Dr. Lindsey 3922 up front McLean VA

[Dr. William Lindsey]

This nice young man was in last week for “amap—as much as possible” which turned out to be 3922 grafts. He is an avid snowboarder and actually called me a few years ago when I was on the Snowbird tram to discuss surgery dates. It took a bit longer for him to commit, but he had an easy case and had very dense hair. Surprisingly he had very little swelling postop and other than needing to do a bit more cleaning, he looks fine.

Normally I’d wait a bit to post this, but he said he’d like to put comments up so I’ll post this early and hopefully we’ll get pictures through next Christmas when he’s grown in.

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

[NEWHAIRPLEASE]

Dr Lindsey

Looks great as usual...Just curious..AMAP was 3922?? You stated he had very dense hair..was his laxity good or bad? Does he have plenty of grafts left for crown work??

[Nish]

I'm the patient in the above pictures, and thought I would share my thoughts on Dr. Lindsey, his staff and my general thoughts on HT. You should be able to distinguish my comments against Dr. Lindsey and HT in general.

 

Quick Summary:

Although my procedure was only on 12/15/11, I can say that I highly reccomend Dr. Lindsey and his staff. Everything pretty much went as he stated and my recovery was pretty easy (hopefully I am still feeling this way a year from now, haha).

 

 

Detailed Summary:

I guess I have the Norwood 5A hair loss pattern. I consulted with Bosley (Bethesda, MD) about 2.5 yrs ago and wasn't really impressed by their business model. I wasn't serious about HT at the time, so I pushed it off. I then found this site, among others, and quickly learned that I should stay away from Bosley. I live in the Washington DC Area - all the research I found pointed to Dr. Lindsey as the best.

 

General Thoughts, Positives and Negatives:

- Dr. Lindsey and his staff are great. I'm a talker and we were joking around throughout my HT and I was even taking videos and pics during the HT.

 

- The way Dr. Lindsey described the HT, was exactly how it went. The process started around 8:00 am and I was out by about 5:30pm. It took alittle longer for me because I had lunch and he was able to do 3922 grafts! The toughest part, which isn't really tough is getting the novicane shots. You don't feel the strip extraction!

 

- Dr. Lindsey is direct and honest. Some people may not appreciate his "directness", but I liked it and am accustomed to it as I work in a very competitive corporate environment. During my procedure, he'll ask if he can bring potential patients back to show them what a procedure looks like. There was one guy, where Bosley indicated they could do 3000 grafts, but Dr. Lindsey basically told him that he couldn't help him because he didn't have strong donor hair, etc.

 

- There was some pain towards the end of the procedure in the recipient area, but as soon as I let Dr. Lindsey know, he gave me a shot of numbing medicine and the pain was gone within 5 mins.

 

- Recovery was a breeze. The toughest part was the drive home, as I had all the medications kind of working together and I was alittle nauseous, but that went away once I was home.

 

- You will experience some pain post HT, which comes mainly from the donor area. I found the Pain medicine he prescribed to completely knock out any pain. Sleeping wasn't bad either - my trick was to roll a small towel up and put it under my neck so the donor area wouldn't touch the pillow - this helped...ALOT!

 

- Pain was gone by the third day after my transplant. I probably wouldn't have had any pain if I took my pain medicine more regularly.

 

- After a few days you will notice alot of dry scalp. I followed Dr. Lindsey's post op procedures fairly closely and within 8-9 days after the procedure, there wasn't any dry scalp as I had removed most of the flakiness.

 

- I did lose two grafts. One I lost on the third day post HT (this was my fault) and surprisngly I lost one on the eight day post HT. Losing it on the 8th day was actually comforting, and this is why. When you lose a graft, you immediatly know you lost a graft, as you'll have a fair amount of blood pour out. This is comforting because from the day after my procedure until now, I have noticed hair on my hands after I rub my hands through my head or on my headband after a workout, but there is never any blood so this is shock loss or just the transplanted hairs naturally falling out. Since I had 3922 grafts planted, I wasn't very worried about a couple coming out :-)

 

- I would say that I didn't realize Dr. Lindsey wouldn't be able to go further back in my head. I knew he wasn't going to be able to do the crown area, but I thought he was going to be able to go a bit further back. You should set expectations for yourself. If you are like me, you're likely going to need two procedures for full coverage. When I followed up and looked at other doctors picture posts on this forum, I did see that most of them were only able to cover the front and not go into the crown area at all. I am considering a second HT, but am gonna go on Minoxidil, and Nizoral Shampoo for the next 6-8 months and see how that goes for my crown area.

 

- Two days ago I buzzed my hair down to a #2. Honestly, no one can notice I've had a transplant other than the donor scar area, which is actually healing up very nicely as I'm even surprised since I tend to scar very easily. I would say a #3 might have been better to cover the scar as it heals, but I honestly don't even mind that much.

 

- I began my normal workouts (kickboxing class - only hitting a bag and no sparring, high intensity weight lifting and cardio) about 9-10 days post HT. I hope to go snowboarding pretty soon...

 

If you're on the fence about getting a hair transplant and have the money, I would say go for it. My only regret is that I didn't do this a year ago when I first met with Dr. Lindsey. At the time I was mainly concerned with how I would look immediately after and the weeks after, but so far so good. I went on a date this past weekend if that tells you anything. And don't forget, like Dr. Lindsey says, "Hair is like Sex and Money, you needs lots of it!"

[Dr. William Lindsey]

Great post. I'll look forward to your scar check and pics tomorrow.

 

Dr. L

[byron]

what are the white marks on his head?

[Dr. William Lindsey]

Those are the dermis (light colored no matter what color your skin is) of the grafts that is slightly out of the recipient slits. You don't see this in light skinned people, but its really noticable in darker people.

 

Think of planting a small tree. The skin is the little place on the trunk that you don't want below the grass or the tree will die. So we place the hair similarly, with the skin level slightly above the recipient skin--so no skin gets trapped and forms cysts. As a result, a little of the dermis, or tissue below the skin, is visible. Just like when you plant a tree, the graft settles down into the hole a little the first day. So when you look at his pics, the singles at the edge of the hairline really don't show any dermis and the last grafts placed at the back edge show more. A few hours later and very little is seen.

 

Good question.

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

[Dr. William Lindsey]

Here are approximately 4 month pictures. It may be my imagination...but he looks a little thicker up front than the hairline was preop. Anyway, its likely to be June before any significant growth starts...and next Christmas when he is looking really good.

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

[Dr. William Lindsey]

Here are 5 month pics. He stopped by Friday and we were doing almost exactly the same case on a similar guy. I think he's starting to get a little growth and his scar is a bit better, maybe a "B+" now.

 

First pics are 4 months second group from Friday.

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

[Dr. William Lindsey]

Here are 7 month pics. Starting to thicken up now. Next pics around Thanksgiving.

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA