Long hair FUT/FUE at The Maitland Clinic (10/6/16)

[Postdoc]

With two FUT procedures at Hasson & Wong under my belt (2012: 4400 grafts; 2014: 2500 grafts), I’d rather hoped that that would be it, but, as everyone tries to warn you, MPB isn’t something that just stops being a problem, even after two HTs. The main thing that concerned me was growing reliance on ‘hairy dust’ (Caboki fibres) to thicken up the crown. Without it, I felt a little exposed, particularly when someone was standing behind me. Returning to Vancouver for a third HT didn’t fill me with much enthusiasm, so I decided to explore closer to home, which is now rural Kent rather than North London.

 

I was interested to see Dr Edward Ball’s name and The Maitland Clinic cropping up on various websites with very positive reports and results. It was also intriguing that David Anderson had decided to end his role as Hasson & Wong’s patient advisor and join up with The Maitland Clinic instead. So, after an initial, 30 minute Skype call with Dr Ball, I arranged to meet up with him and David in their Harley Street rooms for a consultation. This proved to be an excellent, unhurried opportunity to look at what I’d had done before and to consider options for a third procedure. My original idea was to have FUE, but Dr Ball thought that FUT would be better and still leave me the option of FUE in the future. It’s worth pointing out that both David and Dr Ball have undergone HTs themselves, and there’s a complete lack of any hard sell. One thing I decided as a result of the meeting was to start on finasteride in the hope of holding back any future hair loss. I’d been on dutasteride prior to the first HT, but I’d weaned myself of it following the second HT because of side effects. Dr Ball also recommended Viviscal, which I’ve been taking since meeting up, although the evidence for it isn’t exactly convincing.

 

Travelling to Portsmouth from Kent is best done by car and takes about an hour and three-quarters. The alternative of a train up to Victoria and then down to Portsmouth on the troubled Southern Rail network wasn’t attractive. As with any surgery, it’s best to avoid stress prior to the procedure! Having booked into the nearby Marriott hotel, I walked the route to and from 1000 Lakeside North Harbour so that I knew exactly where to go the following morning. There’s actually a faster route that goes directly into the Lakeside North Harbour campus and it avoids walking alongside the busy Western Road. The Marriott hotel is as comfortable a place to stay as any big chain hotel and they’re used to having Maitland Clinic patients stay. My concern about coming down to dinner and breakfast post-op proved unfounded, as the lighting is on the dark side of subtle.

 

1000 Lakeside North Harbour is a large, modern building and The Maitland Clinic is on the 2nd floor, occupying part of the space taken by a cosmetic medicine clinic called Changes. There’s a pleasant view out of the windows, although it doesn’t quite match the Vancouver sky-line. Only one HT procedure is carried out each day, which creates an unhurried and relaxed atmosphere where the patient is the sole focus. The beginning of the procedure is agreeing what needs to be done and then consenting to it. Dr Ball is extremely thorough and professional in this respect, but he also has an engaging personality that makes it easy to relate to him.

 

The room where the procedure is carried out is workman-like, with the usual dissecting microscopes and couch, but there’s a view of woodland and a flatscreen TV for watching movies. FUT starts with injection of local anaesthetic and excision of the strip. In my case, because of two previous procedures, Dr Ball carried this out very cautiously and the entire extraction process, including two layers of sutures (internal absorbable and external ones) actually took 2 hours. In addition to the 1200 grafts from the FUT strip, Dr Ball decided to use long hair FUE to harvest a further 300 grafts. I was hugely impressed by his meticulous approach at FUE, which involved trimming every other hair in the nape region below where the strip was excised and then using an almost silent motorised punch. I can now completely understand why ARTAS robots are gathering dust!

 

The rest of the twelve-hour session was spent with Dr Ball making incisions and Janna Shafer and the rest of the team implanting grafts. Twelve hours might sound a long time for a relatively small procedure, but like the FUE excisions, the implanting was done without any shaving of the recipient area. One thing I appreciated greatly is that Dr Ball was hands on throughout the long day and adopted a dynamic approach to adding hairs here and there as well as to the areas we’d discussed previously. It was also great to have David Anderson drop by in the afternoon to check how things were going.

 

When everything was completed, I was handed a generous goody bag, which included medication (antibiotics for five days, steroids for three days, analgesia for three days), liposomal ATP spray (to help graft viability), a neck pillow (too hard, I’m afraid!), a jar of Vaseline and gloves (for the sutures), pillow protectors and an extremely helpful management plan for the week post-op.

 

Back at the Marriott, I felt sufficiently normal looking to brave the restaurant for a late dinner without wearing anything on my head. I’d never have done that after the H&W procedures! Not surprisingly, sleep that night didn’t come easy and I flitted between the bed with double pillows and trying to sleep upright in a chair. Come the morning, I was glad I’d booked a taxi to take me back to Kent. Driving oneself or going by train wouldn’t have been either safe or fun.

 

Overall, I’ve got nothing but praise for The Maitland Clinic. Dr Ball is exceptional at what he does and he’s also a very nice guy. Janna Shafer and the rest of the team work incredibly well together and help to make the experience of lying on the couch for protracted periods of time as pleasant as it realistically could be. The bottom line is that the UK now has a hair transplant clinic that’s up there with the best in the world and I’d strongly recommend it to anyone considering surgery.

 

I've attached a 2012 photo showing my NW5A state plus three pics from just before the consultation with Dr Ball and David Anderson. More to come ...

 

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[Postdoc]

Various pre-op photos and one post-op photo added. The main area of concern was the crown which received about 1000 grafts. Other areas addressed were above the old H&W scars and behind the hairline.

[DavidAnderson]

Thanks for the excellent write up Post Doc and I am glad to hear you had a good experience with all at The Maitland Clinic. I look forward to following your progress.

 

PS we have ordered new neck pillows now.