I went under the knife on Monday Jan 19 for approx. 4800 grafts. I still need to get the exact number. The goal going into the surgery was 4500. Dr. Wong did not charge me for the extras. In the end I don't really care about the numbers. My concern is only on the final outcome.
I have been planning this procedure for several months and I was fairly aggressive with my laxity exercises. There's a decent chance that I gave myself "tennis elbow" from performing the exercises.
As you will be able to see from my photo album (if I managed to set it up right) I still had a fair bit of native hair. My pre-transplant pictures were taken about 4 days prior to the procedure. I did not have any concealor in my hair but did have quite a bit of styling product which gives me quite a bit of density.
For those of you with thin, fine hair who are thinking about a transplant I would recommend following my progress. Dr. Wong commented that my hair was about as fine as any he had worked on.
Due to the natural characteristics of my hair we went with a conservative approach. We did not lower my hairline as my goal is to have as much density as possible.
The surgery itself went quite smoothly. I'll admit that at times throughout the day, as 3 tiny women were sticking hairs into my scalp, I wondered if all of this really was necessary. Oh well, I can't look back now.
The technicians commented that most procedures aren't as easy. I started t 6:15am and was out of the chair by 4:30pm. For the most part of the day I had 3 technicians inserting grafts. The clinic itself runs very smoothly.
Dr. Wong was great. At the end of the day he gave me a lift to my hotel. He definitely does not take the same approach to driving as he does to surgery. At one point during the ride he looked over at me( right after cutting off a car and over the blaring of the other car's horn) simply said "I'm not a very courteous driver"
All in all the experience was good. I would recommend to all those considering this procedure to take a lot of time before deciding. I had been thinking about getting this done for about 4 years and I was even still seconding guessing my self when the day actually rolled around.
I'm already counting down the days until I get the staples removed.