deltamind106

Here is a pic of the top of my head a few days after the procedure. You can obviously see the crust forming from all the grafts, since I could not scrub at this stage. I have since scrubbed all that off since it has now been 2 weeks since my procedure.

In my mind, the only way I would need repair is if the grafts don't take. Maybe this is just more of my naivety. I did not need a front hairline restored-- they were just filling in a broad thinned out area along the top midline. If you look at my head from the front, I have a full head of hair. (See my avatar photo-- it's fairly recent). It's not until you take a birds-eye view of the top of my head that you see missing hair. The hair transplant was mostly to help reduce sunburn since I'm outdoors a lot in the summer. I've attached my before pic here.

Yes the whole thing was quite dissatisfying. And unfortunately for me, I didn't do much research. If I had it to do again, I would use a doctor recommended from a site like this. My case was simple enough that it would be hard for it to "look bad" as long as the grafts take at all. That is what makes me lucky, if anything.

I recently had a FUT hair transplant done through Bosley. I am a 43 year old man and have "female pattern" hair thinning throughout the top midline and crown of my head. My front hairline looks the same as it did when I was 20-- so basically I just needed to move hair to “fill in” the 4cm x 7cm area that is thinning along the top midline of my scalp. The first step was the "free consultation" with a Bosley hair counselor. I met this individual and he took photos and measurements and "recommended" an FUT operation with 3000 - 3400 grafts. Bosley's standard cost for this range of grafts was $17,400 - $19,600, but Bosley was running a 25% discount which would reduce that cost accordingly. I didn't really care for this hair counselor-- he seemed like a sales guy who's goal was to sell me as many grafts as possible. So I called him back and told him it was out of my price range (which it was not) and that I could only afford 2400 grafts and would prefer to do only 2000 grafts, just to see what he would say. The counselor said he would call me back later after he showed my photos to a doctor and discussed with him. When he called back, he said the doctor recommended between 2400 - 2800 grafts for my situation and that 2400 would be the recommended "minimum". It sounded like they were just noting my maximum expenditure, and then making that number of grafts their recommended minimum. I opted to do 2800 grafts to cover roughly 28 square cm of "thinning" area (I have no bald areas). My surgery was set up for just a few days later. I arrived at 7am to the Bosley office to begin the procedure. The paper work and meeting with the doctor took about an hour or two. I didn't really care for the doctor when I met him on the morning of the surgery. He seemed like an old and tired man, well past his prime. His hands were not the steadiest, although not so much that he could not perform a minor surgery. As I spoke with him, he reminded me of a stubborn old grandfather, very set in his ways. I eventually found out that this was the office’s "second" doctor and that the primary doctor was away for several weeks. After the paperwork and meeting with the doctor, I met the anesthesiologist. He was an eager young man, very much the opposite of the doctor. As I spoke with him, my impression was that he had a little bit of a cavalier attitude toward things. But again, nothing so alarming that I was going to stop the surgery. He gave me 20 - 30 shots of local anesthetic, which were pretty painful. He did use a vibrating massage wand to distract me from the pain of the needle. It was fine, I'm not made of glass. I was kind of surprised that they didn't wash my head with some kind of anti-bacterial solution first-- they just started working on my scalp, as-is, when I arrived in the morning. After the anesthetic, the doctor started drawing grids on my head to map out the placement of the grafts. He argued with a couple of the assistants about the arithmetic of dividing up 2800 grafts into the oval pattern on the top of my head that would receive the grafts. Then it came time to outline the “donor area” where they would take the 2800 grafts from. The assistants took turns with different tools to measure the density of my hair where the donor tissue would come from. One assistant used one tool, and the other assistant swore that the first assistant’s tool was impossible to use. So she used a different tool. Eventually they came up with some numbers and the doctor outlined a donor area that "should" have 2800 grafts. The doctor cut out the donor tissue with his scalpel. He muttered once under his breath that it was a "damn dull knife". This was the first in a number of little things he would say that inferred that Bosley did not keep their equipment up to top standards. The assistants came in and started dividing up the donor tissue into grafts while the doctor started closing up the donor area with sutures. After the sutures were 2/3 complete, the assistants said they were going to be "short" in grafts because there were only 2600 or so. So the doctor cut another bit of donor tissue to make up the difference, before he finished up the sutures. The next step was creating the graft cites with the correct sized needle. There was a fair amount of argument over “where” in the office they could locate the correct sized needle. Eventually they “found” the correct needle, and I assume the chaos was because this doctor was the second "fill-in" doctor. Creating 2800 graft cites takes a little time, and the assistant was diligent in counting off the exact number of holes (per square cm) they poked in my head. After creating the graft cites, I could get up and go to the bathroom and move around for the first time since about 8:30am. It was then almost 1:00pm, so I had been sitting for over 4 hours. I could tell from the discussion amongst themselves, that they were falling behind schedule. They fed me a small turkey club sandwich for lunch, along with some juice. It was pretty tasty. After lunch, the "placement" begins around 1:15pm or so. The assistants who do the placement are simply individuals with their medical certificate who've had some in-house training on doing graft placement. Two or three assistants would work on me for a couple hours at a time, then they would be replaced by others. I assume this was to avoid boredom and making mistakes from getting too tired. It was a very tedious process. They did give me a movie list before the placement began, and I watched a movie while they placed grafts for almost 5 hours. After a couple hours, one of the assistants found a spot on my scalp that needed more anesthetic, since it was quite painful. The anesthesiologist was called in, and he gave me a few more shots so the procedure could continue. Somewhere around 4:30pm or so, the doctor was getting a little antsy because they were clearly behind schedule and it was taking longer that it should have. At one point, the doctor muttered to one of the assistants that "a case like this the patient should be out of here by 3:30". It's hard for me to know what exactly was taking longer than it should, because I have no experience with this procedure before. By 6:00, the graft placement was finally complete. Everyone had left the office except the anesthesiologist, who kept championing my cause to keep me positive during the whole procedure. This guy seemed like he had good intentions, but he was too contrived for my tastes. He didn't seem like a bad guy though. I made an appointment for 10 days later to have my sutures removed and left the Bosley office. All was well for the next couple days, but then I started to feel "under the weather" by the 3rd - 4th day after surgery. My wife saw a small "pimple" starting to form along the suture line, which looked like it might be an infection. I figured I would call the Bosley office the next day. However, during that evening I began experiencing full-blow symptoms which included: 102 fever, repeated vomiting, alternating shivering/sweating, pain in my bladder, systemic body ache, and a ridiculous headache. So I went to the emergency room of my local hospital for some treatment. They looked at the suture line but the pimple had drained itself and there was just a little red coloration there now. The hospital called Bosley and spoke with my doctor. I don't know what was said, but the hospital did give me an influenza test, which was negative. The hospital also gave me an IV to re-hydrate me (after the vomiting), gave me some anti-nausea medicine, and provided me with some antibiotics to treat any infection. I was quite sick for several days, because apparently it took a few days for the antibiotics to start working. Eventually I went back to Bosley to have the sutures removed on the scheduled date. The date of the suture removal was actually the first day that I felt "better" after having been so sick. When I met with the doctor, we discussed my symptoms and my visit to the hospital. When I mentioned to the Bosley doctor the word "infection", he immediately quipped "what infection?" I wasn't sure what to say because I know he spoke with the hospital staff. So I said, "the infection that the hospital gave me the antibiotics for." To which the doctor said, "no, that wasn't necessarily an infection, that was a 'possible infection'". I also mentioned that the flu test came up negative, to which the doctor responded "those tests don't prove anything". So at this point, I've deduced that this doctor does not want to have a real conversation with me. It sounded like an attempt to steer the conversation in a direction to mitigate liability. I mean come on buddy, you're going to split hairs with a patient who had a 102 fever, repeated vomiting, sweating/shivering, systemic body ache, over whether or not it was an "infection" or a "possible infection". Go take a long walk off a short plank buddy. I don't know why I got sick. I've described my symptoms, and the flu test was negative. It seems like I had some kind of infection. I don't know if it came from Bosley, or if it's something I got after I left Bosley. Regardless, don't split hairs with me over "infection" vs. "possible infection". I was very sick, and it sucked, big time. Anyways, the doctor did remove my sutures. He complained again the instrument he was using to remove them was "dull". It did seem like he had to yank my head pretty hard to get each suture to break. This doctor did not have the world’s steadiest hands either. At one point he did ask the assistant to bring his magnifying glass in so he could see better. If I had it to do over again, I would not use Bosley for the this procedure. I am going to recover from my illness (infection, virus, whatever), and I don't expect to have any long-lasting consequences. My FUT transplant was a simple one-- there was no need to reconstruct a hairline from scratch, because all my hairlines are perfect. It was just "filling in" hair on the top midline of my scalp, so a top-level expert artisan is probably not necessary. If the grafts at least "take", and if they are done with even a modest amount of skill, then I'm sure it will “look fine” for my particular case.