I made the jump at the age of 34! My story begins from the time I was in grammar school! No, I was not bald then, but my father was, and I distinctly remember my uncle one day looking at me and telling me that I would be bald one day. Who wants to be bald, right?! I noticed that even at a young age, my natural hairline was farther back than many of my friends, so this confirmed my belief that I would indeed, be bald one day. I am a former U.S. Marine my hair looked great during my corps days 18-22yrs. My hairline started slowly receding at about the age of 25 and I have always kept my hair pretty short since I am in law enforcement. At age 30, the thinning increased and over the last two years my dad and my sister both have commented honestly on my thinning :rolleyes:. Over the last two years I have really noticed that I can see 'through' my hair and I have to fix my hair in a way to cover (no comb-over) my hairline.
So I made my appointment with Dr. Panine's near Chicago after doing some research and seeing some great results in this forum. Dr. Panine's administrator, Stuart, is very helpful, accommodating, and a super nice guy. Dr. Panine's other lab workers, who participated in the actual procedure, where very experienced, 15 years one in particular,per our conversation during the procedure. I arrived on the day of my procedure at 10 am. and the procedure began shortly after we had decided the best looking hairline for my age and we had earlier decided that a little more than 2500 grafts would be needed. In the end about 3000 grafts were use,which makes me very happy.
The experience was as pleasant for me as can be considering that it is a medical procedure. I have to say that I am a relatively 'good' patient, meaning I like to allow the experts to do their job without any interruptions by my part. In reality, the procedure was almost painless. I suppose that my donor area was pretty numb but even the local anesthetic placement was not bad at all when Dr. Panine was numbing me up. I watched three movies, I think, and had a great lunch from some greasy burger joint across the street and of course, everything was brought to me while I sat in the chair and took a break. Swelling was not that bad the first day but gravity started to do its thing and the swelling began to go down form the top of my head to my eyes by the third day. Third and fourth days are toughest with the swelling then it gets better. Sleeping at night the first few days is a bit tough since you have to sleep in an upright position for the swelling to to down as well as the fact that you don't want to lay on your sutures. Today, two weeks later, I went in for suture removal and here are the pics so far. Much of the crusting is gone and I am healing very well. the little implanted hairs are about half shed at this point and the rest will likely fall off within the next two weeks, at which point the waiting game begins. Please feel free to comment as I will post pictures every 4 to 8 weeks. Thanks for reading!