I'm new to this so bare w/ me. This site has helped me so I will recipocate now and during the course of my hair restoration experience.

I started thinking seriously about having a HT after viewing this site and I found my HT doctor through this site, Dr Pathomvanich. He has a clinic in Bangkok and so I arranged a vacation for me and the wife in Thailand w/ a few days in Bali for a change. I scheduled a consultation and the surgery date would be a month later providing the consultation went well. My vacation was for a month and I planned all this 2 or 3 months before the trip began.

The consultation was on the day I arrived. We arrived in BKK early Friday morning and I met the doctor that day in the afternoon. The consultation lasted an hour and he assessed my paticulars, measuring my bald area and then drew a hairlline that I thought would be fine. My impressions of his clinic/operations were good, completely professional and honest. So the surgery was a go.

I then went about our vacation and it was fine. I made one disasterous mistake but it turned out to be a good thing as I had to extend the vacation. Five days before my surgery date in Bali where it rained everyday we were there the last day was sunny. I went to the nearby beach and proceeded to get a bad sunburn, especially on the top of my head. I didn't think anything of it until 2 days before my surgery when my skin was obviously burned and about to peel. So I hastily made an appointment to let the doctor see my condition a day before the surgery. I did and he said that is was not good and that he couldn't do the HT the next day.

I already had contingincy plans, 1. I would not do the HT, 2. I would reschedule if he had an open date the following week. Fortunately for me he scheduled me 5 days later the next week. So instead of having the HT done on Thursday as was planned, I am now scheduled for the following Tuesday. He told me to put oil (olive, coconut, baby) on my sunburned head. That worked great and by Sunday I was like new, ready for the doctor.

I took the BTS in the morning to his office on Tuesday and w/ in a short amount of time they went to work while I was dosing on sleeping pills. When I awoke I felt fine and was happy w/ the way my head looked. The original plan (and hope) was that my donor area could provide 3500 grafts but the doctor could only harvest 2850 grafts. He still seemed to do well w/ that amount and I am happy w/ the results to date.

As you can see I am quite bald and so I had my reservations about doing it in the first place. I relied on what I could find on the internet and I did see some simalir heads (as mine) w/ decent or better results and so I did it. On this blog forum there are only 1 or 2 guys w/ similar extensive balding and so their blogs really helped me in my decision so thank you and to everyone who has contributed here.

As I type this it has been almost a month since the surgery and I am in the awkward stage of this process right now. The hair on the sides of my head are quite thin and stragely because so much was taken as donor hair. I looked closely at the area yesterday and noticed lots of hair growing back from being shaved and so that was comforting. The absorbable stitches are in the flaking stage and so that will also be great when I no longer feel them. Also, the hair will grow from the actual scar and so I can expect more density on the sides of my head. The top of my head (recipient site) has followed the doctors predictions and started shedding a couple weeks after surgery. After 3 + weeks I see new hairs sprouting out as predicted by the doctor and his staff.

Just last week I decided to use all the hair growing products that the doctor reccommeded, Propecia, minoxidil, and Nizoral Shampoo. So that is my plan. To do everything possible to strengthen my old and new hair. The main reason being what the doctor told me during the consultation. He told me that I am experiencing hair loss from the neck up on the back of my head. Yes, he said some men not only loose it from the top down but also from the back of the neck up. This is happening to me. I hope these products have a big effect on my hair restoration effort. We'll see. If I want to do another HT (next year) for the crown area these products will have to work.

Here are some photos.

I will start w/ photos taken before the HT.