Tweet
Hi guys......I've been documenting my experience to date (5 weeks post Op now) on another site and due to time contraints haven't been able to post on other forums as regularly as I would have liked. I will post the same text as of day 1 so you can get a better idea of how I was progressing!
.
.
.
.
.
So after 9 months of intensive research, I'm sitting here in my hotel room having spent the last 2 days with Dr Bisanga and BHR clinic. My hair is now well and truly in the lap of the hair Gods.
Many of you would have already seen my detailed thread on how I went about with my consultation: .
Regarding the Op itself, it's been a relatively long enough 2 days but certainly manageable. As I type this my forehead is getting bigger and bigger so forgive me if I am brief for now.
What is probably the most interesting aspect of my op compared to many others posted is that I'm a diffuse loser who had a lot of native hair pre-op. I consulted in March with Dr B and we agreed to a 2000 FUE. The actual transplanted figure was 2200, and as requested, PRP was administered too.
All in all I found it to be a very positive experience. The full proof would be in the 12 month growing, but so far so good. Again a big shout to Stephen who has been great pre and post op.
Graft Breakdown:
1 Hair - 289
2 Hair - 926
3 Hair - 770
4 Hair - 215 = 5,311 hairs = 2.42 hairs per graft.
The clinic took plenty of shots and I'll get plenty of those up when I can. I also have a few of my own I'll be adding over the days ahead. I'm popping back into the clinic in the morning for the doc to take the bandages off and a quick clean.
**********Detail added************
DAY 1
6:45am: Alarm goes off in the HC Brussels. Have a nice shower and get down to the restaurant for 7.15 for some breakfast which I’d recommend to get in as it can be a long day! The first thing I see when entering the restaurant is a black-bandana’d guy, so no reward for guessing where he had just been the day before! (Turns out this was Baldietwo from this site). No caffeine recommended so stuck with the juice, some croissants and cereal.
8:00am: Arrive at the clinic after taking the long 90 second walk from the hotel! I am greeted by Leandro, who assisted Dr Bisanga throughout day 1. Nice bloke who is from Argentina and mentioned he also worked in Cyprus for many years so I asked if this was with HDC/Dr Maras and he confirmed. I told him my only experience of Cyprus would have been two debaucherous trips to Ayia Napa a decade ago! I sign a consent form and a few minutes later Dr Bisanga arrives down and we go into his office for consultation.
Seeing as I had been here for consultation 5 months ago, he inspected to see if much had changed. We still stick to the plan of starting just behind my hairline and filling in my forelock and midscalp. This in itself is rare enough seeing as I had no work done in zone 1. Instead, my zone 2 area to the left side and zones 3 and 4 were to be thickened due my Ludwig pattern diffuse loss. 2,000 grafts was the plan 5 months ago and said we will likely be in or around that, but day 2 usually decides this when all recipient sites are made.
Some notes I had taken to the clinic to discuss with the doc were:
- Possible to keep as much native hair as possible? The doc said he will shave what he needs and can leave the rest.
- Request for a prescription for 1mg Propecia as 5mg is only available in Ireland. I wanted to adjust my Fin routine from 1.25mg MWF to either 0.5mg daily or even 0.25mg daily.
- Since I am staying in the hotel for one week, I would like to call into the clinic when possible over the course of this recovery week to have the doc/staff assess things and clean if necessary.
- Discuss the possibility of getting PRP. From research PRP seems to respond well with diffuse patients so was keen to try everything to aid my case. He said he will likely use it, but will confirm on day 2.
- I had seen several cases where guys kept a strip of untouched donor during their FUE, from a future strategy point of view e.g. if FUT is required they have a large untouched area to work with. Having discussed this with Dr B, we decided that as of right now there is no need for this approach. This pass of FUE should not exhaust too much of any area anyway.
- Assess my beard from a future perspective. My own scalp donor should be good for up to 5,000 safe FUE grafts, so I wanted to know what my beard may contribute to. Dr B reckons that my facial hair is in fact coarser than my scalp hair (medium fine) so wouldn’t be optimal. If anything it may possibly be used only as ‘filler’ in the distant future, with maybe 2,000 grafts in the bank. Again, I wasn’t overly concerned as of right now but I wanted all angles covered so was good to get the docs perspective.
8.45am: I get into my scrubs and Leandro takes the pre op photos.
9.00am: I get brought upstairs to the surgery room and get introduced to Natasha, a very pleasant girl, who turned out to be my main nurse for the two days. I get a valium pill and an antibiotic before getting bloods taken for my blood test and then my blood pressure. This turned out to be sky high in the high 170s! They took again 5 minutes later and it had dropped a bit. I didn’t think I was overly nervous but there was probably more going on inside than I was letting on! What probably didn’t help was what they brought out next, the clippers! They shaved the donor and the area where grafts will be placed.
9.30am: Natasha gets started with numbing the donor region. I had read that this is the most painful part of the procedure, and while I found this to be the case, I would describe it as uncomfortable more than painful. Maybe I have a higher than norm pain threshold, but these initial shots were not bad at all and very manageable.
10.15am: Dr Bisanga then gets started on punching my donor region. The most uncomfortable aspect of this is the positioning you are in, but again it’s bearable. The punching itself is a strange sensation, as you can hear a little ‘scrunch’ with each one. We spoke a lot about soccer which was good as it passed the time. Turned out he had punched 1,279 grafts.
11.30am: Natasha then gets started on numbing the recipient. This was slightly more painful than the donor numbing, but again this was fine.
12.00: Dr Bisanga then begins punching all of the recipient sites. This was fairly straightforward and no real discomfort at all. Once the recipient sites were made, the donor grafts were removed and these would be sorted/cleaned by another tech while I was having my lunch. The doc explained that he likes to keep the grafts attached to the donor for as long as possible with minimal time out of the body, blood supply, graft survival etc.
12.45pm: Lunch time.
13.45pm: Back up to the chair where I meet Helen, the placement technician. Nice woman who I spoke a lot with and had a good laugh with. Turns out she has 11 years of placement experience, and has also worked with the likes of Dr Mwamba, so I knew I was in good hands. Dr Bisanga came in once or twice through this process to see how things were progressing, he may possibly have placed a few grafts himself, I was nodding off at times as the valium had taken its toll and I didn’t have a great sleep the night previous. There is no pain to be felt in the actual placement, but I did feel quite uncomfortable in the chair at times and this really did drag on.
16:15pm: Placements finished and that’s me pretty much done for the day. Some photos taken and I’m told to come back in for 11am tomorrow. On goes the famous black bandana.
This evening/night was uncomfortable in that I was still a little groggy from the valium. Ordered food to them room that night and sleep was a little broken due to the upright position etc.
DAY 2
11:00am: Back into the clinic and greeted by Carmen, the receptionist. Dr Bisanga pops in to check on things and we have a brief chat. Scrubs are back on and up I go to meet Natasha and blood pressure checked again. This time I take half a valium and this certainly helped in that I didn’t feel as groggy throughout the day. Blood still sky rocketing! We give it another 5 minutes and it comes down and we get started on the donor shots. Nothing too bad to report here.
12:00: Dr Bisanga starts punching the donor again and slightly over 900 grafts are punched in this session.
12:45: Natasha performs all the recipient jabs again.
13:00: The doc performs the recipient sites and grafts are extracted.
13:45: Lunch. Have a brief chat with a Spanish patient who is also there for FUE.
15:00: Meet Helen again who gets started on placing the grafts again. Like yesterday this seems the longest part of the day.
17:00: Placement coming to an end and Dr Bisanga confirms he is going to take some blood as we are going to also perform PRP. He makes the PRP injections just before all grafts are placed.
17.30: All done and post-op photos taken. I found the second day easier. The jabs were a little tougher particularly when performed near day 1 recipient but all in all I felt better in general.
Carmen brought over my post-op pack and sat down for 15-20 mins to go through everything in detail and showed me the different products etc. Couldn’t really ask for anymore. Spoke with Dr B again before I left and he kindly agreed to meet me the following day (Saturday) at 10am to remove bandages and have a look at things.
Very positive experience and the whole place just seems like a very tight run ship. Felt at all times that any questions I had (I already had about 100 plus answed by Steve at this stage so I was probably over-informed if anything ) could be asked and were always answered in detail. Staff are all very pleasant and seem to bounce off each other and enjoy their environment.
.
.
.
.
.
So after 9 months of intensive research, I'm sitting here in my hotel room having spent the last 2 days with Dr Bisanga and BHR clinic. My hair is now well and truly in the lap of the hair Gods.
Many of you would have already seen my detailed thread on how I went about with my consultation: .
Regarding the Op itself, it's been a relatively long enough 2 days but certainly manageable. As I type this my forehead is getting bigger and bigger so forgive me if I am brief for now.
What is probably the most interesting aspect of my op compared to many others posted is that I'm a diffuse loser who had a lot of native hair pre-op. I consulted in March with Dr B and we agreed to a 2000 FUE. The actual transplanted figure was 2200, and as requested, PRP was administered too.
All in all I found it to be a very positive experience. The full proof would be in the 12 month growing, but so far so good. Again a big shout to Stephen who has been great pre and post op.
Graft Breakdown:
1 Hair - 289
2 Hair - 926
3 Hair - 770
4 Hair - 215 = 5,311 hairs = 2.42 hairs per graft.
The clinic took plenty of shots and I'll get plenty of those up when I can. I also have a few of my own I'll be adding over the days ahead. I'm popping back into the clinic in the morning for the doc to take the bandages off and a quick clean.
**********Detail added************
DAY 1
6:45am: Alarm goes off in the HC Brussels. Have a nice shower and get down to the restaurant for 7.15 for some breakfast which I’d recommend to get in as it can be a long day! The first thing I see when entering the restaurant is a black-bandana’d guy, so no reward for guessing where he had just been the day before! (Turns out this was Baldietwo from this site). No caffeine recommended so stuck with the juice, some croissants and cereal.
8:00am: Arrive at the clinic after taking the long 90 second walk from the hotel! I am greeted by Leandro, who assisted Dr Bisanga throughout day 1. Nice bloke who is from Argentina and mentioned he also worked in Cyprus for many years so I asked if this was with HDC/Dr Maras and he confirmed. I told him my only experience of Cyprus would have been two debaucherous trips to Ayia Napa a decade ago! I sign a consent form and a few minutes later Dr Bisanga arrives down and we go into his office for consultation.
Seeing as I had been here for consultation 5 months ago, he inspected to see if much had changed. We still stick to the plan of starting just behind my hairline and filling in my forelock and midscalp. This in itself is rare enough seeing as I had no work done in zone 1. Instead, my zone 2 area to the left side and zones 3 and 4 were to be thickened due my Ludwig pattern diffuse loss. 2,000 grafts was the plan 5 months ago and said we will likely be in or around that, but day 2 usually decides this when all recipient sites are made.
Some notes I had taken to the clinic to discuss with the doc were:
- Possible to keep as much native hair as possible? The doc said he will shave what he needs and can leave the rest.
- Request for a prescription for 1mg Propecia as 5mg is only available in Ireland. I wanted to adjust my Fin routine from 1.25mg MWF to either 0.5mg daily or even 0.25mg daily.
- Since I am staying in the hotel for one week, I would like to call into the clinic when possible over the course of this recovery week to have the doc/staff assess things and clean if necessary.
- Discuss the possibility of getting PRP. From research PRP seems to respond well with diffuse patients so was keen to try everything to aid my case. He said he will likely use it, but will confirm on day 2.
- I had seen several cases where guys kept a strip of untouched donor during their FUE, from a future strategy point of view e.g. if FUT is required they have a large untouched area to work with. Having discussed this with Dr B, we decided that as of right now there is no need for this approach. This pass of FUE should not exhaust too much of any area anyway.
- Assess my beard from a future perspective. My own scalp donor should be good for up to 5,000 safe FUE grafts, so I wanted to know what my beard may contribute to. Dr B reckons that my facial hair is in fact coarser than my scalp hair (medium fine) so wouldn’t be optimal. If anything it may possibly be used only as ‘filler’ in the distant future, with maybe 2,000 grafts in the bank. Again, I wasn’t overly concerned as of right now but I wanted all angles covered so was good to get the docs perspective.
8.45am: I get into my scrubs and Leandro takes the pre op photos.
9.00am: I get brought upstairs to the surgery room and get introduced to Natasha, a very pleasant girl, who turned out to be my main nurse for the two days. I get a valium pill and an antibiotic before getting bloods taken for my blood test and then my blood pressure. This turned out to be sky high in the high 170s! They took again 5 minutes later and it had dropped a bit. I didn’t think I was overly nervous but there was probably more going on inside than I was letting on! What probably didn’t help was what they brought out next, the clippers! They shaved the donor and the area where grafts will be placed.
9.30am: Natasha gets started with numbing the donor region. I had read that this is the most painful part of the procedure, and while I found this to be the case, I would describe it as uncomfortable more than painful. Maybe I have a higher than norm pain threshold, but these initial shots were not bad at all and very manageable.
10.15am: Dr Bisanga then gets started on punching my donor region. The most uncomfortable aspect of this is the positioning you are in, but again it’s bearable. The punching itself is a strange sensation, as you can hear a little ‘scrunch’ with each one. We spoke a lot about soccer which was good as it passed the time. Turned out he had punched 1,279 grafts.
11.30am: Natasha then gets started on numbing the recipient. This was slightly more painful than the donor numbing, but again this was fine.
12.00: Dr Bisanga then begins punching all of the recipient sites. This was fairly straightforward and no real discomfort at all. Once the recipient sites were made, the donor grafts were removed and these would be sorted/cleaned by another tech while I was having my lunch. The doc explained that he likes to keep the grafts attached to the donor for as long as possible with minimal time out of the body, blood supply, graft survival etc.
12.45pm: Lunch time.
13.45pm: Back up to the chair where I meet Helen, the placement technician. Nice woman who I spoke a lot with and had a good laugh with. Turns out she has 11 years of placement experience, and has also worked with the likes of Dr Mwamba, so I knew I was in good hands. Dr Bisanga came in once or twice through this process to see how things were progressing, he may possibly have placed a few grafts himself, I was nodding off at times as the valium had taken its toll and I didn’t have a great sleep the night previous. There is no pain to be felt in the actual placement, but I did feel quite uncomfortable in the chair at times and this really did drag on.
16:15pm: Placements finished and that’s me pretty much done for the day. Some photos taken and I’m told to come back in for 11am tomorrow. On goes the famous black bandana.
This evening/night was uncomfortable in that I was still a little groggy from the valium. Ordered food to them room that night and sleep was a little broken due to the upright position etc.
DAY 2
11:00am: Back into the clinic and greeted by Carmen, the receptionist. Dr Bisanga pops in to check on things and we have a brief chat. Scrubs are back on and up I go to meet Natasha and blood pressure checked again. This time I take half a valium and this certainly helped in that I didn’t feel as groggy throughout the day. Blood still sky rocketing! We give it another 5 minutes and it comes down and we get started on the donor shots. Nothing too bad to report here.
12:00: Dr Bisanga starts punching the donor again and slightly over 900 grafts are punched in this session.
12:45: Natasha performs all the recipient jabs again.
13:00: The doc performs the recipient sites and grafts are extracted.
13:45: Lunch. Have a brief chat with a Spanish patient who is also there for FUE.
15:00: Meet Helen again who gets started on placing the grafts again. Like yesterday this seems the longest part of the day.
17:00: Placement coming to an end and Dr Bisanga confirms he is going to take some blood as we are going to also perform PRP. He makes the PRP injections just before all grafts are placed.
17.30: All done and post-op photos taken. I found the second day easier. The jabs were a little tougher particularly when performed near day 1 recipient but all in all I felt better in general.
Carmen brought over my post-op pack and sat down for 15-20 mins to go through everything in detail and showed me the different products etc. Couldn’t really ask for anymore. Spoke with Dr B again before I left and he kindly agreed to meet me the following day (Saturday) at 10am to remove bandages and have a look at things.
Very positive experience and the whole place just seems like a very tight run ship. Felt at all times that any questions I had (I already had about 100 plus answed by Steve at this stage so I was probably over-informed if anything ) could be asked and were always answered in detail. Staff are all very pleasant and seem to bounce off each other and enjoy their environment.
Comment