Hello forum members,
I would first like to start out by introducing myself. My name is Colin and I am a 24 year old with a Norwoor 2-3. My journey to HUT started about a year ago at MHR. I had even put a deposit down for a procedure with them last summer, and thank god that I found this site. I have been lurking here for quite some time and thanks to all of the information here I was pointed to the Shapiro Medical Group, which happens to be just 20 minutes from my house. So thank you all for the wealth of information on this site!!

Well my journey to reclaim my rightful hairline has just begun, and I am 2 days into the long and (probably difficult) recovery. Let me first say that the staff at Shapiro Medical Group is absolutely fantastic. They are warm, funny, attentive to your needs, and in very good spirits. I can't stress enough how calming it was to be in a positive environment with a staff that actually seemed to care about the patients!

My marathon day of about 11.5 hours ended up with about 2200 grafts in restoring my hairline and adding density in the middle portion of my head. It was difficult at times to be sitting in the chair for so long, but the staff did everything in their power to keep me comfortable. Late in the day, they ended up with more hairs than anticipated, so Dr. Paul even made an extra 100 incisions to give me the all the hair they could muster.

I have to give kudos to Dr. Paul for getting the exact hairline I was looking for; not too sharp around the temples, but a little more mature than my hairline from my teenage days. I think I will be very happy with the results, and I should have great growth just in time for my wedding (in June 2008). Although the next few months will be difficult, I have all the confidence in the world that my results will be as I expected. So without further adue, I present my 2 days post-op pics, with pre post-op and immediate post-op pics to follow. Enjoy.

**UPDATE (05/22/07)**
I now have my immediate pre and post-op photos up for a side by side comparison. As you can see, I was very thin in the frontal area, which was my main area of concern. I am healing very well, and most of the scabs are now gone or on their way out, at day 6!! I have also obtained my graft numbers, as follows.

Total grafts - 2201
1 hair - 638
2 hair - 1003
3 hair - 559
4 hair - 1
Total # hairs - 4325

Enjoy,
-Colin

Congrats and Welcome to the club!!

I take it you had some existing native hair, which is probably why the sessions lasted a bit longer than normal.

Sometimes I think Docs slow it up a bit for fear of transection, so I think your going to be very happy in the coming months.

Everything looks very clean and nice, and I hope others take notice of what a ultra-refined transplant should look like post-op.

I do hope you will continue to share and document your results.

Take Care,
J

I'm a big fan of Dr. Paul's work............thanks for sharing. The quality of work looks excellent.

I can see some of the native hair that you had in the back but would like to get a better idea of pre-op.................do you have any pre-op pics you can share?

The hairline looks great and the post-op result is incredibly clean.

A few recent posters have been interested in having HT done several months before a wedding - not a good idea in my estimation. June 2008 - you have planned this well. At 13 months post-op you will have the full benefit of your procedure.

Bayer

Colin,

Welcome to the real "hair club". Your results and work look outstanding just as we've come to expect from the SMG. Kudos to you and the staff.

Your presentation is great. But can you also provide us with hair counts (i.e. X amount of single hair grafts, X amount of two hair grafts etc) and perhaps the size of the donor strip removed? I know the SMG keeps such details in your file.

You put in a long day. But you will enjoy the results for a life time.

As for MHR - "Lost another one to Ditech" :-)

I like the Shapiro hairlines. I wish they did FUE...they seem to pay a lot of attention to detail and it shows.

Clean surgery

Loooks great! i'm sure you will be estatic in 12 months or so .. Take a look at my post under NEWBIES TAKE NOTICE under open hairloss questions

Do you have any before pics?

quote:

I like the Shapiro hairlines. I wish they did FUE...they seem to pay a lot of attention to detail and it shows.

One of the biggests myths about why some strip docs do not offer fue is that they do not have the skills to perform this type of surgery.

I highly doubt anyone who has spent more than 10min around Ron Shapiro would even try to apply that argument to him.

I spoke to Dr. Shapiro about this, because I want to do 1 more smallish strip session (1000-2000) and then do about 1000-1500 fue to top off the whole enchilada, and while he says he could do it, he just feels that in his hands he can really preserve the finite donor of most patients doing strip as opposed to fue.

I get the impression that if someone came up with a way to guarantee that no bait and switch is happening and that transection rates of 5-10% are established in a large, variant patient base, he would look at performing this type of procedure.

I, of course, offered myself as a test subject should this day occur =)

I am hopeful this happens-- I really do not want to go anywhere else and let anyone else touch my head!!!

You are right about his hairline though--- got one of those babies myself!!!!!!

I am going to have to call him and tell him to watch out---- his brother Paul is starting to turn some heads here...........

Take Care,
J

Thanks for all of the comments guys. I have added 2 photos from about a year ago that show where I was, although not as clearly as the pre-op photos. I should have the pre-op and immediate post-op photos up on Monday as well as exact graft and number of hair counts. Take it easy!
-Colin

Surgery looks awesome Colin! You are one fortunate dude, to have got yourself out of the hair mill and into what may be the best clinic in the world. Just think you lived only minutes away from it and never knew it!

h2