous for every man that walks by on the street or friends that have awesome hairlines and flowy hair.

About 2 years ago I added in "Hair Essentials" by natural wellbeing to the mix and 1.5 years ago I took up rogaine, the shedding phase sucked! We all know how it goes, the more you stress about it the more you seemingly lose, but the more you lose the more you stress - vicious cycle. I also hated putting rogaine in my toiletree bag knowing that my friends could see it any time. Also applying it I didn't like as it is tough to style with it and a pain if you are having someone over late and need to apply at night.

My barber who I had been to for years knew of my situation and she would do her best to cut my hair appropriately. For example my left side is stronger so she would let that grow out so that I could essentially comb it over and into the other hairs when I styled it. The illusions worked! As long as I didn't have to go swimming, sweat working out profusely or be in the wind.

Long story short- I knew I didn't want to keep spending all the time & money on consumables to AT BEST maintain what I was have or slow it down. Cue my research for hair transplant, which is something I joked about with my cousin in the past that we would have to resort to (but always remained a joke). Earlier in 2016 I met with Doug and Dr. Wong and was initially quoted 1000-1200 grafts (because I had my hair styled I even fooled them!). After researching proscar I got on it in about March 2016 with no side affects even though I let my mind question it at times. I considered a HT but had to do more due diligence to see if Hasson & Wong was right for me and at the time they were still a little more fresh to it as they had changed a couple things with it.

Mid-2016 I met again with much more research done and they answered my countless questions. I was quoted for 2,000 grafts by Dr. Wong. Still being cautious I went back and met with them yet again and this time was quoted 2,500 by Dr. Hasson (I didn't style my hair). I knew that if I didn't do a hair transplant there was no "end in sight" to get better and going with one of the best places in the world helped keep my mind at ease in regards to the outcome I would get. Now at 27 it isn't easy to come up with cash for a 2,500 graft surgery but really money is nothing compared to putting my mind at ease and to know I can hopefully finally put my head to rest and not spend so much time worrying about it. Dec 19 was the big day with Dr. Hasson.

Day of the Surgery - December 19 2016

If this already wasn't one of the craziest days of my life, Vancouver decided to have its biggest snowfall in years overnight causing havoc on the roads. My appointment was at 7am, I left my place at 5:45am for a normallly 30 minute drive and ran into accidents all over. Already 30 minutes late, I ditched the car which was at a full stop for an hour due to the havoc ahead of me and ran to the skytrain where I took 3 skytrains and a 15min dash to the clinic. I ended up getting there, sweaty, at approximately 8:45am. Elena was great at coordinating with me and they were all very understanding the ill-timed act of god that gave me quite the adventure in the morning. I was worried about this affecting the speed of the surgery that they would rush but they assured me it would not.

Luckily my blood pressure wasn't over the top so we proceeded to shave off my precious existing hair, first time I have had a buzz cut since I was a kid! We got right into the extraction process by 9:30/10am and aside from a small lunch break Elena was working her magic until about 4pm straight. The only thing that fell asleep were my arms from time to time I was I guess too excited to fall asleep myself, but the process was fairly painless. People talk about the anasthetic injections but they are not more painful than when you go to the dentist for a cavity. It was encouraging to hear my grafts were really high quality, I was aware the back of my head was very thick but this was reassuring. The convo was good with Elena and I was relaxed to a constant playlist of Kygo which I enjoyed

4pm or so rolled around and it was time for Dr. Hasson to make his slits. We drew the hairline and I left it mostly up to him, he is the expert after all. My hairline was goign to be the same and essentially the grafts are just for the front density. Of course it is hard to not let my mind wander on what is the best for me in terms of the grafts where they should be placed and if they should be more spread out to the back or to bring my hairline a tingle lower but you gotta let the expert do his thing! Time will tell. I honestly thought I was going to need some in my crown, but after shaving it looks as though I got hair through it all which I was pleasantly surprised at.

approx 1-2 hours of slits and anathesia and Dr. Hasson was out. He is an incredible guy and for how long he has been doing this, super understanding and kind (good sense of humor too!).

Small dinner break and other than that the next 6-7 hours were putting the grafts in! I swear I finished about 1.5 seasons of brooklyn nine-nine on netflix while two ladies switched on and off putting grafts in. One of the nurses shoulders was super sore, and she was a trooper to fight through the pain. The overhead light was a little low as well and they kept hitting their heads/topbun on it. I was discharged at 12:45am with head bandaged up. So I guess me being late due to the weather did not compromise the time they put in to make sure the quality was good! I was happy to stay as long as needed and for them to take their time, I just felt bad for them. Towards the end my anathesia was wearing off so it started to get fairly painful. Almost was a trade-off as the needles were more painful to inject because the head was sensitive.

The first sleep was uncomfortable I was just worried about staying straight up. Head was throbbing but a couple t-3's fixed that. I work from home so getting up at 7am the next morning to catch up on e-mails was challenging to say the least. It wasn't my most productive week of work lets say that.

Days 1-5 after

They fairly blend in. I went in for a wash by the clinic 4 straight days. The swelling in day 2-4 was at its peak and was f*cking hilairous. I laughed hard every time I looked at myself in the mirror. Despite my ear being in tact, it looked like I had gone 12 rounds with Tyson in his prime. Obviously being extremely careful each day to make sure I don't dislodge any graft I slept on my back each night which made sleeping pretty uncomfortable. Had some pain here and there, nothing that advil can't fix. I think the most challenging part honestly was coming up with excuses for family/friends why my parents and I couldn't spend Christmas with them or why I couldn't go to social events with my friends.

Summary

You get what you pay for, and for me in this life changing process it is important to go with the cream of the crop. Through the whole process, the doctors, nurses, Doug were all fantastic. I know this post is a bit of ramble, but it was past threads from people in my age range (trashpanda, N0Air, spidey) that made me feel more comfortable with this, so I hope I can do that for others. I am ALREADY getting impatient and nervous for the next 3 months with respect to the recovery process and to what my final result will be.

If you have any further questions or comments feel free to post here or privately message me!