H
Hairforever
Valued member
Just thought I'd report back after my recent trip to Minnesota for a hair transplant with Shapiro Medical Group. I'm pretty hard to please and am not given to extravagance with my praise but I have to stay I was very impressed with how helpful, friendly and thoroughly professional the entire staff were at SMG. I was hoping for 2,000 grafts plus but my poor depleted donor could only manage 1,884. Still I'm grateful to Dr Ron Shapiro and his technicians for managing to obtain and place that many. One of the reasons I went with SMG is my confidence in Dr Ron making the most with what donor hair I had left. It was my sixth strip surgery (yikes!) and if I have to have any future work the only option open to me would be FUE. I'm not great with the technical descriptions but the grafts were used to thicken the hairline and behind, going back to the crown. I'll post pics taken before and after the op once I get my head round the technical process.
I won't go into an hour by hour/minute by minute account of my procedure since similar procedures have already been described in excellent detail on this site. Just a few thoughts that come to mind. After a consultation with Dr Ron at about 8.30 (I'd already met him in London earlier in the year and spoken to Matt on the phone so I already knew what the plan was), I had a hair cut before entering the surgery room for injections into the donor and recipient sites. I took some pills to relax me and my eyelids got heavy in no time. I was given a wonderful back massage by this device I believe is called a 'thumper' while the needles were going in to take my mind off the sharp, though fleeting, pain. I'm a bit of a baby when it comes to injections. Three donor sections were taken. I didn't feel the removal of the strips, nor the suturing and stapling. I'm not sure if I fell asleep or not but I wasn't really aware of Dr Ron making the incissions except for a period of time when I heard him asking for a graft count. At least 3 of the SMG team were slivering the grafts under microscopes and they did this so efficiently I think they were pretty much finished by lunchtime.
I was actually quite hungry and devoured a turkey club sandwich I'd ordered in the morning. At that time I was able to get up and look at some of my grafts under a microscope and Janna later showed me the graft groupings. I honestly don't know how the SMG technicians are able to insert those small grafts in the holes so quickly and accurately (I'd be all fingers and thumbs). I think three technicians were placing the grafts simultaneously in my scalp (amazing teamwork). While they were doing this I was watching a film though for the life of me I can't remember what it was about and I'm pretty sure I dozed off at the beginning. The last things I remember about the actual procedure was Dr Ron taking out some staples and re-stapling part of my donor site and (I think) removing a graft and placing it somewhere else along with the final 10 or so grafts. My lasting impression was of a man who really cared about where he put every graft in my head and that's really all you can ask for from a quality surgeon.
From what I can see, the grafts are in the places they needed to be. Now it's a case of the long 5-6 month wait (I'm impatient! Wish I could fast-forward). It's 14 days since the procedure and I've still got to have the staples removed which I'm hoping will happen in the next day or two (sleeping has been a problem, especially with them digging in whenever I roll onto my back). The other hurdle to overcome is when the grafts start to shed. I'm really hoping there will be minimal shockloss - that is my biggest and only short-term fear.
I just want to thank Dr Ron, Janna, Matt and everyone at SMG for working on me, including their excellent post-op service. Janna in particular has been fantastic at replying to my (I'm sure at least sometimes annoying) emails. I hope I can give them (and me) a good end-result!
I won't go into an hour by hour/minute by minute account of my procedure since similar procedures have already been described in excellent detail on this site. Just a few thoughts that come to mind. After a consultation with Dr Ron at about 8.30 (I'd already met him in London earlier in the year and spoken to Matt on the phone so I already knew what the plan was), I had a hair cut before entering the surgery room for injections into the donor and recipient sites. I took some pills to relax me and my eyelids got heavy in no time. I was given a wonderful back massage by this device I believe is called a 'thumper' while the needles were going in to take my mind off the sharp, though fleeting, pain. I'm a bit of a baby when it comes to injections. Three donor sections were taken. I didn't feel the removal of the strips, nor the suturing and stapling. I'm not sure if I fell asleep or not but I wasn't really aware of Dr Ron making the incissions except for a period of time when I heard him asking for a graft count. At least 3 of the SMG team were slivering the grafts under microscopes and they did this so efficiently I think they were pretty much finished by lunchtime.
I was actually quite hungry and devoured a turkey club sandwich I'd ordered in the morning. At that time I was able to get up and look at some of my grafts under a microscope and Janna later showed me the graft groupings. I honestly don't know how the SMG technicians are able to insert those small grafts in the holes so quickly and accurately (I'd be all fingers and thumbs). I think three technicians were placing the grafts simultaneously in my scalp (amazing teamwork). While they were doing this I was watching a film though for the life of me I can't remember what it was about and I'm pretty sure I dozed off at the beginning. The last things I remember about the actual procedure was Dr Ron taking out some staples and re-stapling part of my donor site and (I think) removing a graft and placing it somewhere else along with the final 10 or so grafts. My lasting impression was of a man who really cared about where he put every graft in my head and that's really all you can ask for from a quality surgeon.
From what I can see, the grafts are in the places they needed to be. Now it's a case of the long 5-6 month wait (I'm impatient! Wish I could fast-forward). It's 14 days since the procedure and I've still got to have the staples removed which I'm hoping will happen in the next day or two (sleeping has been a problem, especially with them digging in whenever I roll onto my back). The other hurdle to overcome is when the grafts start to shed. I'm really hoping there will be minimal shockloss - that is my biggest and only short-term fear.
I just want to thank Dr Ron, Janna, Matt and everyone at SMG for working on me, including their excellent post-op service. Janna in particular has been fantastic at replying to my (I'm sure at least sometimes annoying) emails. I hope I can give them (and me) a good end-result!