Hi, this is my first time posting on this forum. I have posted on other websites before when I first started losing my hair around age 22. I am now 27 and after long time considering getting an HT I finally took the plunge. I have been on minox and fin for the last five years and have recently added Dut as of 6 months ago.
after looking around for surgeons I came across Dr. John Diep. I've seen his work and felt like he was the best choice especially since he specializes in FUE (I didn't want the strip method). I booked the procedure appointment back in May 2017 and it was set to happen November 2 2017
I had to book a cheap hotel room for two nights (night before, and night of procedure) so that I can get to the clinic at the 5:30am which they said would be the start of my procedure. As I got there at 5:30am they told me my appointment wasn't until 7:30 so I went back to my hotel and waited. Not sure what the mix up was but it wasn't too big of a deal, I just wanted to get started and get the day over with. Once I was done filling out the applications I was called into change clothes and talk to Dr. Diep. He drew over where my hairline should be and we agreed on where he would be filling in my hair line. He told me I was a NW4 on the scale. I was hoping he would be able to fill in my crown area as well which was thinning badly and he said if we had extra grafts he would do that. Unfortunately he was not able to touch the back and only filled the front with 2685 grafts (he was able to pull 185 extra grafts). Until then I can always put hair fibers to fill it in. As Dr. Diep said "The front is where the money is".
after talking to him he gave me a concoction of meds and we went into the surgery room. They gave me a remote to watch netflix as they started prepping for extraction from the donor area. Before I knew it I was awoken to the telling me it was lunch time. Yep, I slept through the whole thing. I barely remember them shaving my whole head and only have a little memory of them injecting the antiseptic to numb my head. I ate a sandwhich and then fell back asleep. There were instances in which I woke up and heard the techs working on my head but I was in and out of it. Pretty much slept through the whole process and before I knew it there was one of the techs waking me up telling me about my take home baggy with all my stuff..at this point I was still kind of out of it but I was happy to hear that the whole thing was finishing up and I wasn't awake for any of it. The only pain I felt was during the injections. Other than that I don't remember any pain during extraction nor implantation.
The whole process was from 7:30am- 5pm
After the process was done, I was let go with a baggy full of drugs, shampoo, and post op care instructions.
The staff and doctor were nice and the whole process went smoothly, even though I was asleep the whole time
That night I slept at a 45 degree angle with pillows propping me up.
The following picture were taken before so you can see where I was before the procedure:
