One day after my procedure with Drs. True and Dorin

[bestinthebusiness]

Well, I had my HT yesterday. Started at about 9am and I was finished at 4pm. The final graft count was 675, which I am very happy with. For more information on my reasons for going with such a low count, see my previous thread at:

 

http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/showthread.php?t=143518

 

Now, on to the procedure:

 

I would have to say Dr. True and Dorin were amazing. The level of comfort they provided me was great...both of them worked on me: Dr. Dorin administered the anesthesia and removed the donor area while Dr. True did the incisions. Finally, one of their assistants, Alex, put in the grafts. Everyone was absolutely fantastic. Their service is top notch. I watched MTV and ESPN during the procedure, which was a great distraction. Overall very little discomfort during the operation. Only a little pinching feeling when the anethesia was administered. The actual graft incisions felt weird, but my scalp was numb so there was no pain involved.

 

Today I woke up feeling pretty good, but the back of my head is pretty sore at the donor area. I'm taking my pain killers every 4-6 hours as needed and using ice packs once an hour for ten minutes.

 

As far as how everything looks...you can barely tell I had the procedure, because my existing hair covers up most of it. I will shower this afternoon and clean the sutures regularly so the scar heals well. I feel very positive about the fact that I can walk into work on Tuesday and the procedure will be virtually unnoticeable.

 

I will continue to update this thread. I'm so happy I went through with this. To me, the worst part is over and I think I was super nervous for no reason. I would recommend Drs. True and Dorin to anyone. I'm looking forward to seeing the results!!

 

Thanks to everyone on this forum. Although you may not have directly responded to my questions, the threads on here have been very useful and I don't think I would have been as informed and comfortable with the whole process were it not for the wealth of information you all have provided on here.

 

Here's to getting our hair back!

[nikkop23]

Congrats on a seamless procedure, but what is the rationale behind performing strip procedures for such a small number of grafts, and necessitating multiple surgeries just to get to 1300 or so (in your case)? This doesn't seem to be the state-of-the-art in current care; could Dr. True maybe speak to this, since I've seen him post here before? Why not do a FUE procedure here?

[John_in_NC]

I was going to post the same thing. I assume that cost is not the main issue; sure it's more expensive but as a lawyer he could've pulled it off :-). I suggest that you FUE the second time around; cutting your head open again for 600-700 FUs is not worth IMO. You might need to leave the hair a bit longer for FUE so the shaved area is covered, but there's no donor healing pain at all. The most you will get is some blood on the pillow the first night (I "dressed" the pillow with an old t-shirt,) and after a week, the holes are closed and the buzzed hair has grown enough to cover the procedure. If you lift your hair, at most people will see some redish dots and assume is mild rash, if they see anythign at all. After that, the holes will close, the redish color will dissappear and unless you shave your head no one will see them. Compare that to the pain and healing you go through with the scar. One can also resume full activities, includig weight lifting, running, or whatever after a few days with FUE.

 

I am extremely glad I went full FUE, despite paying about 2X as much. I just got a credit card and borrowed the FUE /Strip difference at 0% for a full year, even though I had all the money (mind trick to make me feel better ) This is for life, and not having to worry about people noticing the scar for the next 50-60 years is priceless--as masterCard would say.

 

 

Originally posted by nikkop23:

Congrats on a seamless procedure, but what is the rationale behind performing strip procedures for such a small number of grafts, and necessitating multiple surgeries just to get to 1300 or so (in your case)? This doesn't seem to be the state-of-the-art in current care; could Dr. True maybe speak to this, since I've seen him post here before? Why not do a FUE procedure here?

[bestinthebusiness]

Cost was not the issue. The concern was being able to return to work after the long weekend and have the procedure be virtually unnoticeable, which thankfully I can say is the case with my HT. I am not sure why the strip method was the preferred method for my HT, but when I go for my second HT one year from now I will consider FUE as an option. As of now, I am four days post-op, I have little pain and no complaints. Looking forward to seeing the results grow in.

[Dr. Robert True]

I'd like to answer the questions raised about why do such a small treatment and also why not with FUE

 

Such small treatments are an exception rather than the rule in our practice.

 

I always tell patients that it is in their best interest to do as much as possible in a single treatment. The general rule in my practice is to plan treatments in the 30-40 grafts per square centimeter and at 40 -50 per square centimeter for the hairline. I will scale back from this on a case by case basis when there is still a reasonable amount of hair in the area being transplanted or I may scale back on the size of treatment to minimize detection in the immediate post operative period.

 

A minority of patients want to be able to do treatment and go to work in a day or two without anything showing. They do not want to have to take anytime off and need to be absolutely assured that they will not be embarrassed by anyone noticing. This usually means that we have to confine treatment to areas that will be concealed by their existing hair. This was the case for the patient in this thread. His hair loss involved only the corners of the hairline and if we were to have done the full 1300 he would have not been able to conceal the grafts with his existing hair and would have been forced to take time off. So, I covered the inner portion of the recession in the first treatment. When this has grown we will be able to extent to the full hairline and he will again be able to hide this with his existing hair and not take any time off to avoid detection. My routine is to present both options and their associated pros and cons and let the patient do what is most comfortable.

 

FUE would have been an option is this case. I have been doing FUE as a routine procedure in my practice for the past four years and it is routinely discussed and presented as an alternative in our consultations and materials.

 

I do not think that FUE is the only correct choice for a small procedure. In the days of trichophytic closure, the ultimate amount of scarring and visible evidence of harvesting in the donor area is actually a bit more with FUE. Small treatments require very small donor incisions. These are very easy for patients to hide from day one. FUE sometimes is not as easy to hide from day one. Even though an FUE treatment may be small it is a mistake for the practitioner to concentrate the harvesting in too small of an area because the result will be that the patient will have a patch of notably less dense hair that frankly is detectable even to an untrained eye. To be truly undetectable FUE sampling should be dispersed throughout a fairly large area, and fairly broad area must be shaved. The hair often has to be worn longer to conceal the FUE sites for up to a month following the procedure. In many cases FUE is paradoxically more visible over the short term. Granted FUE presents slightly less postoperative discomfort (not great in such small procedures) and a few more activity restrictions for a week. It is important to keep in mind that FUE does not improve the appearance of the transplanted hair, and that to date there is no body of scientific literature that supports the yield with FUE to be as high as with FUT. There is, of course, a cost differential between FUE and FUT. All of these pros and cons need to be considered by each patient to make the best decision for them.

 

Please use the following URL to link to a weblog of photos that illustrate my points.

 

http://www.hairlossweblogs.com/home-page.asp?WebID=114

[bestinthebusiness]

Dr. True's response and weblog was most helpful. But again, all of this was explained to me by him at the time of my consultation. I believe I clarified in my previous thread that this was MY preferred choice of treatment based on MY specific situation. Whether it works for every individual is something to be decided on a case by case basis.

 

Based on my personal decision to bifurcate the HT into two smaller procedures I am able to walk into meetings with clients, the court room and my law firm with my initial HT virtually undetectable. Someone would have to get up fairly close to my head to see the grafts. There is absolutely no redness in the recipient area and the donor scar and stiching is covered up by my existing hair. I was fortunate to have my procedure done on the Friday before labor day, so I had the long weekend to recover and came back to work on Tuesday, day 4 post-op. By that time I felt much better and the pain had subsided enough that I could concentrate on work.

 

Again, if my situation were different I might choose a larger HT and knock it all out in one shot, but given my circumstances, I'm happy with the method I chose. I also did extensive research on FUE vs. strip and decided that for this procedure strip was my preferred method.

 

This board is a great support center and information bank for answering questions and revealing the mysteries or myths of transplants, but always remember when doing your research, you have to take into account what is best for YOU.

[MrJobi]

Hi

 

Just shows you the rationale a seasoned doctor takes with a individual. Mega sessions, FUE, and other "solutions" are not always the right strategy as many suggst.. Regardless of how informed some people ( myself included) on this site are, we are not PHD's. The coalition docs on here have all of the information and the individuals case history.. We do not always have all the facts. This doesn't mean we can't give our opinion but again we are just "Monday morning quarterbacks".

[brucewayne]

bestinthebusiness, Glad both your surgery and post-op experiences were positive ones. I must say I had the same experience last December w/ Dr. True & staff when I underwent my first HT. Initially, like you, I was a bit nervous but the staff at True & Dorin made me feel so comfortable and relaxed. The various stages of post-op were not a problem at all. Looking forward to checking back on this thread to see updates. Be well