DV8

This is a place holder. I'll take pictures and write a little something about it, but not a lot has changed I don't think since previous year.

No, I'm not on any drugs. I purposely got a HT because I didn't want to be on them for the rest of my life. I stand corrected. $7500 then. ;-)

I have no immediate plan because it takes so many months before you don't need a hat and . However, should I find myself in a position where I can work from home for a few months and I get another $10,000 to spend, I wouldn't be adverse to the idea. I'd like to get the top filled in as you see it's a bit thin looking.

Two years later. The final result. PREVIOUS ENTRY

The only thing I notice is that my head seems to itch a lot still. I'm not sure if this is related to the HT or something else but... NEXT BLOG PREVIOUS BLOG

Today I bleached my hair back for the summer as the whole dark hair and beard thing was starting to bug me. I missed the old me! Plus I wanted to try an experiment to see if the blonde hair would have less contrast to my scalp and therefore let me gel & spike it up like I used to do pre HT. First the "bad news" ... When I went for the haircut, I decided to go back to a #2 guard on the clipper as I used to do before my transplant. As you can see it makes the scar show! UGH! I should have stayed with a #3 or maybe even more. It'll take some experimenting to see what the minimal length is I can get away with. I didn't realize the scar would be so obvious and honestly it brings back all these flashbacks about the staples. Now for the "good news" ... my theory worked! I can totally spike my hair again! And even though I said it before, I just love LOVE my hairline. I wish the top was more dense still as I have also said before, but at least it's not as noticeable or think looking like with the dark hair. For what it's worth, I've also realized that pictures really don't do the HT justice. The flash from the camera and being so up close makes it seem much thinner than it really looks in real life. I look in the mirror and don't see the same thing that I see in these photographs. I also constantly get compliments. The most curious compliement I get is, "You had hair transplants? It doesn't look like it." And I usually have to say, "Well, yeah, duh! That's the point. If you could tell, then I didn't get a very good one did I?" :wink: I swear I have referred so many people to Hasson & Wong that I should get a commission at this point! NEXT BLOG PREVIOUS BLOG

This is the one year mark. I don't see a lot of difference from the past few months, but maybe you do? Before I say anything further, I want to say that for the most part I am happy with the results. I'm certainly in a better place folically than I was a year ago and the fear of going bald is no longer something I stress about. Perhaps I should just be grateful that this proceedure even exists and more importantly that I was lucky enough to have gotten a great HT that looks natural. If HT wasn't possible, I'd be stuck either taking sketchy pills or just shaving it off. Both options I dreaded. I get compliments all the time by people I tell I had this done. Old friends whom I haven't seen in a long time notice and also compliment, although usually they can't tell what specifically I had done, they always say things like "you look great!" or "you look different". Now with all that in mind, I guess I'm still a bit disapointed that it's just not as dense as I'd hoped it would be. You've heard me say this before, but I want to wear my hair gelled/spiked and I just really can't do it as it is. You can clearly see in the photos how the top is quite thin, even when dry. I so wish that Dr. Hasson would have taken more hairs, maybe another 1,000 or so and just packed 'em all in the top. I don't know, maybe it's just not physically possible to do it that dense in one shot? I just know I told him to take whatever he needed and I didn't ever want to do this process again. I plan to go back to bleach blonde in the summer time. My logic is that for one, the lighter color won't contrast as much against my white scalp and hopefullly not look as thin. Plus the bleach straightens my hair and so it spikes straight up, giving more forgiveness to the eye for seeing scalp through it. I figure that I used to spike and bleach it before the surgery and it looked good then, so now that I have more hair, it has to look as good or better right? I hope. Barring that, I would consider another HT from Hasson (he's the only doctor I'd trust at this point) in another year or two after everything has stabalized and I'd tried my other ideas. But who knows, maybe at that point, I won't care as much about this density. Plus it's tough to do again since I no longer have the same job I did, and I don't get to work from home. That's another big reason I told him do do it all the first time, as I knew I had that luxury of not being seen for several months while it grew in. I do wonder however if the second time it appears to grow in quicker since there's more hair existing already and really I'm just growing grafts in between other healthy folicles? Bottom line... No regrets, and in fact just the opposite. I'm very glad I had it done even if it's not quite up to my expectation. I tell anyone and everyone that will listen about H&W and share this blog with them. My hair-cutters all have this URL on their biz cards to share with their clients as they themselves have seen the transformation on my head and still can't get over how good it is. I hope this blog helps other guys who are on the fence and facing the bald menace in the face every morning. Known that, like death, you're one day closer to losing it all. Know there is a viable permanent alternative solution out there, and it's name is Hasson & Wong. Thank you Dr. Hasson. Thank you Mike Ferko. NEXT BLOG PREVIOUS BLOG

Same ol' same old... not seeing much new changes, but maybe it's sublte and after 11 months I'm just having a hard time seeing the forrest through the trees (or insert some other cliche' here). Oddly my head seems to itch quite a bit these days. I'm hopeful that is still hairs poking through, but it's almost impossible to really tell at this stage. NEXT BLOG PREVIOUS BLOG

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Brooklyn Dudes Are Getting Beard Transplants Now Great news if you can't grow a beard and have a few thousand dollars to spare: "Facial hair transplants" are reportedly on the rise in New York. According to DNAinfo.com Dr. Yael Halaas has performed an average of one beard transplant per month on men from Brooklyn's "hipster"-filled neighborhoods, like Bushwick, Park Slope, and Williamsburg. "I get a lot of detail-oriented people — artists, architects," Halaas said. Dr. Jeffrey Epstein, who has been performing beard transplants for more than 12 years,told DNAinfo he averages about three beard transplants per week in his offices in Miami and Manhattan. "Whether you are talking about the Brooklyn hipster or the advertising executive, the look is definitely to have a bit of facial hair," he said. Other common clients include weakly-beared Hasidic Jews and men with facial scarring. One 39-year-old New Yorker who received a transplant last April described the procedure and results to DNAinfo. "I couldn't believe how much I had changed over the years and that I no longer looked like myself," he said. "I had contemplated [getting a beard transplant] for approximately eight months. Knowing the results, I wish I hadn't wasted so much time deciding." So how does the process work? From DNAinfo: The hair for beard transplants typically is taken from the patient's head — roots and all — and then planted through micro-incisions on a bare patch of face, in an eight-hour procedure under local anesthesia, similar to how hair transplants are done, doctors said. ... Once transplanted, the beard hair takes root gradually. The hair then falls out, but the roots stay and begin to grow new hair within several months, doctors said. Once it's fully healed, the new beard can be shaved regularly and will grow back just like real hair. And it only costs $3,000 (for fill-ins) to $7,000 (for a full beard)! Money well spent if you ask me.

I guess this is about as good as it's going to get I suppose. I probably won't post again till the one year mark just for consistency and closure. But at this point it seems I'll either need to be okay with wearing my hair un-gelled or spikey like I have done for the past 18+ years, or I'll need to get an additional HT to fill it all in. This gives me some mixed emotions. I'm a little let down in some ways and really impressed in others. I love my hairline. I get compliments all the time and most people including my hair cutters don't even suspect I have had a proceedure done. It's just not the expectation I had and also the density I was thinking especially having explicitly said to take as much as they needed. Oh well. It is what it is. It could be worse right? I could be one of those unfortuanate souls who got a botched job and then I'd be in a whole other predicament. I suppose I should count my blessings and be thankful for that at least. NEXT BLOG PREVIOUS BLOG

Not much to report. I feel like it looks pretty much like it did last month. I did go in to see Mike Ferko and he tended to agree it seemed a bit thinner than expected but we agreed to just see what happens over the next few months and if I'm still not thrilled with it then we'll talk to Dr. Hasson and go from there. The massive "shock loss" that I was having has subsided, so maybe it will fill in the density now. While these photos don't do it justice, I am really happy with the hair-line and the angle at which the hair is in front. It's actually exactly as I had hoped and envisoned it to be in my mind's eye -- even without telling the doctor. If it were more dense, it would be pretty perfect I think. I also went for a haircut again as it's been a couple of months. The lady couldn't believe I had a HT. She was digging through looking for the scar and couldn't find it, so she thought I was pulling her leg! LOL. She proceeded to tell me about two other clients she has. One guy has a huge scar across his head in the back and he asked her what she thought of the result. She said, "oh it will heal and look good, how long ago did you get it done?" He replied "Three years" !!! She was obviously silent as she realized that this poor guy was mangled and his head will never get any better as is. She went on to tell me about a lawyer client who had a much better HT from Portland, but even that did not compare to what she saw with mine. :-) NEXT BLOG PREVIOUS BLOG

Not a whole lot has changed since last month -- at least not to my eye. I am really liking my hairline though the more I see it. Again, I wish it were a bit denser, but it's still very nice to have it (and not the receeding hairline of 7 months ago). As mentioned previously, when it's dry it looks pretty decent -- decent enough I've even added a full face/head photo in this blog. And if you're gonna go, you might as well go big or go home, so I even sprouted some facial hair for the whole "Movember" movement. People have commented so positively they have convinced me to not shave the beard for a while. One friend half-jokingly said, "You look like a man finally!" HAHAH. uhhhhh, geeee, thanks? I think? :-p I did meet with my two friends that had gone under Wong's hands years ago and they said that my hair will continue to thicken and grow for up to a year and not to sweat it just yet. They suggested I'm being too hard on my self and even impatient. So once again, I will remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful that the density will eventually come. I've gotten this far, so what's a few more months to wait and see. At least I don't have to wear a hat anymore, and I have feeling in my head. I figure at worst case, now that I've gone through it once, I *could* get another one in a year or so, and probably only need like 1,000 more grafts to fill it in I'm thinking and also I presume the second time around would be a bit easier mentally since I know pretty much what to expect. I also figure I could be looking fairly normal sooner, maybe closer to 4-5 months since I'd already have a pretty decent base of hair now, that'll in theory grow quicker around the new ones -- unlike before where there was just nothing there really so it took a while for the grafts to do their thing. NEXT BLOG PREVIOUS BLOG

I got tired of doing the comb-forward and I was also tired of wearing my hair brushed back like a guido, plus it was getting so bushy. Not to mention those damn waves were really bugging the shit out of me. So I got a wild hair (pun intended) and decided to go get my 2nd haircut since the HT. This time I went a bit more radical and told the girl to go shorter (with the intent of spiking it using gel like I used to do) and using some thinning sheers on the back to try and match the density a little more so I didn't have such a definite line betwixt the two areas. It's interesting because looking in the mirror it kinda sorta looks okay, but clearly in the photos you can tell it is anything but "dense". And pictures don't lie. :-( At least on a happy note, I *think* that I am seeing less hairs falling out in the shower than before. It's so hard to tell, but looking at the pictures attached previously, I am leaning towards that theory. Which is great! Maybe that means my thin-looking head will fill in from those hairs too now. I don't know. NEXT BLOG PREVIOUS BLOG

Well this is the magic six month mark. The day I planned way back in April 24th when I got this done. Two days before my 44th birthday (October 26th) -- this was my birthday gift to myself. The day I was told I'd really see the effects... I have to say I am a little dissapointed. I have this feeling in my gut that I'm looking at about all the density I'm going to see for the most part and honestly I'm not loving it. If my hair is dry, then it certainly does look fuller -- but that's not how I wear my hair. I told the doctor that I gel and spike it. I also told him that I never wanted to do this proceedure again so take as much hair as he needed the first time (money is not an issue, especially when grafts are $3 each vs. $5 each if I were to have a second HT). The best way to sum up my hair is this: If you knew me already, then you'd say "wow! look at that new hair coming in" (expecting it to keep growing, especially from seeing me with my buzz-cut head 6 months ago). If you didn't know me, then you'd say, "That guy's hair looks like it's thinning..." :- The hairline is very good (again, it needs density, but the shape is very natural and I am quite pleased with that). Another interesting side effect, which makes sense, but I hadn't really thought about till now is that the new hair has the same "waves" as the back of my head used to have. I never really considered it since I keep the sides and back at about a 2 or 3 guard on the clippers. But many moons ago, when my hair was longer, I used to hate those waves -- that's why I keep it short back there! The irony is now they're front and center. A reason I will probably start to bleach my hair again in another couple of months as it makes it straighter, and gel makes it easier to spike it straight too. I still have a little hope left in me that there are still some dormant folicles that'll miraculously fill in the gaps, or that the folicles will sprout multiple hairs from themselves over the next couple of months. I do feel some itchy/tingly feelings sometimes like before when hairs were growing and making their way through my scalp, I just don't feel it enough. Not like I used to, and to me that's now a "bad sign". A sign that things are simmering down. In other good news, the scar seems to be for the most part gone. It's so very difficult to even see it, and that's looking eagle-eyed for it. Related all feeling in my head is normal again. No numb spots anywhere that I notice I feel kind of in limbo now. Like I'm going to have to endure another HT just to get the density I feel I was told I would have to start with. I was told Hasson can do 80 hairs per square inch and that normal hair is 100 hpsi, but there is certainly a visible difference between my new area and the old areas behind it. NEXT BLOG PREVIOUS BLOG