Hello Everyone,
I was just 20 years old when I first started losing my hair and within the next ten years, I was at Norwood Grade 3A and progressing towards Grade 4. Being young, that unwelcome change in appearance came with it’s own challenges. It certainly affected my confidence, because as you know, some people are quick to judge you based on your looks – which even made me hesitate & withdraw from social gatherings. Back during that time, 1997 to be precise, a big disadvantage that I faced was the lack of access to internet and relevant information related to hair restoration science and procedures. Initially I tried to rely upon newspaper ads of Rogaine which was a new thing back then. I used it for a few months without seeing any visual improvement. I feel it was relatively greasier at that time and even needed a doctor’s prescription. Not satisfied, I made up my mind to get my first hair transplant procedure done at Bosley in Los Angeles. It was an FUT procedure but the work was limited to just 500 grafts, yet very expensive. I did another 500 grafts later with Dr Elliot, it was also an FUT procedure – the work was good but underwhelming once again. Still struggling in terms of coverage I decided to go for 1000 more grafts over two sittings in the subsequent year with Dr Deyarman, who I had found through a television commercial. This time around, the scar was painful – so much that I feel the numbness in that area to this date.
After four FUT procedures I wasn’t completely happy with my hairline even though I had got fair amount of coverage. Fast forward 20 years when I finally had my first consultation with Dr Arika at the age of 54, who actually told me that it was the over-conservative hairline from the previous surgeries which was making me look bald, that was also when I got to know through her that my FTAs were done wrong. I was glad to have finally found the answers to some of my hairline characteristics that I was not able to understand post my FUTs, thanks to the Hair Restoration Network who were instrumental in helping me find Eugenix. I found Eugenix’s approach towards their business very ethical, infact I love how they’ve infused spirituality in their operations despite the busy schedule they got.
Coming to the surgery, the eVisa process is much better and faster now and Eugenix was quite supportive in helping me obtain it. There were no issues at the New Delhi airport but my advice to fellow patients would be to print everything out for a smooth passage. I arrived at the clinic a day prior to my procedure for my pre-ops and had my surgery done on the next day.
Going in to the surgery I was very worried about my donor area being depleted, even thought that I might get turned away by Dr Arika for that reason. However, I was pleasantly surprised when she approved of my donor area being good enough for the transplant to be carried out. At the same time, I had a lot of hopes w.r.t. my temple points as they were a priority for me and I must say that Dr Arika didn’t disappoint as I was very happy with the hairline she drew, meeting my highest expectations. It was re-created at a height of 7.5 cms. I even got implants on my FUT scar for which 180 grafts from my beard donor were used. Overall, was so impressed by her attention to detail and how she oversees everything even when there are a large number of technicians working on you. She did the quality assessment at every step to give the finishing touches. A total of 2626 grafts were done out of which 2446 grafts were harvested from my scalp. Going by my past experience, I was a little scared to have a look at my scalp after the procedure but I was delighted to see how clean the work was and it didn’t look bad at all. Posting my pictures below, what do you guys think?
