Bigmacs HT Journey

Hi all
I had my first HT back in 1998/99 after seeing an Ad in a newspaper about hairloss.It was the Norton clinic in the UK and i wanted to fill in my thinning crown.This was a small procedure of about 500 grafts.The surgery was a failure and i went back 9 months to 1 year later for a second similar sized procedure.This produced some growth although it was plugs that were implanted.My crown did not look any different and i was left with tram line scars on my head.It was a poor call by myself choosing this clinic as the total experience was bad.

I put it down to experience.

After a while my hairloss started worrying me again,this time i looked on the internet.After viewing lots of doctors websites i chose DHI in Greece.I chose them because i was sold on fue after my bad strip experiences with Norton,i thought there is no way i`m going through that again.Cut a long story short,i went to Greece in January 2005,had 1043 hairs implanted(approx 5/600grafts) and had at most 10% growth/yield.

I knew straight away when i left Greece i`d made another mistake just by judging on how they treated me.I contacted them numerous times when i was back in England but to no avail.

Shortly after this i found various hairloss forums and soon realised how unlucky i`d been in my choice of clinics.

I started researching on the forums for the next 3 years and met lots of patients.

I was an active member on the PB hairloss forum and PB the owner asked if i would like to be an administrator which i gladly accepted.

After all the research i done i chose to have my Fourth HT with Ron Shapiro of the Shapiro Medical Group.This was mainly due to the feedback i got about them(couldn`t find anything negative) and the excellent way Janna from SMG answered all my concerns and questions with a caring and professional manner.

I then booked up with SMG to have my HT on 28th April 2008.
I flew from Newcastle airport on Saturday morning to Amsterdam with KLM which took one hour. Then it was a direct flight to Minneapolis with NWA which took eight hours.

Arrived at the airport at 3.30pm, went through customs and got the hotel shuttle (mini bus) to the hotel which took about 20 minutes. The hotel was the Country Inn and Suites. This is a nice hotel and is five minutes from Shapiro Medical Group. One extra bonus the hotel had was free use of computers with internet access. It cost me £637 all in with flight and accommodations for three nights.



There are quite a few sports bars and restaurants a few minutes walk from the hotel and a downtown area which has loads of bars, restaurants, shops etc.

I also visited the Mall of America which is a huge shopping centre full of everything you need. It’s one of the biggest malls in the world. The hotel shuttle will take you to and from the airport, Mall of America and to SMG as a free service. The hotel is used to SMG patients and the shuttle bus drivers too. They were all very friendly. The hotel gives discounts to SMG patients. The discount rate is $99 per night.



Met Janna on Sunday for lunch and she showed me around the downtown areas. There are two downtowns. One is Minneapolis and the other is St. Paul. The two cities are close within 15 minutes drive of each other. The center of the 2 downtown has skyways – walkways from building to building above the streets so you don’t have to go outside in bad weather. They were both beautiful clean cities.



Monday morning i went to to SMG. I met Dr Shapiro and we talked about my expectations and he examined my hair. Then I was in the chair. Got my anesthetic needles in my scalp which I never felt a thing as they use a vibrating tool. Dr Shapiro removed my strip and then the techs starting the cutting while I was being sutured up and then Dr Shapiro made the incisions for my new hair. When about 90% of the incisions were made, they used a dye onto my recipient area for them to see the incisions better. They save the other 10% to be used for fine tuning at the end. They were also taking estimates of how many grafts were to be expect every half hours or so.

Janna and the other techs then started to plant with Dr Shapiro checking all the time as my crown planting was not straight forward due to my previous poor work which left plugs in there growing in the wrong directions. My crown work went great and then they proceeded to plant in the middle of my hairline. Janna planted every single graft in the hairline. Then towards the end, Dr. Shapiro and Janna did the stick/plant method to fine tune the hairline. This is where Dr. Shapiro makes the incision and Janna plants straight away after each incision is made. They said once the incisions are filled with grafts, you can see spaces in between, so Dr. Shapiro always asks for single hairs to be saved for this part.

Photos were taken at every opportunity by Janna and Dr Shapiro.

Once finished I was shown the work and asked if I was happy which I was.

Went back to the hotel and logged on the net and chilled out for the night. I took two Vicodin for pain before I went to bed, woke up fine and didn’t need any more pain relief meds. I took two though just before my plane journey home to be safe.

Next day Tuesday, checked out of hotel and went to SMG for a hair wash and haircut. They took more photos and a video of the work.

Janna and Dr Shapiro chatted with me again to confirm I was happy. I then hung around and was invited to watch a live surgery of planting and cutting grafts which was very interesting. They were very professional and great at what they were doing.

I would without any doubt say that if you choose to have a HT with SMG that you will have a great experience and receive a world class result.

I flew home at 7.30 pm on Tuesday. I took some valium on the plane and slept most of the way back to Amsterdam. Then the short one hour flight back to Newcastle.

Here is my Graft count

1-285

2-907

3-399

4-23

1614grafts =3388 hairs

strip size was 1.3width by 16.5cm length

Couple of crown pictures pre op and 6 months
post op.
Hairline is 5 months post op.

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