4,686 Grafts With Dr. Cooley

[yourcoach]

I've created a weblog with some before and after pics. Now the waiting begins.

 

Carl

[yourcoach]

I've created a weblog with some before and after pics. Now the waiting begins.

 

Carl

[Eman]

same day as me and more grafts (bastard- jk!!). You look like you will have some great frontal density and density overall.

 

I am sure you are excited and look forward to following your progress.

 

Eman

[yourcoach]

I miscalculated on total hairs. My breakdown was like this:

 

1 hair grafts - 1,122 = 1,122 hairs

2 hair grafts - 2,284 = 4,568 hairs

3 hair grafts - 956 = 2,868 hairs

4 hair grafts - 273 = 1,092 hairs

5 hair grafts - 51 = 255 hairs

-----------

9,905 total hairs

[badger_01]

Looks nice and clean, and a good amount of grafts. It will give a good amount of density. Congrats on your HT. Heal and grow well!

[HairDew]

The scar (if I can call it that) looks awesome just post op. Its so clean. Looks like this will be an awesome result Congrats

[Mick from Farjo]

Yourcoach,

You have been well and truly Cooleyfied.Well done on a great choice and can't wait to see your progress over the next 12 months.

 

Mick

[PLEASE GROW PLEASE]

Looks really good

[latinlotus]

Carl:

 

Nice and clean results, especially the scar. I did not know that 5 hairs grafts exist.

 

In term of shaving, are you concerned that dr. Cooley did NOT shave your head? From what i read, planting between grafts is more time consuming. On top of that, the direction of hair is difficult to assess when the hair is long.

 

Nobody want to the shave, however, I would prefer getting optimal results (by shaving and making my doctor's job easier), even if it means i will have an ugly duckling period of 2 or 3 months.

 

What do you think? did you debate this before going with Cooley? Thanks.

[yourcoach]

Thank you all for the kind words of support. It means a lot.

 

latinlotus:

 

Regarding your question about shaving, there was no debate with Dr. Cooley. I hesitate to try to fully explain what Dr. Cooley explained to me when I expressed the concerns of not shaving that I have read about on the forum for fear of not doing his explanation justice. In simplest terms, he said that shaving saves some time, but does absolutely nothing to impact the results. I know this is contradictory to what others have said. I can say that when I compared his full explanation as to why I would not be sacrificing any aspect of my final result and compared it with the concerns I read on the forum, I felt most comfortable with Dr. Cooley's reasoning. I understand it is possible for someone else hear the same two points of view and come to a different conclusion than I did. If I felt that shaving would have improved my result I would have done it. All things being equal, I preferred not to shave, but would have done it if there was some payoff other than the procedure taking more time. Dr. Cooley not requesting his patient shave was an extremely minor factor in choosing him to be my doctor.

 

Carl

[latinlotus]

Hi Carl:

I am reassured with your explanation. It is funny that a doctor is trying to make our life easier by not requiring us to shave, and we are questioning his competence/approach.

I fully trust dr. Cooley and just like you, shaving or not does not play any part in my decision.

[Dewayne]

I noticed this quote from Dr. Cooley on an earlier post, from Sept. 29. For the record, I might have shaved my head but it was close to a deal breaker for me as well....

 

"Simply restoring the frontal hairline results in improvement but the wide forehead that results from failing to restore the temples will lead to a sub-optimal result. We used both lateral and sagital slits. Most of our patients do not want to shave their heads and expect to be back to work in a week so we like the sagital slits to blend into existing hair. We also try to angle the grafts very acutely foreward so the patient has more styling options: downward, to the side, or combed back. If the grafts are too upright, the patient often has to comb the hair back because it won't lay down. Temporal restoration must be undertaken with care in younger men because further recession behind temporal grafts can be problematic."

[Bill - Seemiller]

Carl,

 

As I said when I left a comment on your blog, congratulations!

 

4686 grafts is a LOT and will give you a very nice result.

 

Soon, you will know why other Dr. Cooley patients on this forum refer to themselves as "Cooleyfied"

 

Best wishes and happy growing,

 

Bill

[yourcoach]

Thanks again for all of the support. I am going back to see Dr. Cooley this Monday morning to have my stitches removed and confirmation that things are progressing as they should be.

 

As I've continued to have conversations with Dr. Cooley about questions and concerns, I continue to be extraordinarily impressed with his sincere concern for even my most minor concerns. I can't remember feeling this cared for by any doctor I have dealt with, and I unfortunately, I have dealt with more than my share of doctors.

 

Carl

[yourcoach]

I'm 12 days post surgery. I got my stitches out and head cleaned up by Dr. Cooley today. He said the donor scar and recipient areas are healing great. He took pictures and will be emailing them to me. I will post them on my weblog when I get them in the next few days. Overall everything is going great with one exception. I continue to have some allover pain, with some stabbing pain also. I'm not too worried because, as I said, Dr. Cooley said everything is healing well. No signs of any infection. Hopefully it will fade in the next few days. I hesitated to even post about it, but Dr. Cooley encouraged me to share it. He wants people to know it all. He doesn't want anything held back. As far as I am concerned, his attitude about absolute full disclosure is one more very important reason to respect him.

 

I will post the following in a separate post as well here for maximum exposure in order to hopefully help the most people possible. I would like to make an open offer to anyone in the Atlanta area to get in touch with me to see, first hand, my hair transplant at whatever stage it happens to be in when they want to see it. I see this as a small "pay it forward" gesture considering all of the help and direct input I got from the group and specific individuals that I contacted from the group.

 

Carl

[Eman]

yourcoach-

 

any prep on the sutures before you headed into the office to have them removed?

 

Look forward to seeing your two week pics in a few days!!

[yourcoach]

Got the new 12 day post surgery pictures up on my weblog. Take a look.

 

Eman: No prep on the sutures before going in. To be honest, I'm not sure what that is all about.

 

Carl

[Eman]

sorry yourcoach, what I mean is did you put a warm damp rag or polisporin ointment or anything to loosen up the area prior to heading into the doctors office.

 

And by the way, your scar is looking good as is your recipient area!

[yourcoach]

Eman: I vaguely remember Dr. Cooley doing both putting a warm wash cloth on the area and then pointing on some kind ointment first thing and then cleaned up my scalp, then snipped the stitches. To be honest, I wasn't paying that close attention to what he was doing. We were chatting the whole time, and of course it was all going on behind my head.

 

Carl

[yourcoach]

I'm one month post-op so I've updated my weblog with a couple of new pictures.

 

Carl

[Sir Fivehead]

Originally posted by yourcoach:

Thank you all for the kind words of support. It means a lot.

 

latinlotus:

 

Regarding your question about shaving, there was no debate with Dr. Cooley. I hesitate to try to fully explain what Dr. Cooley explained to me when I expressed the concerns of not shaving that I have read about on the forum for fear of not doing his explanation justice. In simplest terms, he said that shaving saves some time, but does absolutely nothing to impact the results. I know this is contradictory to what others have said. I can say that when I compared his full explanation as to why I would not be sacrificing any aspect of my final result and compared it with the concerns I read on the forum, I felt most comfortable with Dr. Cooley's reasoning. I understand it is possible for someone else hear the same two points of view and come to a different conclusion than I did. If I felt that shaving would have improved my result I would have done it. All things being equal, I preferred not to shave, but would have done it if there was some payoff other than the procedure taking more time. Dr. Cooley not requesting his patient shave was an extremely minor factor in choosing him to be my doctor.

 

Carl

 

Dr. Keene feels the same way about shaving. She basically told me that the ONLY person it helps is the doctor. It saves them time, and she feels that since this is a surgery that WE are paying A LOT for to look better, it doesn't make sense to inconvenience the patient any more than she already has to. I mean, who wants to look like Bozo the Clown for any length of time? It's quite a humiliating look. It's the look that we are all trying to avoid! There are several coalition doctors out there that don't require shaving that consistently produce fantastic results.

[latinlotus]

S5H:

If dr. Keene AND dr. Cooley, my two favorite doctors, are ok with not shaving, then I am ok with not shaving. I have no need to question this issue any further.