Turnbacktheclock

Hi Everyone, This forum has helped me make an important decision in life. I want to thank Spex and QWERTY555 for their very detailed and informative post, which helped me tremendously prepare for this journey. I feel that I have an obligation to share my results so far to try to help others. On February 26th I travelled to Bloomington, Minnesota for a FUT procedure with Dr. Ron Shapiro on 27th February. Initial Research and Choice of Surgeon In the summer of last year, I began to get serious in my search for an Hair transplant doctor and began visiting a couple generally known Hair transplant places (Bosley etc), to educate myself on the types of procedures, cost etc. At the beginning of this year I decided to pull the trigger and visited a highly renowned local doctor. Although it turns out he was a Coalition Member, my consultation was extremely poorly structured, and very rushed, both with the advisor and the doctor. I doubted their suggestions and the costs seemed very high. I resorted to the Internet and found this website, after what must have been several hours everyday over the next month, I realized I needed to travel out of town to a coalition doctor. I scheduled consultations with eight doctors (All Coalition doctors). The consultations ranged from Skype consultations to phone consultations to just an email consultation. I must say this played a huge part in my decision-making. Each doctors approach and the time they spent was very important to me. Some doctors spent and hour on the phone with me, one doctor just sent me a quote, without much explanation. It was also interesting to see what each doctor said regarding what can be done with my hair loss, # of grafts they could perform, for each doctor I had asked for a plan of action i.e. # of grafts he plans to utilized in each section of my head. I also compared the absolute costs (surgery cost, tests, airfare rebate), and appointment availability. After plugging all this in a massive spreadsheet to evaluate each doctor, I narrowed it down to Dr. Ron Shapiro. I chose Dr. Ron Shapiro for the following reasons: 1) He came well recommended on this forum, and from his website is highly recognized in the field of hair surgery. 2) Matt, the patient advisor carried out a very thorough and proper 1 hr. consultation with me. 3) I subsequently had another 30 mins consultation with Ron Shapiro. He quickly understood my goals and gave me confidence that he was able to meet my expectations of a megasession, he had a logical distribution of grafts, and finally he gave me the feeling that he can be aggressive but careful at the same time. 4) Their total cost of the surgery was extremely reasonable as compared to the other doctors. 5) They had an opening within a reasonable time, plus they allowed me sufficient time to make a decision as to whether I wanted to take the date or not. 6) Location was easy to get to (direct local flight, quick cab ride from airport). Getting There Minneapolis seems to be fairly accessible from most of the eastern part on the United States and was only 2.5 hr. flight for me from the South East; furthermore there’s an ample selection of hotels near SMG. I suggest using Hotwire for a great deal, I got the Park Plaza Hotel at almost half the price ($58/night) of the other comparable hotels. Day of the Procedure I walked into the clinic at 7.30 AM and met the front desk staff who was very pleasant and friendly. After an hour of general discussion, filling out forms and photos, I met Dr. Ron Shapiro who was pleasant, and we talked about what I wanted to do. He looked at my photos; he created a simulation of what my hair would look like 10-20 years from now. We discussed the plan of action, the number of grafts and where they would go. The only drawback was that with this being a mega-session he wanted to get started immediately and thus our discussion was rather brief and coupled with my nerves I was not able to grasp the entire plan. I would suggest to anyone that this pre-surgery meeting is crucial and please have the doctor draw out on paper what he intends to do. This will help you be clear about the utilization of the graphs and future expectations. You can also have the doctor confirm after the surgery if the plan was adhered to. In any case I went in to the operating room and the procedure began. After a sedative and local anesthesia Dr Shapiro then began to remove the strip. After he removed the strip, there were about 10 techs working and separating the grafts, while Ron worked on the incisions, all the while was fully awake I tried to watch a movie but I was too nervous and turned it off after a few mins. After a quick lunch, the techs very diligently began working on inserting the grafts, at one point the anesthesia was wearing off and I began to feel the pain, Dr, Shapiro quickly rushed in and injected more anesthesia. I tried to keep awake and alert throughout the surgery but I fell asleep for a bit before the end of the surgery and woke up just as the techs were cleaning up. Dr. Shapiro briefed me on the progress, advised me of the total number of grafts and helped me put on my cap and they called me a cab to my hotel, the time was about 7.30 PM when I left. Everyone was very friendly and talkative throughout the procedure. Dr. Shapiro was completely focused on the task when in the procedure room. He was generally nice to talk to, on occasion though he seemed too direct in his conversation. I went back the next day for a shampoo and Dr. Shapiro also came to see the progress. Another drawback was that it took almost a week for me to receive my graft counts and photos, I had also asked for information as to where I could go to get my staples out locally which took a while for a response. Payment Information The good thing about SMG is that all they asked was a $1000 deposit, unlike some with places, which wanted the entire payment 3 weeks in advance. This allowed me to apply for financing. Also the flight rebate as agreed with Matt was not reflected on the final invoice, however they did give me a break on the number of grafts so it was almost a wash. My Progress Week one was basically dealing with the swelling, my faced had just ballooned. I was very careful not to shampoo too often, in fact I didn't everyday. The pain was almost non existent during the day, sleeping was very hard has the pressure of the head of the staples was painful. This resulted in very lethargic days. Week two was basically dealing with scabbing. Using Witch Hazel and Aloe Vera did help on the scar as suggested by Spex. After 12 days I found a urgent care facility in my city to remove the staples, This was an extremely excruciating experience, It seems I had healed very fast and most my sensitivity along the scar had returned, as well as in some cases the staples were deeply embedded and after one and half hours and some tears (yes…tears the pain was unbearable, I even bled a couple times), I was through with it. I should have removed the staples earlier; in fact 7 days would have been fine. I would suggest future patients pay particular attention to this as I think the standard 10-14 days does not apply to everyone. Week three I began shedding suddenly one day and continued sparingly till the end of week four, and as of the last few weeks I have not had any hair shed. I would guesstimate I shed only 300-500 hairs, far from the 8000+ hairs transplanted. I am not sure why I did not shed all my transplanted hair. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Week 4 and beyond I began getting pimples on my crown, which were very painful, most them subsided and just a couple remain. While removing the staples was a big relief especially with head movement and sleeping, the pimples did cause some discomfort while sleeping. Another thing I was very careful with was shampoos. I specifically began using Johnsons Baby shampoo after the surgery, but after the first week or so I developed dandruff (this is common for me) and furthermore the shampoo left some greasy buildup on my scalp. I decided carry out some research and found the most natural and harmless shampoo for my hair. I currently use Burt’s Bees wax baby shampoo and Jason Dandruff relief shampoo which both seem to work well. Conclusion Overall I was very happy with my operation, and choice of surgeon, I have called the office several times asking various questions over the past few weeks and they have been very responsive. However it’s only been a seven weeks and therefore hard to say how the results will look in the long run, but I have noticed some good growth of the new hairs that did not shed. Please take a look at my photos, comments / suggestions are appreciated. I am also considering coloring my hair soon, please let me know if you have any suggestions regarding coloring. Thanks, Turnbacktheclock FUT With Ron Shapiro 2/27/12 (4033 grafts- 909 singles, 2209 doubles, 880 triples, 53 quads) Rogaine, Once daily Biotin 2500 mcg. Once daily MSM 500 mg. Once daily

Spanker, Thanks for your advice. To answer your question: I am 37. Little more detail on my plan/expectation: My crown is quite bald with a size of 12cm x 7cm=84cm2, therefore at 20FUs/cm thats approx. 1700FU's which is light but hopefully effective coverage for the crown, additionally I am looking to hit my hair line ( frontal1 1/3) which has thinned out with hopefully 2500FU's to get some high density, blending into the midscalp which seems to have some decent native hair density. Thank you again! Turnbacktheclock.

Thank you for all your comments, definitely getting closer to a decision. A question on surgery size: From all the patient comments and testimonials it seems Rahal is very experienced at routinely carrying out 4000+ FU procedures and R Shapiro seems to typically carry out smaller 3000-3500 FU procedures. I am shooting for a 4000 FU procedure however willing to go higher if the donor area has it, mainly to cover the crown and build a thick hair line (frontal1/3). Any comments guys? Also any comments/comparisons on the hair yield form the donor area ?

Heys Guys, Well after couple months of research and several consultations, I have narrowed my choice of surgeons to either Rahal or Ron Shapiro, for a 4000FU procedure. I seem to be sitting on the fence and struggling to make a final decision. Any insight/ comments will be helpful. Thanks Turnbacktheclock