H
HT2021
member
Hi All,
I had an FUE procedure with Dr Arshad and his team at the Hair Dr Clinic in Dewsbury, Leeds, on 13th January 2021. This forum was an absolutely monumental help when it came to educating myself about hair transplants, encouraging me to proceed, researching clinics, preparing me for the post-op period, etc - so I really wanted to share my account and hopefully help other people in turn. I’ll try to add any details that I think of that might help fill in gaps, (so apologies in advance if this becomes tediously long) – and I’ll try to keep this thread updated over time with progress pictures and answer questions that come up, because I know how helpful those were for me.
I am 32, and first noticed that I was starting to lose hair at around 18. For most of the time since, I’d always had the idea of a hair transplant in the back of my mind, but it was pretty much just a pipe dream until I started giving it serious consideration towards the end of last year, when lockdown isolation made it suddenly start to seem like the ideal time to do it. On the basis of my research and personal preferences (and I was absolutely indebted to years’ worth of hugely informative and generous posts on this forum), I had narrowed it down to the Hair Dr, Dr Tam, and Harley Street Hair Clinic; in the end I went with the Hair Dr based on the sheer volume of positive accounts from patients there (it also happened to be the most affordable of the three, but I tried to focus more on the quality of the work rather than the financial aspect when picking a clinic). (For what it’s worth, the WhatsApp video consultations I had with the Hair Dr and Harley Street Hair Clinic were free; and the video consultation with Dr Tam was £60, although he does also offer a free pre-assessment on his website where he will review and annotate your photos and share his initial thoughts, which certainly helped guide my thinking in the early stages). My area of concern was my hairline, as you can see below:
I live in London, so I stayed in an apartment in Leeds for 2 nights for the procedure itself at the Hair Dr clinic. The clinic do have an affiliation with the nearby Holiday Inn where you can get a 15% discount, but I personally preferred to have a place with a kitchen so I could prepare my own meals and not have to worry about hotel mealtimes. The clinic can also provide a letter confirming that you are travelling for a medical procedure, which you can provide to your accommodation to justify your travel during the pandemic. I asked for this letter but didn’t actually end up needing to show it to anyone, but it was reassuring to have – you don’t want to book accommodation for a hair transplant and then end up worrying that they’re going to cancel it on the grounds of non-essential travel!
I was asked to arrive at the clinic at 7am, and despite my nerves I was immediately put at ease when I arrived. I was soon taken to meet Dr Arshad where we discussed my hair loss history and my expectations, before he got to work drawing on a provisional hairline. The original video consultation had suggested that I would need 2,000 grafts, but Dr Arshad immediately concluded that I would probably need another 500 – I was able to pay for these extra grafts there and then (the clinic charge £3 per graft).
The dreaded head shave was surprisingly un-traumatic (made a lot easier by the wonderful clinic technicians who make every stage as comfortable as possible), and then I changed into the gown provided. (The clinic advise you to wear comfortable joggers/tracksuit bottoms and slippers, and to only wear button-up shirts and hoodies after the procedure, as opposed to t-shirts or jumpers that may disturb the grafts when you put them on or take them off, so make sure you bring these with you if you’re staying overnight).
The day is broken into 3 stages: injections followed by extractions; creation of channels for the new grafts; and then the implantations of the grafts. The injections/extractions involve lying on your stomach with the face through a hole in the table as all the work at thus stage is on the back of your head. The anaesthetic injections were, for me personally, very unpleasant. I’d somehow had the wrong impression that there was just one big injection to get through, but in fact there must have been 30-40 over about 3 minutes or so, and it wasn’t until the very end of those that they began to get less painful. From that point on there was very little discomfort (and I’m sure there are plenty of people who find the injections a breeze), so I certainly wouldn’t want to put people off – but it’s probably best that future patients are prepared for it to be difficult.
I think the extractions session lasted around an hour and a half overall, over two sessions. I then had a quick break for some toast and snacks, and then Dr Arshad began creating the channels (which felt like shallow lines being carved across the top of my head) and then punching the holes (which sounded like the sound when you hole punch a big stack of paper – a very strange sound to hear coming from your own head). This lasted around an hour too I think, before I was given lunch, which the clinic provide from a local café.
For the first two sessions you are unable to use your phone or listen to headphones etc, but for the implantations session, you lie at a 30 degree angle facing the TV, and you can watch Netflix on the TV or just listen to headphones. This session begins with further anaesthetic injections to the front of the head, which were still not pleasant, but were far less painful for me than the earlier ones. This final session took around 3 hours or so, it wasn’t painful at all but lying in the same place for so long got a little uncomfortable, and I found myself fidgeting towards the end. But ultimately, apart from the injections and the general weariness from such a long day, the entire procedure was a million times more comfortable than I expected beforehand. Again, this has a lot to do with Dr Arshad’s team of technicians, who are so friendly, positive, cheerful, supportive and helpful, and make you feel like nothing is too much trouble.
Once this was complete, it was just a case of having a short debrief at the end to go over some post-op guidance and watch an aftercare video, and then it was time to leave. The clinic provide you with a bag full of various medications, ointment, shampoo, a spare bandage, and saline spray with a sprayer. They also very helpfully provide you with a chart to help you remember to use the various sprays and medications, which is an absolute godsend. I had phone reminders going off relentlessly for the whole week, but it’s well worth it to know that you’re doing all you can to protect your new grafts.
I was incredibly paranoid about anything touching my new grafts, so even though the general advice is to sleep at a 30 degree angle with 3 stacked pillows and a travel pillow, I decided to err on the side of caution and actually sleep sitting upright, which was…not all that easy. I’m not saying that this is the best way to sleep it by any means, but I was so concerned about anything disturbing my grafts that I wanted to massively err on the side of caution! I brought some extra pillows with me for the trip, (and also brought my own pillow cases, to avoid inadvertently bleeding over the pillows provided in the apartment), so I ended up sleeping with an arrangement like this:
Well done for making it to what turned out to be an essay! I'll add a little recap of my progress since the operation shortly (it's now day 10), and I'll try and keep this thread updated with slightly more concise updates as time goes on, but if you have any questions then please feel free to ask!
I had an FUE procedure with Dr Arshad and his team at the Hair Dr Clinic in Dewsbury, Leeds, on 13th January 2021. This forum was an absolutely monumental help when it came to educating myself about hair transplants, encouraging me to proceed, researching clinics, preparing me for the post-op period, etc - so I really wanted to share my account and hopefully help other people in turn. I’ll try to add any details that I think of that might help fill in gaps, (so apologies in advance if this becomes tediously long) – and I’ll try to keep this thread updated over time with progress pictures and answer questions that come up, because I know how helpful those were for me.
I am 32, and first noticed that I was starting to lose hair at around 18. For most of the time since, I’d always had the idea of a hair transplant in the back of my mind, but it was pretty much just a pipe dream until I started giving it serious consideration towards the end of last year, when lockdown isolation made it suddenly start to seem like the ideal time to do it. On the basis of my research and personal preferences (and I was absolutely indebted to years’ worth of hugely informative and generous posts on this forum), I had narrowed it down to the Hair Dr, Dr Tam, and Harley Street Hair Clinic; in the end I went with the Hair Dr based on the sheer volume of positive accounts from patients there (it also happened to be the most affordable of the three, but I tried to focus more on the quality of the work rather than the financial aspect when picking a clinic). (For what it’s worth, the WhatsApp video consultations I had with the Hair Dr and Harley Street Hair Clinic were free; and the video consultation with Dr Tam was £60, although he does also offer a free pre-assessment on his website where he will review and annotate your photos and share his initial thoughts, which certainly helped guide my thinking in the early stages). My area of concern was my hairline, as you can see below:
I live in London, so I stayed in an apartment in Leeds for 2 nights for the procedure itself at the Hair Dr clinic. The clinic do have an affiliation with the nearby Holiday Inn where you can get a 15% discount, but I personally preferred to have a place with a kitchen so I could prepare my own meals and not have to worry about hotel mealtimes. The clinic can also provide a letter confirming that you are travelling for a medical procedure, which you can provide to your accommodation to justify your travel during the pandemic. I asked for this letter but didn’t actually end up needing to show it to anyone, but it was reassuring to have – you don’t want to book accommodation for a hair transplant and then end up worrying that they’re going to cancel it on the grounds of non-essential travel!
I was asked to arrive at the clinic at 7am, and despite my nerves I was immediately put at ease when I arrived. I was soon taken to meet Dr Arshad where we discussed my hair loss history and my expectations, before he got to work drawing on a provisional hairline. The original video consultation had suggested that I would need 2,000 grafts, but Dr Arshad immediately concluded that I would probably need another 500 – I was able to pay for these extra grafts there and then (the clinic charge £3 per graft).
The dreaded head shave was surprisingly un-traumatic (made a lot easier by the wonderful clinic technicians who make every stage as comfortable as possible), and then I changed into the gown provided. (The clinic advise you to wear comfortable joggers/tracksuit bottoms and slippers, and to only wear button-up shirts and hoodies after the procedure, as opposed to t-shirts or jumpers that may disturb the grafts when you put them on or take them off, so make sure you bring these with you if you’re staying overnight).
The day is broken into 3 stages: injections followed by extractions; creation of channels for the new grafts; and then the implantations of the grafts. The injections/extractions involve lying on your stomach with the face through a hole in the table as all the work at thus stage is on the back of your head. The anaesthetic injections were, for me personally, very unpleasant. I’d somehow had the wrong impression that there was just one big injection to get through, but in fact there must have been 30-40 over about 3 minutes or so, and it wasn’t until the very end of those that they began to get less painful. From that point on there was very little discomfort (and I’m sure there are plenty of people who find the injections a breeze), so I certainly wouldn’t want to put people off – but it’s probably best that future patients are prepared for it to be difficult.
I think the extractions session lasted around an hour and a half overall, over two sessions. I then had a quick break for some toast and snacks, and then Dr Arshad began creating the channels (which felt like shallow lines being carved across the top of my head) and then punching the holes (which sounded like the sound when you hole punch a big stack of paper – a very strange sound to hear coming from your own head). This lasted around an hour too I think, before I was given lunch, which the clinic provide from a local café.
For the first two sessions you are unable to use your phone or listen to headphones etc, but for the implantations session, you lie at a 30 degree angle facing the TV, and you can watch Netflix on the TV or just listen to headphones. This session begins with further anaesthetic injections to the front of the head, which were still not pleasant, but were far less painful for me than the earlier ones. This final session took around 3 hours or so, it wasn’t painful at all but lying in the same place for so long got a little uncomfortable, and I found myself fidgeting towards the end. But ultimately, apart from the injections and the general weariness from such a long day, the entire procedure was a million times more comfortable than I expected beforehand. Again, this has a lot to do with Dr Arshad’s team of technicians, who are so friendly, positive, cheerful, supportive and helpful, and make you feel like nothing is too much trouble.
Once this was complete, it was just a case of having a short debrief at the end to go over some post-op guidance and watch an aftercare video, and then it was time to leave. The clinic provide you with a bag full of various medications, ointment, shampoo, a spare bandage, and saline spray with a sprayer. They also very helpfully provide you with a chart to help you remember to use the various sprays and medications, which is an absolute godsend. I had phone reminders going off relentlessly for the whole week, but it’s well worth it to know that you’re doing all you can to protect your new grafts.
I was incredibly paranoid about anything touching my new grafts, so even though the general advice is to sleep at a 30 degree angle with 3 stacked pillows and a travel pillow, I decided to err on the side of caution and actually sleep sitting upright, which was…not all that easy. I’m not saying that this is the best way to sleep it by any means, but I was so concerned about anything disturbing my grafts that I wanted to massively err on the side of caution! I brought some extra pillows with me for the trip, (and also brought my own pillow cases, to avoid inadvertently bleeding over the pillows provided in the apartment), so I ended up sleeping with an arrangement like this:
Well done for making it to what turned out to be an essay! I'll add a little recap of my progress since the operation shortly (it's now day 10), and I'll try and keep this thread updated with slightly more concise updates as time goes on, but if you have any questions then please feel free to ask!