jjbluejeans

I was really pleased with how "invisible" the work Dr. Wasserbauer had done was, so once I finished up some of my roles at the time, I decided to finally let it grow out. Moment of Truth. This time you get video! It was... decent. Grown out. Not what I had hoped for. I definitely didn't feel like a guy in his late twenties. My whole life people had always assumed me much older than I am and part of me just felt like I was missing out on the experiences my peers were having. I'm trying to be very open with you guys, because I'm sure some of you out there get it. I decided I should give it some more time and kept letting it grow but honestly the more it grew the more it just depressed me. This photo is pretty blurry, sorry, but I think you can still tell how "transparent" my hair looked grown out. I didn't allow many photos of me at this time. I want to be clear, though, that I do not fault Dr. Wasserbauer for that in any way. She'd given me a very clean and nice hairline that looked good shaved and was undetectable as surgically enhanced. Massively better than when you look at that photo of me in the first post where I had basically nothing.

Still, there was a part of me that just wanted the flexibility of knowing I could have hair if I wanted, and sport a variety of looks. I'd grown up wanting to be like Arnold or Sly or Tom Cruise, even. And I felt like, even if people thought I looked good with my head shaved, it limited my work as an actor a lot. I got roles, but it was always cop, highway patrolman, bouncer, security guy. No one ever wanted to let me play the romantic lead, or the funny guy (and I am much more of a weird, awkward person than a tough guy, but people always wanted "Tough Guy" from me) and I knew that, even if it's decades away, there's only so long you can keep playing Mr. Punches Things A Lot. In short, there was a part of me that just felt like there was a Me that I never got to Be. Yet. So by this point I was making better money, and I felt like I was old enough to assume my hair loss had hit it's apex and I could look into surgical options. I opted for an FUE, because I knew I wanted the flexibility to still shave my hair off when asked. After looking at options I chose to see Dr. Wasserbauer in California. I had a great experience with her, she made me feel very comfortable and she gave me what I felt was a very realistic and honest idea of what was possible. There was no hyperbole. I apologize, I don't have any photos still from the time of that surgery and recovery, but I got around 1800 grafts, if I recall correctly. I remember being awake for the duration of the procedure, watching a few movies. Dr. Wasserbauer was there pretty much the whole time being very hands on. By my request we chose to preserve my natural "V" hairline because I didn't want it to be a dramatic change. Recovery went well, though I did experience pretty bad bumping that would burst and bleed for a months. There were definitely times that I worried I'd made a terrible choice and I would be disfigured for life, but you know what? In the end, no one ever noticed. The work was CLEAN. Here's some photos of me on set for a film not long after that surgery. I kept my hair shaved down for at least a year after that surgery because I wanted to wait for it to all grow in as "mature" hair and not have it grown out before it was out of its incubation phase. Also I kept getting roles that required me to have my "tough" look still. But you can see in these photos that the uninitiated would be hard-pressed to spot my surgery (of course to those of us who obsess over this sort of thing, I'm sure you can spot some of the redness )

Howdy all, Obligatory long time lurker/first time posting disclaimer. I felt like, having read so many patient reviews and experiences and stories that I could do some good sharing mine, and also it's just always nice to know you're not alone : ) I will tell my story in a sets of posts to this topic that will go chronologically, more or less. I hope. I'm new to this, remember. I began losing my hair VERY early, probably as early as fourteen or fifteen. I know I was already being teased about my hairline, mostly about the size of my forehead, at that age. I had always had a very classic widow's peak/dracula sort of hairline, even as a boy. (Me as a fifteen year old vampire. The low light helps hide how thin the front was...) I managed to get a Propecia Prescription around the time I was 22 or so, and had been using the old standby Rogaine but this was back in the pre-foam days so using it was not a great experience always. See here a young Me rocking a very poor attempt at pretending I could keep my hair: Either way, even the powerful Propecia/Rogaine duo didn't save me. This was me by the time I was in my mid-twenties: I had decided to embrace it and just go for the whole young Bruce Willis/Budget Jason Statham thing. And it kinda worked for me! Oddly enough, and I hope this helps someone out there, I got a lot more attention with my head shaved. I started doing fitness modeling. I got a lot more roles as an actor for a while. I felt confident about my look with no hair, and people seemed to even prefer it on me in a lot of ways.