2700 grafts with Dr. Paul Shapiro

[Anant]

Hello Everybody ! This is my first post on this forum. August 1 is going to be a big day for me for years to come. I had my hair restoration procedure done on this day under the able hands of Dr. Paul Shapiro. I have organized my experience into three parts.See below.

 

Here is the link to my photos

 

The Bald Saga

[Anant]

Part 1 - Background

 

Before i go into the details about my procedure , i would like to give you some background about the whole stuff. I am currently 26 years old Male. Hair loss has been a real nuisance for me for since high school. I has already started noticing some thinning around the sides of the forehead. But because of my dark color hair and nice density around the top of my head, i always managed to do a good job covering up.Inspite of all the coverup, i was still quite conscious about it and would find myself every now and then trying to sort the hair with a slight brush of hand.

 

Over the last several months i started contemplating about getting a hair restoration procedure done sometime in the "future". When i was thinking about "future" i was actually thinking about several years down the line. I did not realize that i would actually take the plunge this quick. This summer i went to back home to India for vacation. Visited a lot of places and took a lot of photos. And when i uploaded them on my computer and saw them, i just got the shock of my life. I look myself in the mirror everyday, but the photos just showed me in a different light. I was a lot balder than i had realized. The cover up was not working any more and that was it.

[Anant]

Part 2 - Research and Initial Consultation

 

Back in U.S, i started doing some serious research about hair restoration and found this forum. This forum is really a fantastic place. I went through the experiences of many of you who had already gone through the procedure and was becoming quite prepared.

 

Fortunately for me , i live in the Minneapolis area and the Shapiro Medical Group is just a few miles away. I scheduled a consultation with Matt Zupan on July 7 . Matt explained me thoroughly the details of the procedure and we had an extensive 1 hr discussion about the number of grafts required, cost, financing etc etc. He took some preliminary photographs and drew a potential hairline on the photographs to show the amount of coverage i could recieve. My hairloss on the Norwood Scale was a 3a and he estimated somewhere between 2000-2500 grafts would be sufficient for me. Overall the consultation was very satisfying and reassuring and I was feeling quite confident about the whole thing. I have read a lot of positive comments about Matt Zupan on this forum and he is every bit as good as I have read, a true asset to Shapiro Medical Group.

 

My procedure was scheduled for August 24th with Dr.Paul Shaipro. I wanted the procedure from Dr. Ron Shapiro , but he had a long waiting period of around 3-4 months. Matt also assured me that Dr.Paul has been doing a great job in this area for some time now and I would have no problems whatsoever with him. To further assure me , he introduced me to Dr. Paul during the consultaion . He is a real nice guy quite reassuring . He took a preliminary look at my hair loss and volunteered to introduce me to his patient who was getting a procedure that day . This patient had a very similar degree of hair loss as I have. We had a small chat and told me that he told me that he was feeling very relaxed during the procedure with Dr. Paul. Overall , at the end of all this I was quite confident of moving along on the procedure with Dr. Paul Shapiro.

 

Around July 23rd I got a call from Matt saying that there was an open spot on August 1 ( the person who was originally scheduled for that day would not be able to make it on that day ) . I was more than happy to take his place and was suddenly bracing myself for the surgery in a week's time. Starting to feel a little nervous too.

[Anant]

Part 3 - The procedure

 

On August 1, I arrived at the clinic around 7.45 am. Jackie, the receptionist at SMG had me sign some of the forms and ordered the lunch for me.Dr Paul then came in and we went to his office. He drew a hairline on my forehead and asked me whether I liked it. After some discussion, we finally agreed on a modified hairline and I was all set for the surgery to begin.

 

The surgery began around 9 am. I was given some tablets (probably valium and pain killers) and local anesthesia was given to me at the back of my head. The anesthesia took some time to work on me as I could still feel the needle prick after a few minutes. After some more shots of anesthesia, the back of my head finally felt numb. It dawned upon me finally, why my friends use to joke about me as "thick headed". The strip was cut out and the assistants immediately set about the task of making the grafts. I was feeling a bit drowsy and decided to watch some movies.

 

Whilst the strip was being cut, Dr.Paul was making incisions on my scalp. By lunch time, he had made around 2500 incisions. I was informed that the strip at the back yielded around 2200 grafts and he asked me if I would like to have 200 more taken out from the donor area, as 2300 were looking to be quite good.

 

Greedy as I was, I decide to go for 200 more and had a small strip taken again in the afternoon. This strip was one hell of a dense strip and yielded another 400 + grafts. Dr Paul was very much involved with his assistants in inserting the hair grafts. Dr Ron Shapiro was also doing a procedure in the adjacent room and dropped in frequently to check the progress. He exclaimed that my hairline was starting to look really good and quite dense. My operation lasted a marathon 11 hours and I was finally done around 8.30 pm. A total of 2700 grafts were used. Hurrah!

 

Overall, I was feeling quite happy with how the day went. After a long time was I beginning to feel some sense of pride while looking at my hairline. I would really like to thank the folks at SMG. They have been really outstanding and are very professional in their work and have taken great care of me pre-operative and post operative.

 

I would also like to thank PAT and all the members of this discussion forum for their honest and insightful discussion on this topic. You guys have been great.

[so tired]

do they use lateral slit there by the way good luck did you get a discount from the ron shapiro price

[Anant]

I think they use that technique. I am not very sure about it however..There was a 50 cent per graft price reduction from the Ron Shapiro's price.

[slick old]

Congrats on a ht with Dr. Paul. I had surgery with him a little more than 2 months ago and the healing is going well. The scar is really starting to fade away. I'm sure you'll have an excellent result. Now comes the wait. Good luck!

[Anant]

Slick . Thanks for your good wishes. Your results look really good and the scar is practically invisible.

 

Actually I went extensively through yours and csofrank posts as you had done the HT procedure from Dr.Paul Shapiro.They were very helpful.

[waittosee]

Congrats on your procedeure anant. i'm curious though whether or not you are taking any medications like propecia and/or minoxidil. I must say i had a very similar hair loss to yours and the doctor I went for consultation insisted on me getting on medication for at least a year before deciding any surgery. so far i have responded to medication quite well and i don't think i need a surgery in near future. happy healing to you, all the best...

[Anant]

Hi waittosee. When i went in for the consultation, i was advised to get immediately onto propecia. While propecia has been known to arrest any further hair loss, its effect has been more pronounced on the crown part, rather than on frontal part where i have all my hair loss. I have been on propecia for 1 month now.

 

Its good to hear that you are getting good progress from propecia. I am quite curious to see your progress photos. By the way which doctor did you consult ?

[waittosee]

I consulted Dr. Bradley Limmer of San Antonio, TX. You can see my progress here

[troy]

your post op pics are amazing, You will be healed fast and back in action with little down time. congratulations to you.

[Midiman]

Anant...you were a great candidate for this and you chose your physician wisely. Good luck with your recovery and regrowth!

[Anant]

Troy and Midiman . Thank your very much for your encouraging comments.

 

I wish you both a flourishing head of hair too.

 

Its now almost 7 days post op and i am seeing some scabs and crusts form on my scalp. I have posted recent pictures..

 

Wanted some comments on my scab formation.. Does it look like this on everybody...or is it appearing to be too much..

 

Do i need to be more aggresive with removing scabs.

 

I have some hair falling off as i wash it.. but fortunately no grafts seem to have come out with washing ( haven't seen any blood so far).

 

Check out the pictures here.

 

My Bald Saga

[tkerr22]

Hey Anant!

 

It looks like you are going to have some great results!great hairline and great density! everything looks right on schedule, look for those transplanted hairs to shed in the next couple of weeks and on to the toughest part, the waiting game. It looks like you are having a little shockloss in the donor area? Is that true or just the pic? If so, I have that going on as well and is pretty normal, will grow back in a few months as well. Hang in there and once again you will have a nice head of hair in the near future!

[troy]

I followed my post op directions to a T and the scabbing came off quicky. I was told to softly with my fingers to rub the scabs and kinda massage them off. Call Matt and ask him about it too, but this worked for me.

[FacelessMan]

Anant,

 

Nice...looks like good work, and on top of that (no pun intended) you seem to have the kind of hair texture that will give you a lot of bang for the buck, graft-wise. I'm sure you'll be pretty happy when all that grows in!

 

I know what you mean about photos being a reality check; it wasn't until I did a set of "pre" photos that I realized what the scalp situation really was.

 

Grow well!

 

Benjamin

[receedinghairline]

hey anant

[Janna]

Hi Anant,

 

I remember that marathon day as I was in Dr. Ron's surgery room working on a 3100gr. case.

 

A question was raise by "so tired" a while back as to whether Dr. Paul used lateral incisions on you. The answer to that is "no". Dr. Paul uses acute sagital incisions only. He follows the direction of the existing hairs to determine the angle and direction. Our clinic has done extensive comparisions on both types of incisions to see which is more beneficial. The study is still ongoing, however, in Dr. Paul's opinion (and mine) there does not seem to be any difference after couple years worth of observations. Utilizing very small blades with proper angle for the incisions seem much more of a determining factor in getting great results.

 

Thanks for posting all your pictures, you did a great job! Good luck to you.

[NikkiJ]

I'm wondering what types of blades were used in the study. Were chiseled cut blades used?

 

The reason for my question is because a chiseled cut blade mimics the hair follicle perfectly because the bulb on the end of the follicle is fatter, and with sharp pointed blades it is not a perfect fit, and so the study cannot be precise for that is not a true lateral slit.

 

In your study were you using sharp pointed blades? Often time's clinics that are comparing the two use sharp pointed blades instead of chiseled cuts so the study is skewed.

 

Also, what size blade are you using in this study. To see the true benefit of a lateral slits it must be a high-density case; you are only able to achieve this if the blade is less than 1 millimeter.

 

In order to perform an accurate study you must use the same equipment as that of Hassan and Wong, among others to make a true assessment.

[Janna]

Hi NikkiJ,

 

Dr. Shapiro actually uses the same chiseled blades as Dr. Wong. We have the same blade cutter, etc. The size he uses are the same as Dr. Wong's. The area of the study is always in the same area. I personally did not see any difference from one type of incision over the other. The study was mostly done in the central area of the head where most density is required. Same size incision for lateral and sagital incisions were made. Dr. Shapiro started making lateral incisions because it made sense to him that lateral incisions would bring about a greater look of density. I compare our work with Dr. Wong only since I have not seen for myself Dr. Hasson's work, though I've heard he is basically the same as Dr. Wong.