Speoj
member
Hey all,
After thinking about getting a hair transplant for a few years, this week I finally got it done! I'm 29, starting receding when I was 16, I've been using minoxidil for 5 years and finasteride for 2 years. I did see some positive results with both, but it only helped to curb the diffuse thinning that started to set in when I was 24, they did help with thickness but didn't do much to improve my hairline. I tried derma rolling on the hairline for about a year but after seeing no results I stopped and started to think more about getting a HT.
I wanted to go for a partial shave FUE to address hairline recession, as mentioned in a previous post I have always styled my hair to cover my hairline, so wanted to go partial shaven to continue to cover the hairline through the ugly duckling phase. Over last summer and autumn I had consultations and conversations with a bunch of different surgeons and clinics. I was looking at going abroad for it initially, I liked the idea of going to either Cyprus or Belgium, waiting it out in a hotel for post op and coming back once the scabs were off. But whilst I was still weighing up my options in a consultation with Dr Manish Mittal (Dr Mani) he asked about how I respond to anaesthetic which led to me talking to him about my unilateral renal agenesis - I was born with one kidney, the other didn't develop, it's hereditary, and is usually passed down the male side of the family. For all terms and purposes I am 'healthy' but it does mean that my tolerance to things like alcohol and recreational drugs are lower that other peoples. And a few years ago from stress and overworking I had a scare where the one kidney had the symptoms of it failing and I had to get to hospital quick for them to do checks and put me on a drip until it flushed the kidney out. The A&E doctor at the time said that if I hadn't had gotten to them when I did it might have been more serious, that in future a similar episode might mean dialysis. So when it came to picking a surgeon for the HT, I then decided it would be best if I stayed in the UK so that if I did have a reaction to the anaesthetic, that at least I could get to a hospital quick where I could explain what was happening faster than if I was abroad.
I was chatting to some of Mani's patients on Reddit who were happy with their decision and from what I saw, I liked his hairline designs and he seemed to have a good track record with cases similar to mine - hairline restoration work and less full coverage diffuse thinning. I also liked that he only sees one patient a day, that he does the punches for the extractions to keep on top of donor management and does all of the incisions himself. So I pulled the trigger and we set a date.
In terms of wait time I think it is around 3-6 months. In the consultation in August he said realistically we'd be looking at February, but chatting to Rus his co-ordinator we managed to set a date in January which was my preference, being after Christmas when there's not much going on and was the most convenient time to take time off work. Before they would take me on as a patient though I had to get bloods done that showed kidney function, Mani said that if it came back as normal function he'd go ahead, but would have to decline if kidney function came back as abnormal. Did the tests, came back fine, and we were all set. And in terms of pricing, I was quoted between 2200-2400 grafts at £3 a graft. Which would include PRP and a 12 month supply of finasteride.
Chatting to Dr Mittal's co-ordinator, Rus in the run up to the consultation just put me at ease, like chatting to an old friend. I didn't get that kind of rapport chatting to other co-ordinators. And in the run up to the op and now post op, the communication has been great, quick responses over email, knows his stuff and sometimes it can even be difficult to get off the phone, we always seem to have a lot to talk about, which is the opposite of what I experienced chatting to other co-ordinators. So yeah, shout out to Russel.
On the day of the op I got to the clinic for 9am, I was nervous as anything, it was tipping it down and when it rains in London everything grinds to a halt. I was late, but so was Dr Mittal. The receptionist requested paperwork that I had sent over weeks ago. I resent it, she couldn't open it to print it off, I offered to resend it as a PDF but in the end completed parts of the paperwork by hand. Not a great start but understandable, just a miscommunication. If I had known they needed the paperwork printed off I could have printed it at home to save them time on the day.
But by 9:45 that was all dealt with and we designed the hairline. It's something that was discussed at length at the consultation, so we were quickly on the same page about my goals etc. Since my teens I have always had a windows peak hairline, that then receded, it would would have been unnatural and very noticeable if I opted for a straight hairline, instead I wanted to stay conservative, to have a mature hairline still just with less regression. Mani reaffirmed that the recession was quite deep so he'd shave back the hairline to reinforce and blend the native with the transplanted grafts.
I was concerned about the pain and how I would respond to the aesthetic, I was chatting to people days before on this and other forums who'd already had work done at different places who said the pain can be pretty bad so I felt like I was ready for the worst pain I'd ever felt. But when the anaesthetic was injected in it didn't feel that different to giving blood or donating plasma, just in your head. After 5 minutes or so, once it had set in I didn't really feel anything after that. Still in the room, still aware of what was happening and chatting still, just didn't feel any pain. At any point when I could start to feel something I would say so and Mani would inject more anaesthetic, which was a mix of lidocaine and adrenaline.
Mani used a motorised 0.85 punch to do the extractions, as one tech, Salma used a clicker to keep on top of the graft count whilst another tech, Edene, was at a microscope dividing the grafts into singles, doubles and multis. Dr Mittal said I had one of the best donors he'd seen in a while, with that majority of extracted grafts being multis; mostly triples, quads and even some fives. They had to split some of the multis up to make more singles. It felt a lot like being at the dentist, I couldn't feel the extractions but I could hear the sound of it if that makes sense.
Singles: 413
Doubles: 725
Multis: 1119
After the extractions we broke for lunch, and after Mani did the incisions at the recipient area. He used a 1mm blade for the singles at the front of the hairline, they find that the singles just slot straight in that way, and then switched to a 1.25mm blade for the rest. He said for the quads and fives he nearly went up to a bigger blade but was reluctant because he wanted to keep trauma and scaring to a minimum. The anaesthetic meant that I didn't feel pain whilst he was doing the incisions, and Salma was back on the clicker keeping count of how many incisions he was up to whilst Edene continued organising the grafts. Mani created irregularities along the hairline to create a more natural look which we chatted about whilst he did them. Once the incisions were done and Dr Mittal was happy with the density for dense packing the grafts, they used a blue dye to more easily identify the incisions for implanting the grafts. Salma and Edene then implanted the grafts into the incisions, they started with singles in the hairline then worked back and I was free to watch some movies on Netflix. Once the majority of the grafts were in, Mani asked the techs to leave 30 or so singles until the end and he implanted these himself, creating additional irregularities along the hairline with the last remaining grafts. Every step of the way I got the impression that they take their time with everything, with an attitude of it's done when it's done which I admired. We were all finished at 7pm, they rinsed my hair, took the photos attached below and put a bandage over the donor area.
Mani then went over the after care procedure with me again, gave me a post op care goodie bag with baby shampoo, saline solution spray, a weeks worth of Clarithromycin, airplane pillow and some gauze pads. As mentioned in a previous post, some of this I had already picked up but it was very much appreciated. We then chatted on the sofas in the reception area until my partner arrived and he waited for us to get a taxi.
All in all a great experience, apologies for the essay, I'll be updating as the journey continues...
After thinking about getting a hair transplant for a few years, this week I finally got it done! I'm 29, starting receding when I was 16, I've been using minoxidil for 5 years and finasteride for 2 years. I did see some positive results with both, but it only helped to curb the diffuse thinning that started to set in when I was 24, they did help with thickness but didn't do much to improve my hairline. I tried derma rolling on the hairline for about a year but after seeing no results I stopped and started to think more about getting a HT.
I wanted to go for a partial shave FUE to address hairline recession, as mentioned in a previous post I have always styled my hair to cover my hairline, so wanted to go partial shaven to continue to cover the hairline through the ugly duckling phase. Over last summer and autumn I had consultations and conversations with a bunch of different surgeons and clinics. I was looking at going abroad for it initially, I liked the idea of going to either Cyprus or Belgium, waiting it out in a hotel for post op and coming back once the scabs were off. But whilst I was still weighing up my options in a consultation with Dr Manish Mittal (Dr Mani) he asked about how I respond to anaesthetic which led to me talking to him about my unilateral renal agenesis - I was born with one kidney, the other didn't develop, it's hereditary, and is usually passed down the male side of the family. For all terms and purposes I am 'healthy' but it does mean that my tolerance to things like alcohol and recreational drugs are lower that other peoples. And a few years ago from stress and overworking I had a scare where the one kidney had the symptoms of it failing and I had to get to hospital quick for them to do checks and put me on a drip until it flushed the kidney out. The A&E doctor at the time said that if I hadn't had gotten to them when I did it might have been more serious, that in future a similar episode might mean dialysis. So when it came to picking a surgeon for the HT, I then decided it would be best if I stayed in the UK so that if I did have a reaction to the anaesthetic, that at least I could get to a hospital quick where I could explain what was happening faster than if I was abroad.
I was chatting to some of Mani's patients on Reddit who were happy with their decision and from what I saw, I liked his hairline designs and he seemed to have a good track record with cases similar to mine - hairline restoration work and less full coverage diffuse thinning. I also liked that he only sees one patient a day, that he does the punches for the extractions to keep on top of donor management and does all of the incisions himself. So I pulled the trigger and we set a date.
In terms of wait time I think it is around 3-6 months. In the consultation in August he said realistically we'd be looking at February, but chatting to Rus his co-ordinator we managed to set a date in January which was my preference, being after Christmas when there's not much going on and was the most convenient time to take time off work. Before they would take me on as a patient though I had to get bloods done that showed kidney function, Mani said that if it came back as normal function he'd go ahead, but would have to decline if kidney function came back as abnormal. Did the tests, came back fine, and we were all set. And in terms of pricing, I was quoted between 2200-2400 grafts at £3 a graft. Which would include PRP and a 12 month supply of finasteride.
Chatting to Dr Mittal's co-ordinator, Rus in the run up to the consultation just put me at ease, like chatting to an old friend. I didn't get that kind of rapport chatting to other co-ordinators. And in the run up to the op and now post op, the communication has been great, quick responses over email, knows his stuff and sometimes it can even be difficult to get off the phone, we always seem to have a lot to talk about, which is the opposite of what I experienced chatting to other co-ordinators. So yeah, shout out to Russel.
On the day of the op I got to the clinic for 9am, I was nervous as anything, it was tipping it down and when it rains in London everything grinds to a halt. I was late, but so was Dr Mittal. The receptionist requested paperwork that I had sent over weeks ago. I resent it, she couldn't open it to print it off, I offered to resend it as a PDF but in the end completed parts of the paperwork by hand. Not a great start but understandable, just a miscommunication. If I had known they needed the paperwork printed off I could have printed it at home to save them time on the day.
But by 9:45 that was all dealt with and we designed the hairline. It's something that was discussed at length at the consultation, so we were quickly on the same page about my goals etc. Since my teens I have always had a windows peak hairline, that then receded, it would would have been unnatural and very noticeable if I opted for a straight hairline, instead I wanted to stay conservative, to have a mature hairline still just with less regression. Mani reaffirmed that the recession was quite deep so he'd shave back the hairline to reinforce and blend the native with the transplanted grafts.
I was concerned about the pain and how I would respond to the aesthetic, I was chatting to people days before on this and other forums who'd already had work done at different places who said the pain can be pretty bad so I felt like I was ready for the worst pain I'd ever felt. But when the anaesthetic was injected in it didn't feel that different to giving blood or donating plasma, just in your head. After 5 minutes or so, once it had set in I didn't really feel anything after that. Still in the room, still aware of what was happening and chatting still, just didn't feel any pain. At any point when I could start to feel something I would say so and Mani would inject more anaesthetic, which was a mix of lidocaine and adrenaline.
Mani used a motorised 0.85 punch to do the extractions, as one tech, Salma used a clicker to keep on top of the graft count whilst another tech, Edene, was at a microscope dividing the grafts into singles, doubles and multis. Dr Mittal said I had one of the best donors he'd seen in a while, with that majority of extracted grafts being multis; mostly triples, quads and even some fives. They had to split some of the multis up to make more singles. It felt a lot like being at the dentist, I couldn't feel the extractions but I could hear the sound of it if that makes sense.
Singles: 413
Doubles: 725
Multis: 1119
After the extractions we broke for lunch, and after Mani did the incisions at the recipient area. He used a 1mm blade for the singles at the front of the hairline, they find that the singles just slot straight in that way, and then switched to a 1.25mm blade for the rest. He said for the quads and fives he nearly went up to a bigger blade but was reluctant because he wanted to keep trauma and scaring to a minimum. The anaesthetic meant that I didn't feel pain whilst he was doing the incisions, and Salma was back on the clicker keeping count of how many incisions he was up to whilst Edene continued organising the grafts. Mani created irregularities along the hairline to create a more natural look which we chatted about whilst he did them. Once the incisions were done and Dr Mittal was happy with the density for dense packing the grafts, they used a blue dye to more easily identify the incisions for implanting the grafts. Salma and Edene then implanted the grafts into the incisions, they started with singles in the hairline then worked back and I was free to watch some movies on Netflix. Once the majority of the grafts were in, Mani asked the techs to leave 30 or so singles until the end and he implanted these himself, creating additional irregularities along the hairline with the last remaining grafts. Every step of the way I got the impression that they take their time with everything, with an attitude of it's done when it's done which I admired. We were all finished at 7pm, they rinsed my hair, took the photos attached below and put a bandage over the donor area.
Mani then went over the after care procedure with me again, gave me a post op care goodie bag with baby shampoo, saline solution spray, a weeks worth of Clarithromycin, airplane pillow and some gauze pads. As mentioned in a previous post, some of this I had already picked up but it was very much appreciated. We then chatted on the sofas in the reception area until my partner arrived and he waited for us to get a taxi.
All in all a great experience, apologies for the essay, I'll be updating as the journey continues...