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Dr Radha - 2707 grafts on 18/11/13


tinkz

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  • Regular Member

Hi All,

I would like to share my hair loss journey with fellow hair loss suffers.

 

I had the privilege of having my HT with Dr Radha of Visakhapatnam, India

 

About of info about me:

I’m an Aussie from down under (Australia) I have been suffering hair loss from the age of 19. I have been on Propecia for about six years which gave me a full head of hair again. After six years, I started bad side effects which affected my man hood….Not good! I stopped Propecia and used Rogaine which seemed to have stopped or slowed down my hair loss but definitely did not regrow any hair. After using Rogaine for about two years, I thought I’d see what my hair would be like without the use of Rogaine. In about a year after stopping Rogaine, I lost a lot of my hair from the front of my hair – refer to my pre op pictures.

Being a hair loss sufferer, it really affected me emotionally and physically, so I thought I’d do a search Google for a solution. I stumbled on this marvellous site and thanks to fellow hair loss sufferers, for sharing their hair loss journey; I felt really inspired and was on the search for a Dr that would perform my HT.

 

Research:

After looking over lots of HT results by patients, I found Dr Radha was highly praised and produced great results. I was truly inspired by one of Dr Radha’s patients – JacobG who has similar hair loss to me and is another fellow Aussie =) Jacob has offered me loads of support and advice..so thanks Jacob!

 

Inital contact with Dr Radha:

After contacting Dr Radha with photos my hair loss photos, I booked 18/11/13 for the date of the procedure. Dr Radha required $200AUD to secure the date. Just a FYI Dr Radha is extremely busy and it may take her upto a week to reply to emails…but be patient!

 

India Visa:

I applied for a Tourist Visa which approx cost $100 all up

 

Flights to and from Visakhapatnam:

I chose Singapore Airlines and SilkAir expect to pay approx $1135 to $1350 return

 

Hotel Accommodation:

I wanted something nice and comfortable, so I searched Tripadvisor and found Novotel Visakhapatnam which has excellent reviews. Novotel has a midday checkout, so I suggest a cheap hotel that you can spend 8 hrs while you wait for your 11pm departure. I stayed with Jukasotel Hotel. I probably wouldn’t recommend Novotel. I pretty much stayed in the room the whole time, as there is nothing that is walking distance other than the beach. I would recommend something that is close to restaurants and shops.

 

Things to buy/bring before the trip:

- Travel pillow

- Pain killers

- Sleeping tablets

- Snapback cap that sits high

- Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo

- Shirts with buttons that run top to bottom

 

The BIG DAY:

Dr Radha’s driver was unable to pick me up, so Dr Radha organised my transportation with the hotel staff. Dr Radha advised to be at her clinic at 8:30am

I was greeted by one of Dr Radha’s staff who provided me with some forms to fill out, slippers to wear, change of clothes for the procedure, washed my head and performed my blood test for HIV. At about 10:30 I met the famous Dr Radha which I must admit, I was kinda star struck LOL I guess it’s because I’ve been waiting 8+ months for this day.

Dr Radha took pictures of my head and I provided photos of what I use to look like before the hair loss. Dr Radha inspected my hair and to my disappointment she gave me some bad news; she said that I have a combination of things going against me such as: Caucasian skin colour with black asian hair( my hair grows like an afro) and very low density in the donor area (All my relatives on my mum’s side have hair low density) I was hoping for 4000+ grafts but she told me to expect only 2,500 grafts =( But on the upside she mentioned before the hair loss, I probably would of only had approx 4000 grafts, so with 2,500 grafts it is more than 50% of what I originally had =)

 

Procedure:

Strip removal took approx 2 hours and felt absolutely no pain during the removal of the strip. Had a quick lunch break and back to the operating theatre for the placement of the grafts. For the first Four hours, I ended up falling asleep but then woke up because of slight back pain. Graft placement took 5 hours. At the start, during and end of the procedure, Dr Radha and her staff were very friendly, professional and always checked on me to make sure I’m comfortable.

 

Donor Strip:

28cm long and narrow strip was removed

1 hair grafts: 1300

2 hair grafts: 1384

3 hair grafts: 23

 

1st night of sleeping:

I highly recommend a travel pillow, so that the travel pillow rests on your neck and not on the back of your head. Take sleeping tablets if you can acquire some.

 

1st day Post Op:

Dr Radha’s driver picked me up from the hotel for the 1st hair wash which was performed by Dr Radha’s assistant. Dr Radha checked on me and provided me with some Post Op instructions

 

Post Op Day 1 to 10:

I was extremely careful to not touch/knock my recipient area. I only wore a cap when going out in public. Slept as much as possible to help healing of donor area, and to avoid the possibility of something or someone touching/knocking my head.

 

About Dr Radha:

I found her to be very professional, friendly, down to earth and very caring about your health and well-being. I can see why people speak very highly of her and i would not hesitate to recommend her for people who are considering a FUT.

Edited by tinkz
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Awesome. Im booked with her for March. Cant wait to post my own results.

 

I have a question that maybe you could answer. I will be in India from March 9th to 15th. The day after I land I will be getting my procedure done(10th). I was planning to fly to Dehli a couple days after the procedure to see some of the sights and go to the Taj Mahal and then fly back to have my sutures removed (14th), then fly out the next day. Do you think I wil feel well enough to do this or am I just going to want to sit in my hotel room the entire time?

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Hi Builtforspeed,

 

I suggest you do the sightseeing and Taj Mahal visit, before your procedure with Dr Radha. I thought i'd be able to do some sightseeing around Vizag but i was wrong. I had trouble sleeping at night, as i was very uncomfortable and couldn't sleep at night. I found myself to be very short tempered, stressed and very protective of my recipient area. To me, it wasn't worth the risk of losing grafts for the sake of doing some sightseeing.

Dr Radha recommends removing the non dissolvable sutures (blue coloured) on day 5 post op - I had my local Dr remove the sutures.

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She is amazing.. Looking at the work in your pictures, it's brilliant, neat and perfect. I had FUT just for the better success rate and now due to Radha's brilliant stitching - wear a shaved on the sides look (#2) with absolutely no trace of the scar visually. It has been about 14 months since my op and I had less up top than you - I'm over the moon with my results and you will be too.

 

Glad I could be of help :)

 

Now comes that agonising time where the grafted hairs fall out bit by bit leaving a shiny, seemingly empty patch of your scalp. One thing I did notice early on (and to keep your spirits up) is that the hairs begin to grow actually quite fast, they just don't grow very long or dark initially. I could spot my growth with a torch on an angle to my scalp (similar to the way you do a scary torch-face for a horror story but further up) much earlier in the picture. Probably just about 2 months out it was visible. Prior to that I stressed that nothing would happen.

 

Radha doesn't have 'God' complex, she is constantly researching and watching other HT docs for good tips/ideas/breakthroughs. It's her intelligent, tried approach combined with her passion for the field that makes her among the best in the world. You could go locally and pay $40,000 or fly to the states and pay slightly less - but the results of many 'expensive' doctors don't match hers (by a long shot). I didn't choose Radha for her cost (though it was amazing compared) but rather watched her results for years and decided she was the best.

 

I'll upload some new pics at some point soon (my profile pic was taken about 4 weeks ago) - You're in for a journey of sorts.

 

It goes something like this (chronologically)

 

1) Sh** - this isn't working, it's all falling out and nothing's coming back

2) Mm I can see new fuzz coming through, but shouldn't it have all grown by now? It's 3 months

3) Wow.. there's a lot coming through.. probably not all of the transplants though

4) BOOM.. super thick crazy every-single-folicle-explosion

5) Reflecting on the best decision you ever made, you continue on like you never actually lost any hair and people quite often forget this forum as a result. Activate new life/sense of being.

 

Enjoy the journey.

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Jacob,

 

Yeah, having a HT is an emotional roller coaster but will be all worth it in the end.

 

It's a great feeling when you set important milestones with the hair transplant:

1) Booking the date of procedure

2) Flying out to have procedure

3) Day of procedure and seeing your newly placed hair =)

4) First wash

5) Removal of sutures

6) Relief you have reached post op day 10 - Grafts are anchored in scalp

and so on

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Hi

Yes i had my hair transplant with Doctor Radha the day after you. I was going to stay at the Novotel too but changed my mind as i figured i would not be able to do much but watch tv anyway.

I will follow your blog. 3 weeks and nothing fallen out yet. I'm going on Regaine tomorrow hoping this might help keeping some of the transplanted hairs

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  • Senior Member

very detailed write-up and looks like very clean work.

Heal well and good growing to you bro

go dense or go home

 

Unbiased advice and opinions based on 25 plus years of researching and actual experience with hair loss, hair restoration via both FUT & FUE, SMP, scalp issues including scalp eczema & seborrheic dermatitis and many others

 

HSRP10's favorite FUT surgeons: *Dr. Konior, *Dr Hasson, Dr. Rahal

HSRP10's favorite FUE surgeons: *Dr. Konior, *Dr. Bisanga, Dr. Erdogan, Dr. Couto

(*indicates actual experience with doctor)

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Hi

Yes i had my hair transplant with Doctor Radha the day after you. I was going to stay at the Novotel too but changed my mind as i figured i would not be able to do much but watch tv anyway.

I will follow your blog. 3 weeks and nothing fallen out yet. I'm going on Regaine tomorrow hoping this might help keeping some of the transplanted hairs

 

Hi Sooty202,

Hows your transplanted going? I'm at 28 days post op and my newly transplanted hairs are shedding a lot. I lost quite a lot of hair last Saturday night when i applied Toppik and hair spray. Usually the hair spray dissolves when i apply warm water but for some reason, the hair spray was hard to remove, even with hot water. As a result, i was lost a lot of new hairs :(

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  • Regular Member
very detailed write-up and looks like very clean work.

Heal well and good growing to you bro

 

Thanks for the feedback and encouraging words.

 

When writing my write up, i tried to make sure it was easy to read and informative.

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  • 1 month later...
  • Regular Member

Hello

All good so far . Going through the pimple stage at the moment; was probably the worst last week , very itchy. I don't think much hair fell out at all. I can feel it on the top of my head but not really see it. I guess it's around 9 weeks now so not expecting any growth for at least another 5 to 6 weeks. What about you?

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  • 4 months later...
  • Regular Member

Hi Ohnoo, Sorry about the late reply. I did travel with my fiancee but did not require her help when cleansing the recipient zone, i used the portable shower head and on low water pressure.

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  • 3 months later...

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