Furybubu

Hi everyone, Today is my first day after the procedure at HMR in Tijuana with Dr Cortez, but I will keep updating my experience with every significant milestone. Just wanted to start by thanking all the people who left reviews in this forum, this has been an invaluable amount of information and quite instrumental in the decision process to get an FUE procedure at HMR. I am almost 43 year old that has experienced slow hair loss since the beginning of my 30s. Nothing too drastic, many of my relatives or friends were not really understanding why I was planning on doing a hair transplant (you know the kind of people who think you are bald only if you are a NW6). I always had a widow peak even in my twenties so I was definitely lookinf for something that would like natural based on my original hairline and adequate with someone my age. As a french guy living in Los Angeles, I started looking at the different options I'd have in the US, Mexico and France (Turkey at some point was an option too, but the distance if they were a complication was a big no for me). Preliminary research and booking with HMR After thoroughly exploring the reviews here but also in some other forums in Europe. I narrowed down my list to 3 clinics: - Dr Nader in Reynosa - Dr Cortez in Tijuana - Maison Lutétia in Paris The first in responding were Maison Lutétia, and while I knew this would be the priciest of the 3, the results on some of the celebrities they have as clients are indeed spectacular, so I decided I'd take a video call with one of their medical assistant. After a long discussion, I decided to not consider them for multiple reasons: - It was really hard before the interview to identify who the surgeon was. One certainty I had after hours of reading others' FUE reviews was that you need to pick a surgeon rather than an institution. When I asked specifically who would be the surgeon in charge of the procedure, the asistant gave me the name of Dr Sarah Fadli, but that this was not important as it could be eventually someone else who would be as good as her. - They charge per hair, not per follicle grafts, which I have also been told to be shady practice - They were by far the priciest: about 9900 euros for their "mega max" package for between 4000-5000 ( if you consider that in average you have around 2.5 hair per follicle, the best scenario you would get from that is 2000 grafts). I tried to contact relentlessly the Dr Nader as he seemed to be praised all over this network and on reddit. Unfortunately he never answered back to my mutiple calles and emails. I read that he is a victim of his success and that he is typically booked solid for the year and a half. I was then left with HMR, which I heard pros and cons about, but I'd say that the vast majority of the reviews I read over the past year or so about Dr Cortez and his team were pretty good and saw fantastic, natural-looking results if you knew to explain exactly what you'd expect in terms of hairline and the overall procedure. After filling out the forms on their website with the required picture, they sent me a proposal between 2500 and 2700 grafts, the 2700 option being quoted at $6210. As a follow-up, I scheduled a video call beginning of April and got to talk with one of their doctor (Dr Deyanira Jimenez) for about an hour, there she answered all my questions about the procedure : The M.O, who would be doing what at every step, my expectation in terms of looks etc... Among other things I asked her what kind of measures were they taking to prevent un-natural / doll-like hairlines, how they were sorting grafts etc... This step was really important for me in my decision process and convinced me to do the job with them. From that moment we emailed back and forth to define the details and schedule an intervention: They were booked until June but they seemed to have an opening for May 11th, which I gladly took as it was a Saturday. After that I sent them a $500 deposit and got more questions and info from them related to the stay and the timing of the procedure: I took the 2-nights stay they offer at the hotel Del Rio given that is literally a 2-min walk for the clinic and that I had to be at the clinic at 6:00 am the same day. Given the clinic is at merely a 5-min drive form the border, I decided I would drive my car with my wife all the way to the hotel and requested for a medical pass for a fast entry through the border on the way back (the clinic can provide it for $40). The procedure I arrived on Friday May 10th at midnight at the hotel, woke-up at 5:00am to wash my hair as they recommended, bought a banana at the OXO shop nearby as they ask you to have a light breakfast (do not worry if you can't they will give you some granola bars if needed when you arrive) and headed to the clinic. Upon arriving there, I filed out some paperwork and then many member of the team came in the room to start drawing the hairline. I really inisited on the fact that I wanted an irregular widow peak to match what I used to have. After 2-3 trials, they finally nailed it and moved to the shaving step. They made me have a few pills (antibiotics, relaxant) and then went to to the surgery room. The anesthesia is certainly not the pleasant part but the pain is definitely manageable. The extraction phase lasted for a bit more than 2 hours, and I don't know if it is the relaxation pill that kicked of the anesthesia itself, but I slept almost through all of it. Then I went for a lunch break and they brought a caesar salad. I was feeling quite hungry, and also a bit dizzy but again nothing unmanageable. Then came the implantation part, I was still feeling pretty numb from the extraction, but they probably gave another round of anesthesia as I felt a sort of high...at some point the team put some music I like (this is one of the thing they ask you in the many emails they send you before) and I saw me singing along to bohemian rhapsody with them, it was actually a quite funny experience. After that I went back to the dressing room, and the whole team came to check on me and give me some post-op recommendations along with the meds and some shampoos I will need to use for the next week or so. I left the clinic, joined my wife and after a good night of sleep we drove across the border (took us about 25 minutes to cross with the medical pass). See below some pictures pre-op and on the day of the procedure, and D+1. It is quite early to give a full-fledged recommendation to HMR, but so far my experience has been excellent. Will keep you posted on the progress!

Hi @Jugnu! I am curious, did you ever heard back from Dr Nader or @Melvin- Admin? I really wanted to go with him given his results on other patients. I filled the form on the clinic’s website, sent Dr Nader two emails 7 days apart and still no answer… I am open to any suggestion that could help me get in touch with him. Thanks!