Hey. I just got my second transplant done, and I wanted to share my experiences with those of you who are looking into the procedure.
First of all, the procedure itself is fairly easy, and not especially painful.
The first few days after, however, can be quite painful at both the graft site, and the donor site. You can avoid the pain, by taking lots of the painkillers they give you, but I would not recommend "going back to work the next day" as some of the facilities suggest. Best to take a week off to recover. There is a decent amount of pain involved in recovery.
Also, here is the point I want to make very clear to people.
ONE SESSION IS NOT ENOUGH.
Hair transplantation is fairly expensive, and I think a lot of people with hair loss are willing to pay almost anything for a soloution. But I think most people think they can get away with one session, and then they will be done. This is not the case. They can only put new grafts so close together. So when you get the results from your first session, you will notice that they are not very close together. This is not as bad as a "pluggy" look, but people will still notice that something is wrong. Normal hair is fairly close together. But regardless, you will be happy at the improvement. But my guess, is that you, like me, will keep looking at the "thin" hair, with the wide spacing, and want more density. So I would recommend budgeting for *two* treatments. Preferably in a close timeframe to each other. So instead of saving $5000 for 1000 grafts, save $10,000 for 2000 grafts, and do two sessions of 1000 grafts each. Otherwise you will end up feeling just as uncomfortable looking in the mirror, and you will tend to wear caps all the time, and people will assume you are "balding", if not totally "bald".
Those warnings aside, I would still say that transplantation is the way to go. After a week of discomfort, all you have to do, is watch the hair grow, and then deal with it just like your old hair. You just can't have a total buzz cut, because you may see the scar at the back.
But I just did not want people to get in the trap of thinking they would save all their money for the minimum procedure, and then be dissapointed, because it does not look "normal". If you want normal looking hair, you will need to do at least 2 procedures in the same area to achieve thick density.
First of all, the procedure itself is fairly easy, and not especially painful.
The first few days after, however, can be quite painful at both the graft site, and the donor site. You can avoid the pain, by taking lots of the painkillers they give you, but I would not recommend "going back to work the next day" as some of the facilities suggest. Best to take a week off to recover. There is a decent amount of pain involved in recovery.
Also, here is the point I want to make very clear to people.
ONE SESSION IS NOT ENOUGH.
Hair transplantation is fairly expensive, and I think a lot of people with hair loss are willing to pay almost anything for a soloution. But I think most people think they can get away with one session, and then they will be done. This is not the case. They can only put new grafts so close together. So when you get the results from your first session, you will notice that they are not very close together. This is not as bad as a "pluggy" look, but people will still notice that something is wrong. Normal hair is fairly close together. But regardless, you will be happy at the improvement. But my guess, is that you, like me, will keep looking at the "thin" hair, with the wide spacing, and want more density. So I would recommend budgeting for *two* treatments. Preferably in a close timeframe to each other. So instead of saving $5000 for 1000 grafts, save $10,000 for 2000 grafts, and do two sessions of 1000 grafts each. Otherwise you will end up feeling just as uncomfortable looking in the mirror, and you will tend to wear caps all the time, and people will assume you are "balding", if not totally "bald".
Those warnings aside, I would still say that transplantation is the way to go. After a week of discomfort, all you have to do, is watch the hair grow, and then deal with it just like your old hair. You just can't have a total buzz cut, because you may see the scar at the back.
But I just did not want people to get in the trap of thinking they would save all their money for the minimum procedure, and then be dissapointed, because it does not look "normal". If you want normal looking hair, you will need to do at least 2 procedures in the same area to achieve thick density.