Dr Parsa Mohebi - 3615 Follicular Units in 1 session

[Bruce65]

Hi guys,

 

Finally I got my hair transplant with Dr. Parsa Mohebi even though it was a hot and discussed subject lately on a previous "Hair transplant network" forum thread ( http://hair-restoration-info.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/746...61/m/9781012283/p/1)

 

I know that it's quite early to judge before seeing the final result after the 8th month or 1 year, but I just wanted to share with you this incredible experience and how everything went so well and agreeably with the surgery.

 

Pre-operation (1 day before): Dr. Mohebi called before the D-Day to make sure that I did not have any concerns or questions left and I told him that I was kind of stressed out for my first HT. He calmed me down and told me that I don't have worry about anything and tomorrow will be a pleasant day.

To be honest, I was only scared about the cutting part of the donor area and not by the quality of Dr. Mohebi's work.

 

Operation day (June 26): I went to Dr. mohebi's office at 7AM and spent 15 minutes With Dr Mohebi to finalize the hairline and result that I was expecting. He said that my expectation was realistic and feasible and then he asked me what can of closure technique I wanted for my donor area. I did not want to have a Trichophytic closures since I am planning to have another session within one or two years to cover the crown area so he told me that he will decide once he will shave my donor area and check my scalp laxity. I said doctor you are the expert and you decide whatever technique is appropriate.

 

7:30AM : I got 2 injections in my right & left shoulders (mild pain in the left shoulder) and then Dr. Mohebi shaved and numbed the donor area.

The injection was a little bit painful for the first minutes and after that I did not feel anything and the donor removal was performed smoothly followed by the suture. I have to mention that this operation was pretty delicate and took a few minutes in order to properly cut the donor area and not damage any nerves.

 

8:15 AM : All the technical assistants were already ready with the required material (microscope, blades ,etc..) to start processing the donor area into small follicular units.

At that time I was not familiar with the assistants but during the whole hair transplant procedure, they were incredibly nice, talented, caring and professional.

Meanwhile Dr. Mohebi started to make the incisions (around 3500) by placing strategically each incision in the correct angle using the appropriate needle (I am not sure if it called needle or something else)

 

10AM : The follicular Units were all ready to be placed in the recipient areas. Dr Mohebi and his technician supervisor discussed about the final result and then the long process started. My donor and recipient areas where completely numbed so I could feel 0 pain. Hopefully my brain wasn't numb to make me dumb :-) and I had time to exchange conversations with technicians and have a good time, chatting, watching movies (of course only me and not technicians)

I had 4 experimented technicians that knew exactly what they were doing. You might ask how do I know that? Well when you have people working on your bald head without asking advices or questions from each other about what they are supposed to do, you can say that you are in good hand and of course "I WAS IN VERY GOOD HANDS"

 

12:30 : Break to have lunch and the lunch was of course provided by the clinic based on you preferences.

 

1:00 to 4:30 PM: The technicians resumed the work and it was almost over around 4:30 but since there were still 115 Follicular Unit left and Dr. Mohebi didn't want to waste them (we bald guys know how precious there are), He made new recipients so the FUs can be placed there. And he did not even charge me for these extra :-)

 

5:30PM everything was finished and the final pictures were taken and I was ready to go home

 

 

The entire experience was amazing working with these great persons. Dr. Mohebi and his staff did everything possible to make this day as special, pleasant and memorial day.

 

 

 

[PLEASE GROW PLEASE]

Good growing . Did you request that hairline v shape?

[Bruce65]

Yes PGP, this is exactly the hairline I wanted and if you really look at it it's not really a V shape.

[folicallychallenged]

Hi guys,

 

How common is it for a patient to get injections in the shoulders? I've never heard of that before

[Bill - Seemiller]

Bruce,

 

Thanks for sharing a detailed account of your experience.

 

3600 grafts is certainly a nice session size though, over a large bald area, it won't be as dense as if you targeted the first half or 2/3rds of the scalp. I assume you discussed with Dr. Mohebi to go for coverage verses density?

 

I am a little confused. Dr. Mohebi asked what kind of closure technique you wanted him to use? Usually, the physician should decide what is best given the long term goals of the patient. Can you describe this part of the conversation a bit more? Did he really give you an option and if so, did he go through benefits and limitations of each method?

 

I also have not heard of injections given in the shoulders. What is an anesthetic? Muscle relaxer? Were injections also received in the scalp?

 

I hope you will keep us posted on your progress. Heal and grow well Bruce.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

[Bruce65]

Hi Bill,

 

Yes I decided to have more density on the front and some coverage on the top and crown areas exactly what Dr. Mohebi produced on my head.

 

As far as the question about the closure technique, Dr. Mohebi performs different techniques and of course I let him the choice to decide whatever was more appropriate for me.

I brought the subject about the closure techniques a few days ago on this forum ( http://hair-restoration-info.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/346...51006283#7551006283) before my surgery and I also had his opinion.

 

I am not sure if these injections were muscle relaxer or not but I am hoping that Dr. Mohebi can see this forum subject and answer in more details about any questions that you and other members might have.

 

Thanks

Bruce

[Parsa Mohebi, MD]

Hi everyone,

 

It was a pleasure for me and my staff to perform Bruce's surgery at our Los Angeles Hair Transplant Office. Bruce is one those patients that most surgeons love to have. He did his homework. He read about the procedure and its Pros and Cons. He visited online communities like Hair Transplant Network. He had consultations with some other Los Angeles hair transplant clinics and he eventually made an informed decision about his hair transplant surgery. Bruce also asked great questions before during and after his hair transplant surgery.

 

I will answer to your questions and address your comments below. If you have more questions on our techniques I will be glad to answer them here. I am very much into patient education and generally spend plenty of time with my patients during the consultations and in follow up visits. Here are the answers:

 

1. Hair line:

 

I design the shape of the hairline based on several factors including patient race and age, characteristics of the donor hair, and patient's hairline before balding (if we have pictures available). We draw hairline at the day of our initial consultation and make sure patient is completely happy with it.

 

Bruce is one of those great patients who do their homework and come to you prepared. He has read a lot about hair transplant and consulted several other hair transplant clinics in Los Angeles before coming to us for his initial evaluation. He brought with him his pictures before he lost his hair.

 

I always send a letter of consultation to the patients and include some of the pictures that show patient's picture so he can go over it and discuss it with friends or family if need be.

 

2. Pre-op medications:

 

The injections are done in patient's deltoid muscle for its accessibility and safety. Patient usually receives two intramuscular injections: Midazolam, a short acting sedative, which induces sedation with minimal side effects for the first 30 to 60 minutes and Dexamethasone (steroid) that minimizes the swelling and redness after the surgery. I particularly use steroid for large procedures or for people who have history of severe bruising or redness after skin procedures if there is no contraindication for its use.

 

3. Donor closure:

 

I always use two layer closures for reducing the tension of the skin edges that can lead to reduced size of the final scar. For deep layer I use absorbable suture. For superficial layer, we have the option of using staples or suture. Since staples might not be as comfortable as suture, patients with less pain tolerance may choose sutures. Also I use absorbable suture for patients who may not be able to come back to our office at day 10 after their surgery for staple removal. The cosmetic end results comparison of scalp sutures vs. staples is not researched and they could be used interchangeably.

 

4. Local anesthesia:

 

I generally start with local infiltration of the combination of Lidocaine epinephrine and bicarbonate (for rapid onset anesthesia) and reinforce the initial anesthesia with the combination of Lidocaine 0.5% and Bupivacaine 0.25% for long lasting local anesthesia. I reinforce the local anesthesia about every 2 hours for complete pain relief during the whole procedure.

 

5. Covering large balding areas:

 

Even with mega sessions that we are able to do today, it is hard to cover the whole head in high classes of baldness V-VII. In order to get the most out of the limited number of grafts, surgeon can focus on one area (usually front) and leave the other areas to be dome in the future surgeries. For Bruce, we transplanted the whole head, but we used different densities in different areas.

 

We created a nice irregular hairline with single hair follicular unit graft. We dense packed the front. We used less density for top and even less for crown. For his crown we followed the natural orientation of hair on the swirl area. Since our single hairs were more to just be used for the hairline, we chose not to double up them on the crown so its thinning does not cause pluggy appearance in the area.

 

I would like to have patients involved in planning and designing of their hair before their hair transplant surgery. I educate them on the methods that should be used for the best appearance of their hair, but also let them to actively get involved with their needs and concerns. I also consider patient's special conditions. A patient, who may be working with the computer most of the times, may be more concerned with the crown coverage than a tall person who does not have a sedentary job.

 

 

Parsa Mohebi, M.D.

Medical Director

US Hair Restoration

Los Angeles, California

[Bill - Seemiller]

Dr. Mohebi,

 

Thanks for taking the time to answer not only our questions, but explain what a patient can typically expect during surgery with you.

 

I look forward to seeing some of your grown out results in the near future.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

[PLEASE GROW PLEASE]

Could you post some pics for us?

[Bill - Seemiller]

PGP,

 

Pictures of Bruce are above. Or are you referring to grown out pictures?

 

Because Dr. Mohebi started his own clinic in the last 7 or 8 months, he does not yet have any fully grown out results to present. Once he does, we may consider him for potential recommendation if the work is high quality and meets our standards.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

[Bruce65]

Hi guys,

 

I just added 2 new photos to my album showing the result after 11 days post-surgery.

 

I can be more happier than that. It's been already 11 days after my hair transplant and as you can see the result is perfect.

 

So far I haven't noticed a single hair loss yet but I am expecting that I might loose them within the next 3 months before they grow back.

 

The recipient area is not soar or swollen anymore and the scar on the donor area is healing smoothly. It still has some itching sensation on this part but hey it's only 11 days after surgery.

 

You are welcome to give your comments.

Thanks

Bruce

[Bill - Seemiller]

Bruce,

 

Things are looking good so far, but you can hardly call this the "result".

 

Most if not all of the transplanted hair will shed between 2 to 4 weeks and then slowly start to grow back around the 3rd to 5th month - and then slowly mature over the next year.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

[hairthere]

bruce, congrats on your surgery. you have a very long road ahead so be patient and good growing to you!

[Bruce65]

Thanks hairthere, I can not wait to see the final result. I know I have to be very patient.

[johnd2442]

wow, awesome immediate results - looks fantastic after just 11 days.

[BM]

Looks great. I am contemplating between getting a procedure done myself. Could you please post some updated pictures? Your pre-op pictures resemble my hair. This would really help me in my decision. Thank you !

[Bruce65]

Thanks johnd2442 & BM. I will be posting some new pictures soon.

 

As of today (1 month post-op), I almost shed 85% of transplanted hair as I was expecting. However I have this itching sensation under my scalp and my donor area which is a positive sign of some grow and healing.

[BM]

Bruce65-

 

Thank you so much. I can't wait to see the pics. I'm still in limbo if I should get the procedure done. Your experience(s) is what is helping me decide. I really appreciate it !

[Bruce65]

BM,

I just uploaded 2 recent pictures after 1 month post-operation. As you see I had all transplanted hair 10 days post-op but my doctor told me not to get too excited since I will be losing it pretty soon and the real grow will start in a few months. So I am just being patient and waiting to see as they will be blooming :-)

 

Don't postpone what you can get done today. I made this mistake to wait 3 or 4 years before going for HT. To be honest I was a little bit worried about the whole procedure (cutting the donor area, etc.) but It was a great experience.

[BM]

Bruce65-

 

Thank you so much for posting your pictures. I really hope you keep us updated on your progress.

 

I have decided to get the procedure done myself. I will be getting mine done by Dr.Ross in La Jolla on Thursday July 31st. We're estimating ~3500 grafts.

 

I will be posting a blog with my progress. I hope you keep yours updated so that I can see what to look forward to !

[Bruce65]

BM,

You will be in good hands with Dr. Ross. He was on the list of my favorite surgeons in South California. He is doing a great job and I am sure you will get a great result.

 

I will be updating my pictures on a monthly basis. Good luck with your surgery.

[Bruce65]

Hi guys,

 

I just added 2 new pictures showing 4 months after my HT.

It seems like the new hair has finally decided to come out :-) I really notice the difference since 2 weeks ago. It's amazing even my colleagues have been noticing the difference.

 

So far I am extremely happy with the result knowing that I still have 4 to 6 months to see the final result.

 

Bruce

[Bill - Seemiller]

Bruce,

 

Hallelujiah, they have risen .

 

It's exciting isn't it?

 

I'm very interested to see how it will turn out in several months.

 

Keep us posted.

 

Bill

[vincehair]

How much was the 3615 grafts? Early growth looking right on schedule

[Bruce65]

Hi guys,

I just uploaded 2 new photos showing the amazing result after just 5 months and half.

I have to say that the result at this stage is exceeding all my expectations.

I hope these pictures will convince people who are not yet familiar with Dr. Mohebi about his great artistic talent and professionalism in the world of HT.

 

My HT has been a great and amazing experience for me and so far no one has even noticed that I had a HT.