Just received my FUE procedure from Shapiro Medical Group in Bloomington, MN. I have had a ton of thinning from front to crown area beginning at 28 years old, and currently I am 35. I have always still maintained a decent hairline so that made the doctors job a bit easier since they did not need to recreate a hairline, but I suppose the natural hairline will eventually go as well, but hope not!
I was on the waiting list for the procedure for a year, and they still currently have a one year wait. I flew in from out of state for the procedure. Matt Zupan was my advisor the entire time prior to surgery and my primary contact, and he was amazing and answered all my questions. It seems like I could call/text/email anytime and I'd get a response within an hour.
The office staff was as nice as can be, and both Dr. Shapiro and Dr. Joe were amazing and welcoming. I primarily worked with Dr. Shapiro as he made all the incisions and Dr. Joe worked on the FUE extraction. The nurses were great and I had 2-3 nurses working on me to place the grafts with Dr. Shapiro supervising the procedure. Dr. Shapiro asked if I wanted to also have Exosome injections which I had not heard about prior to arriving at the clinic, so I did some research back at the hotel after the first day and didn't see convincing evidence of it helping so I opted to not have the Exosome injections done.
The first day was about a 3 hour day where Dr. Shapiro made about 2,400 incisions. He indicated that this was so growth hormones can start entering into the wounds and so the hair will transplant more firmly and quickly.
The second day was an 8 hour day, and consisted of the FUE extraction, 600 more incisions to clean up gaps and edges, and the implantation of the grafts.
For both the 1st and 2nd day they numbed the entire scalp and above the eyebrows so I literally did not feel a thing. Just lie back, relax, and watched movies on their Apple TV. They ordered me a lunch the 2nd day as well.
The following are my 2,904 Graft breakdowns:
1 Hair's - 296
2 Hair's - 1631
3 Hair's - 977
For a total of 6,489 Hairs.
See below for my before photos and my photos 2 hours after surgery. I will post the Before photos that they took in the office when they send them to me, and I will also post updates regularly to show progress. Let me know if you have questions and I will try to respond.
BEFORE:
AFTER SURGERY: