MYFUE2010

I first noticed thinning in my hair when I was 18. Like any other hair loss sufferer I was shocked and had a hard time believing that my thick curly hair was thinning. I went to a doctor for my hair loss and he told me that my thinning was mild and there was no need to be alarmed. He put me on Finasteride which I took for 6 months or so, but then I felt like I was still losing the same number of hairs daily so I assumed it wasn't working for me. I switched to rogain 5% after finasteride and had a feeling it was working so I continued to apply it once a day until only a month ago. I had a lot of hair when I first noticed my hairloss and as a result, I never took it as seriously as I should have. Sometimes I think I should have stuck with Finasteride and saved more of my hair over the years. But it was a prostate pill and to be honest I did not feel comfortable taking it for long term. That's why I stuck with rogaine that was topical with little systematic absorption. I also used nizoral shampoo on and off over the years. My hairline continued to recede very slowly from 18 to 23-24. I went from Nw1 to Nw2 over the course of 5 to 6 years. And it was at that time when I started disliking my new hairline. I decided to get more serious about treating my hairloss so I applied rogaine more religiously and even doubled the daily dose and started applying it both in the morning and at night. I also washed my hair with Nizoral shampoo twice a week. I felt like rogaine alone was not helping enough so I went back on Finasteride this last summer (2010). I knew there was a high chance that even the combination of Finasteride and Rogaine wont take me back to Nw1 as they're not very efficient for treating hairline. That's why I started looking into surgical hair restoration to improve my hairline. I started researching hair transplants online by reading hair loss forums and such. i knew that the best thing to do is to stay on medications and have a surgery when I am older and my hair loss pattern is more clear. But, and this was a very important But to me. I wanted to have a decent hair while I was still young. Waiting till I am 35 or 40 didn't seem like a wise thing to do for me as I may not even care about my hair at that age so much that I want to go through with a hair transplant. But in the meantime progression of hair loss in an issue that cannot be overlooked when considering a hair transplant. So I sat down and started making a plan. I looked at my family's hair loss history as well as my current status and age. My dad has a full head of hair at 52 with some general thinning on the top but still has the full head of hair look without question. The baldest person in my immediate family is my uncle who is a Nw4 at 46 years of age. So in my plan I assumed that I will be like my baldest uncle a Nw4. That still seemed promising and I figured if I stay on medication It seems quite reasonable to get a Nw1 hairline by a small hair transplant at 26 (my age right now). Especially since my hair has been the same in the past three years so I believe it has stabilized to a good degree. After finalizing my hair restoration plan, I decided to find a very reputable surgeon that can give me the best results I can get. Of course location and fees were also important to me as I am still in school and could not afford just any fee. In my quest for finding an excellent hair transplant surgeon I came across this website "the hair transplant network" and checked out the surgeons closest to my location. After much research and carefully reviewing online forums and hair transplant blogs I came to the conclusion that Dr. Rahal in Ottawa is the best option for me considering many factors including: fees, location, expertise in creating very natural looking hairlines, reputation, ethics, professionalism and etc. I booked an appointment with Dr. Rahal and met with him on November 19th, 2010. He examined my hair and initially said to me that I was on medication and did not really need a surgical restoration yet as I did not have any bald spots or anything. But then I told him about how my receded hairline is bothering me and that I wish to restore my hairline to some degree but do not want to get too aggressive. Dr. Rahal suggested that he can restore some of the recession by in a small procedure of 700 grafts. I also let him know that I wanted to go with FUE technique and asked him a few questions about the FUE yield compared with FUT. Dr. Rahal answered all my questions and told me that I had ideal hair and skin characteristics for the procedure and that he is capable of performing a FUE procedure on me with a very high yield. Dr. Rahal was very confident about his abilities and that was quite reassuring especially because I knew he was a world class surgeon who consistently produced some of the best hair transplant results in the world. So I felt comfortable booking a date for my FUE surgery with Dr. Rahal. I booked Dec 22nd, 2010 for my FUE procedure with Dr. Rahal. I followed Dr. Rahals pre-op instructions: stopped using rogaine, stopped taking vitamin E, stopped drinking alcohol. I also did some blood work that Dr. Rahal had asked for. A month went by really fast and in no time it was surgery time. I went to Dr. Rahal's office in the morning of December 22nd. I was greeted by Dr. Rahal's receptionist, Tara, and was given some forms and consent papers that I needed to sign. I went over the forms for the next hour or so and I met Dr. Rahal when I was done with the papers. Dr. Rahal reviewed what we had agreed on during the consultation and started designing a hairline for me. We made a few small changes and I let Dr. Rahal know that I was concerned about the final hairline being see through so that Dr. Rahal could take that into account when designing my hairline. He then finalized the hairline design and showed it to me to know my opinion. I felt happy with the design and decided to trust Dr. Rahal's expertise more than my own personal opinion. We agreed on about 1000 FUE grafts to restore my hairline. After the hairline design was over Dr. Rahal introduced me to Mike one of his technicians, we took some pre-op photos of the designed hairline and then Mike started shaving my doner and recipient areas where Dr. Rahal had marked. Dr. Rahal had picked areas in my doner that were softer and more straight which was exactly what I wanted. To me that was another indication that Dr. Rahal was doing all the right things. Next was setting me up in the operation room and giving me some pain killers and an injection. I was a little nervous at first which is normal but soon I got relaxed. Mike was really nice and made sure I was ok throughout the preparation process. Same were the other techs. They often asked me if was feeling well or needed anything which was really comforting. I was all ready for the surgery by 12 pm and Dr. Rahal started freezing my scalp. The injections were painful but the good news was that I didn't feel any pain a few minutes after the injections. Dr. Rahal then started extracting the grafts. He was really excited by how my hairs responded to the extraction. He liked the extraction process so much that he video taped some of the process. It took him 2 hours or so to extract around 1000 grafts. It really didn't feel like two hours though as it went by quite fast. We had a lunch break after the extraction was over. After the break Dr. Rahal made the incisions which again went by really fast. Dr. Rahal then decided to extracted some more grafts and we went for another round of extraction. We totaled 1238 grafts with the following break down: Singles-312 Doubles-573 Triples-344 Quad-9 Planting the grafts was the last step. Three technicians were involved; one planting the left side, one planting the right side and one supplying the grafts to them. The planting step was the longest I would say. I was just sitting still and waiting for my new hairs to be planted. I needed some more freezing a couple of times during the planting which Dr. Rahal took care of. Planting the grafts was done by about 6:30 or 7pm for a total surgery time of 6.5 to 7 hours. I was then cleaned and bandaged and a surgical cap was put on my head. Mike gave me the medications that I needed to take and explained how and when to take them. I was really happy to be done. Dr. Rahal then drove me to the foxbar guest house which is a guest house exclusively for Dr. Rahal patients. I had some pain later at night mostly in the recipient area. But After taking a few pain killers everything was under control and I managed to get some good sleep. The pain was mostly gone the next day and I didn't even take any pain killers. I went to Dr. Rahal's office for cleaning and my first follow up. Dr. Rahal inspected the recipient area and said that everything looked good. Mike cleaned the doner and recipient areas and explained to me how to do it myself at home. Dr. Rahal gave me an appointment for a second follow up in a few weeks and I was all good to go home. I am currently 2 weeks post-op and healing really well. If you would like to follow my progress please check out my blog on the hair transplant network at the following URL: http://www.hairtransplantnetwork.com/blog/home-page.asp?WebID=1925 I hope you potential patients, especially younger guys my age find the details and info I provided here useful. Please feel free to message me if you had any questions. Thank you for reading.