CameronM

Well if waking up like elephant man yesterday wasn’t bad enough, today I had swelling around the eyes that made me look like I had lost in the first round to Mike Tyson. This was especially annoying as I had religiously woke up on two occasions overnight, taken the prescribed painkillers and applied a cold pack for a good 15-minutes. I high-tailed it to Dr Pong’s to be there at 8:30am to try and get some answers, but as I arrived I saw another guy in the waiting room who was so swollen he looked someone had extracted all his wisdom teeth, he’d gone 2-rounds with Mike Tyson and he was Cromagnum man’s great-great-grandfather. It gave me some comfort to know that there were others in far worse shape than me. As you might expect from a Doctor who sees all sorts of physical reactions to the procedure, Dr Pong was not surprised at all be any of the mutants he saw in his waiting room and said that it was all quite common. Perhaps the best part about the process with Dr Pong (and from many other HT specialists) is the post-op support. Not only did I get my hair washed each day by one of his technicians (for me it was often the technician who had assisted in the procedure), but Dr Pong would also spend a few minutes checking both the donor site and grafts to confirm that they were healing as expected. This was a huge plus. When I had a HT in Sydney, I flew home the next day and there was no immediate follow-up. If I remember correctly, Dr Knudsen scheduled a check-up in Brisbane about 3-months later, just to see how the grafts were going.

It’s been three full days since my HT and apart from the expected pain from the donor site and the constant feeling that your skin no longer fits your head, everything had been going well. That was until last night (third night since op). I woke at least every two hours with significant pain from the donor site. I had used up nearly all the painkillers Dr Pong had given me and even popped a few Ibuprofen to try and numb the pain. It felt as though the swelling was getting to the point where the sutures were under pressure (of course I have no idea if this was the case). I ended up doing some research on the net and discovered that ice may bring the swelling down, so I dutifully called the front desk and asked for a bucket of ice. I originally called Housekeeping but they had no idea what I meant and I think even reception was a little confused too because they said “just ice” several times. I can’t really blame them it was 4am in the morning. I carefully removed the band around my head and iced both my forehead and the donor area, as the website I found suggested. This took about 15-minutes. I then replaced the headband, put an extra pillow under my head and went back to sleep. In the morning I woke to find that the evolutionists were right and we had descended from apes. Worst still, I was the missing link! The swelling had moved from my forehead down the both sides of my face, just in front of the ears. I looked ludicrous. Of further concern was that there was a small amount of blood on my pillar – I had never had blood on the pillow, even on the first night, so this seemed strange. Thankfully, I was scheduled to go back to Dr Pong’s, so I could get his professional opinion. Of course the first thing the technician who saw me said was that I should not take the headband off, but I thought the swelling seemed a little too severe to have occurred in the few minutes I had the headband removed to apply the ice. Dr Pong examined the donor site and said that it was looking fine and he could see no reason why there would be blood. He gave me some more painkillers and advised me to keep the headband on and that he would take another look tomorrow. In the meantime, it will take a number of days for the swelling to go down, so I better steer clear of the University Biology department just in case I end up stuffed in the museum.

I had a smaller HT carried by Dr Knudsen in Sydney about six years ago. At that time I had a little over 1600 grafts to increase my hairline. I was quite happy with the results, but as expected the hair behind this area continued to disappear and I knew that I would have to either shave the lot off, or get a second HT to ‘fill’ in behind. The original procedure cost almost AU$10,000, and as I am now married with a young son I couldn’t justify spending this kind of money for such a small number of grafts. This is when I decided to check out getting the procedure done overseas and in particular Thailand. I first contacted Dr Pong via email in late January having decided that it was time to continue where I had left off six years earlier. After reading all the information on his website and some of the posts on this forum I thought I would contact both Dr Pong and Dr Path to get some advice and approximate prices. Unfortunately after filling in the online form on Dr Path’s website, including adding the required photos I never heard anything back. I am not sure if this was because the form simply didn’t get submitted or that the data got lost in cyber-space. Either way, my email to Dr Pong was answered the same day. As some have mentioned, the first replay sounded a little ‘canned’ which can be expected as I am sure they receive a lot of enquiries. I did at least show that he had looked at the photos I had attached and gave me enough information to know that I would need a couple of sessions each costing in the order of US$5000-$6000. I emailed Dr Pong a couple of other times with questions about available dates and re-read some of the posts from his previous patients before deciding to book in. Although he had a number of vacancies in February and March, the earliest I could get to Chiang Mai was April. So I paid my deposit, booked some flights and booked 6 nights at the Lotus Hotel Pang Suan Kaew, which is located a few minutes walk to Dr Pong’s clinic. On the day of the procedure I met with Dr Pong who discussed what I hoped to achieve with the HT. He was very thorough, testing the elasticity of the donor site, looking at the scar left from my previous HT and explaining how he would proceed. Although he didn’t explicitly say so, I got the impression he thought my original scar was quite large (3-4mm wide in places). He explained that although he would like to remove the scar it would be difficult to get a high number of grafts and remove the scar at the same time. By comparison with my first procedure, the whole experience with Dr Pong and his team was vastly better. In Sydney, I had sat in ‘dentist’ chair for the whole procedure, including the extraction of the donor hair. I also very clearly remember have the sutures from the donor site left open until the technicians confirmed they had enough grafts. When they realised they need more, Dr Knudsen came back in and cut away another section from the donor site. Dr Pong spent considerable time measuring and marking the donor area, testing elasticity and counting the number of units at various places. To me this seemed far more ‘scientific’ and meant that once the extraction was completed he was able to fully close the wound. Hey, I even got to lie down on a bed (you know the type with a hole for your face). If you’ve never had a HT, don’t be under any illusion, the first night is a bastard. I was pretty tired having just flown in from Australia the night before, but I still had a very restless night’s sleep. The painkillers and valium Dr Pong provided meant that I got a little sleep, but trying to find a comfortable way to lie when you have a big slice running around the back and side of your head is pretty much impossible. I’m two days post-op and each day I go back to the clinic to have my head washed and have a quick check-up with Dr Pong. So far I am very happy with the results and expect that in 6-12 months the void behind my original HT will be nicely filled. The next question big question I will need to ponder is whether or not I am prepared to have the last treatment (the crown) in 12-months time. This question relates more to the financial considerations, not the HT itself. If I do get it done, I will be more than happy to come back to Dr Pong’s. One thing that I wasn’t aware of is that the retention stitches need to be removed in about 10-days. This means that I will need to have this done when I am back in Australia, but I don’t think that will be too much of a problem. As for those considering a HT in Australia, don’t bother, my experience has shown just how far behind our ‘famous’ doctors are and the high level of care you can expect in other countries. Just for the record here’s the stats for my second HT: 2415 grafts, total cost US$4830.