Interesting topic, Tim with hindsight of course you would have listened to the advice but I see it all too often young guys who are hellbent on getting surgery and don't listen to the advice they are given.
I also had surgery very young 23 whether I would have listened back then if I was being told not to do it probably not as I was desperate unfortunately for me I had lost my dad to cancer 4 years earlier (he was a norwood 6) and didn't have anyone to confide in and try to talk me out of it.
I just wish the surgeon that performed that first surgery was honest with me and gave me the facts that 450 mini and micro grafts is a drop in the ocean for my diffused loss over the entire scalp. If he had told me I would need to go back over and over again to get anything like a half respectable head of hair it might have registered with me not to go ahead.
I am not angry anymore about what happened you can't hold in that anger for such a long time as I believe it is not good for you. I do feel that my twenties in terms of enjoying my life were taken from me though to an extent.
There was nothing back then that you could do in terms of research just take a huge leap of faith and trust that because they were a Doctor surely they would be operating under some professional code. Topcat is so right that now there is the information but where do you start? who do you believe? It is now very difficult as there is too much out there and so many contrasting opinions. That said I would much rather be looking for a transplant now with all that there is out there than back in the nineties at least patients now have the option of making an informed decision whether they do though is another matter.
