Let me take a minute to share some of my history with you. As of this writing I am 39 years old and I live in Los Angeles. My hair loss started at the age of 22 and slowly progressed. All of the younger guys reading this, trust me, I know how you feel and believe me when I tell you that there is hope for a good set of hair on most of you. Anyways, I always was self conscious about my receding hair line and in the early 90’s started to interview doctors within the general Los Angeles Area. You name them, I can tell you I had interviewed them, I have been to Bosley, Dr. Wolf, Dr. Meshkin, Dr. Rassman, Medical Restoration Center, and many others which I do not recall. Looking back, I was so lucky not to have a surgery done at that time because If I had I most probably would have doll hair plugs sticking out my head.
So at the age of 35 I got married and settled down with my beautiful wife. I started to truly notice I was losing my hair at the age of 36. It was pointed out to me by someone at my work since he was my upstairs neighbor looking down at my crown area.
I decided then and there to stop my hair loss and change my appearance forever, to the better. So, again I started my research online for months. I read articles, visited websites and talked to patients. In my research one name came up over and over again, “Hasson and Wong” based out of Vancouver Canada. . In almost every forum they had positive reviews over and over again from patients who had transplant procedures done by either Dr. Wong or Dr. Hasson. After 4 months of research I decided that Hasson and Wong was the one for me. Why did I decide on Surgeons out of the United States? Simple, they were one of the best, if not the best in the entire world and a Hair transplant is a life changing surgery. You cannot hide a hair transplant, once it is done thats it, your stuck with it for life. So, traveling 3.5 hours from where I lived to their office to have transplant work done by the best was a no brainer for me. I would travel to China if the best doctors were located there.
But which physician, Dr. Wong or Dr. Hasson? Everywhere I read they both had equally good reviews, one did not stand over the other in their skills or practices as a surgeon. One day, I read Jatronics blog, who is a past patient of Dr. Wong’s and who also works for Hasson and Wong presently. On his site he described in detail his own hair loss experiences and why he chose Dr. Wong and his entire transplant procedure with Dr. Wong. After reading that post, I decided Dr. Wong was the one for me. I made my first contact to Hasson and Wong by email, actually my entire hair transplant consultation was done online. I sent in a couple of photographs of my current hair loss status and Dr. Wong made an educated guess as to how many grafts I would need and how much the total cost of the surgery would be. I told him I wanted the maximum possible, which we agreed on to be approx 3800 grafts the cost at that time was approx $11,000., which to me was o.k., since most surgeons here in Los Angeles where double that amount, Also, the airfare and hotel where also included. Hasson and Wong pay for 2 full days of room and airfare. We were given a great room and at the great Granville Hotel on Granville Island in Vancouver. My wife and I decided to make it a short holiday for ourselves.
When we arrived at Vancouver in mid 2004 we went directly to our hotel at the Granville. We unpacked and had brunch, and since I insisted to meet Dr. Wong in person for a face to face consultation before the surgery, we then left for Hasson and Wong a day before the surgery. My wife and I met with Joe Tillman and Dr. Wong that afternoon which turned out to be more that what I expected. We talked about how the surgery will take place, the donor scar, my donor density and so on. It was a great meeting which helped me to prepare for the upcoming surgery the next day at 6:00am. My wife and I went back to our hotel and had a great dinner and relaxed.
On the day of the surgery, I really was nervous and reality settled in. Believe me when I tell you right before going in to have my donor area taken, I was having a panic attack, my heart was beating and I was telling my self , if this goes wrong I will be scared for life. Nobody knew this was happening, except my wife and she calmed me down by telling me that she had absolutely no doubts that the procedure would be done correctly. So I laid down in the chair and Dr Wong walked in gave me some anesthesia and started to cut my donor area out. Now let me tell all, I have a low tolerance of pain and I can honestly say that going to the dentist is more painful, I personally did not feel any pain whatsoever when Wong was cutting my donor area. After the donor area was taken, I was stapled up and taken to another room for harvesting. They had some 6-8 nurses, not including Dr. Wong harvesting the implants which took 10-12 hours. We started at 6:30am and were done by 4:00pm. I watched 2 dvd movies, “The Lord of The Rings” ,talked to Dr. Wong, talked to the nurses, my wife and had sushi for lunch. I did all that as the implants were being harvested. There was absolutely no pain. After the surgery was complete I was given some pain killers, given a hat, paid, thanked everyone for their precision and professionalism and went back to the hotel. We left for Los Angeles the following morning. The next day my face swelled up due to Anesthesia medication which was inserted in my head to numb the transplant area.
This swelling lasted 1 day after which the transplanted area was red for about 2-4 weeks. This redness of the transplanted area depends on individuals skin completion. If one is white and pale skinned like myself, the redness lasts longer, if one is tanned and dark skinned the redness may not even be noticeable. All donor transplanted hair fell off within 10 days. The next phase which lasts approx 3-6 months is the resting phase. I started seeing hairs pop out in around the 4-5 month mark which was amazing for a guy who before this was going bold every year. By the 8-10 month I noticed a whole new me with a whole new set of hair, absolutely amazing. For the first time in 10 years I can use a brush not a comb to brush my hair. Visit my website for before and after pics.
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Source by Rick Saroukhanian
