My Story-- A new transplant patient with Dr. Rahal!!

[agenteye]

Hello All!! Hope this message finds everyone well!! I am a new poster here, and am currently 4 days post-op from my FUT procedure with Dr. Rahal in Ottawa, Canada. I wanted to share my story with the forums, as I plan on posting much more often now, and wanted you guys to have a background on me. I must say....it is surreal that I am writing this now and that my procedure is over. It seems like from the point I decided to take this journey to now was an eternity ago, yet it all went by in the blink of an eye!!! I look forward to hopefully getting to know most of you better as I go through this hair restoration journey over the next year of my life and wait for the growth of my transplanted hair!! I’m looking forward to not only sharing my experience(s) with you all, but following all of yours as well! I can barely summarize in words just how excited I am to have finally made the decision to do something about my hair loss…… Nervous, surreal, anxious, and excited are the adjectives that I would use to describe how I am feeling about what’s up ahead of me!! I really can’t wait!! =)

To start, my name is Mike…..and I am a 31 (almost 32….yikes!!) year old male living in the Reno/Lake Tahoe area of the Western United States! I first started losing my hair when I was about 24…..while I was just finishing up my college years. For a long time, I tried to convince myself that my hair wasn’t thinning…..and that I was just having a mid-life crisis and being “ridiculous” and “paranoid” every time I looked in the mirror. After all, I was always the kid that had a FULL, THICK head of hair….and it couldn’t possibly be going anywhere. My hairdresser always told me: ”Hey Mike, look on the bright-side; you will NEVER GO BALD”. As I am sitting here writing this, I am probably a solid Norwood IV….on a good day!!! OUCH, even my own hairdresser was wrong!!!!

As most of you who have, or are going through this know…….losing your hair is pretty devastating!!! I never knew how depressing it could be, until it began happening to me. Unfortunately, I am not like the many guys out there who are comfortable enough with themselves to just buzz their head and embrace their baldness. The only way I’ll ever be content with my hair….is to have it back!! It doesn’t help that I had very negative self-image/poor self-esteem for the majority of my childhood years?! Confidence is important to have in life, and that was something I always lacked. See random (probably useless) paragraph below…..

When I graduated high school at 18 years old, I weighed in at 302 lbs ( or for you Canadians and anyone else on the metric system…..137 kg)!!!! Over the course of the next 2 years I dedicated my life to eating good and exercising, and succeeded in losing 155 lbs. With this drastic transformation, I was (for a short time) starting to enjoy what it felt like to be fit and attractive on the outside for the first time in my life!! It felt great….I felt like I had made the ultimate accomplishment……and then I started losing my hair. Today, I look in the mirror and see someone who looks at least his age…..or older. I do everything in my power to style it in a way that covers up my bald spots. For the last couple years of my life….I bleach my hair bright blonde, as it gives the appearance that I have more hair than I do. No more!!!! It is stopping today!! I am finally doing something permanent about it, and ending this depression and poor self-image once and for all!!!!!! I have worked too hard to change myself for the better to let something as simple as this hold me back.

Anyhow…..sorry for the excessive rant. I just wanted to write this so you all understand a little bit more about me…..a little bit more about my background, where I’m coming from, and why I am here today!! I really hope you guys reach out and get to know me as time goes on. I absolutely love meeting new people, and think it is great having support while going through procedures/changes like this. I plan on keeping a FULL hair restoration blog on this website to chart my progress throughout my entire journey! I plan to post photo’s and all of my struggles/thoughts/concerns/emotions/experiences along the way!! Please don’t hesitate to contact me anytime with any questions, concerns, criticisms…..or if you’re just looking to make a new friend! =) I will post a few photos below to show you my hair in it’s current state (which has been preserved from further loss for the past 3 years with the use of Proscar….or 5 mg Finasteride…..quartered and taken daily), so you can all get a better idea of where I’m starting out pre-op! Because of my location/distance to Dr. Rahal (and a couple other surgeons I was considering), I had all of my consultations online. These are the photos I submitted for all of my online consultations to help the surgeons make an accurate assessment and plan an appropriate treatment. These photos were taken by me, and are being posted here in hopes of charting the changes that will hopefully occur over the next 12 months at the hands of Dr. Rahal……hoping to be that next “AMAZING TRANSFORMATION” here myself. As you can see, my hair looks awful (and so do these particular pictures of me…..sorry guys). Dr. Rahal transplanted a total of 4737 grafts...broken down as: 677 singles, 2729 doubles, 1296 triples and 35 quads for a total of 10163 hairs. These were taken from a 35.5 cm2 strip of donor tissue. Dr. Rahal thought I had good donor characteristics, and that I should be able to get well over 3000 more grafts to address future loss as well. I'm hoping my first procedure gives me some decent coverage however, and that any subsequent procedures will be in the very late future!

Thanks for reading everyone!! I’ll post again with more pictures soon as I start to heal in the upcoming weeks!!

Until then……

Best,

Mike

[agenteye]

Apparently I don't have an option (of can't figure it out) to edit my original post above......but I just added a photo album with photos, as I realize I didn't include them before. I will also have a thorough write-up of my experience with Dr. Rahal and his clinic in the next day or so. I just wanted to start with a background post first!

Thanks everyone,

Mike

[topcat]

You lost 50% of your bodyweight, that's incredible, congratultions.

Look forward to seeing your pictures. I have found the best way to post photos is to upload them to a hosting site such as photobucket and then just post the image link directly into your postings as the picture will show up nice and big. Most of the thumbnail pictures posted that I have seen don't show up very well.

[agenteye]

Hey TopCat! Thanks buddy, I appreciate it! I did add a photo album to the site that should be open/public to all.....and additionally, I created a Blog on Dr. Rahal's site, as I figured it would be a good/easy way to continue to update my progress throughout my journey. I included all my photos on my blog, and now that I'm almost 5 days post-op, I will be updating soon with photos of the healing journey.....still can't get used to an ear-to-ear scar and a bunch of red-dots on my scalp, however I know that in a year I'm going to look back and be thrilled that I'm not so bald anymore!! =)

Anyhow.....my link to my Blog on Dr. Rahal's site is:


http://www.rahalhairtransplant.com/laketahoeguy/

Have a great night!!

Mike

[2020]

you look older than 31...

[mg39]

Congrats, look forward to seeing your progress. I'm 9 months out from my procedure with Dr Rahal, you were in very good hands.

[topcat]

Actually you look your age and even younger with the blonde hair. Wish I could do that as it is much easier to conceal but I'm getting a little too old.

I am surprised that you had strip as you seem to be the ideal candidate for fue. Just add a little hair and keep it buzzed. Anyway best wishes on good growth.

[inspects]

Mike,

Congratulations...!

Hope the best for you....!!

-Dale-

[Delphi]

You look pretty bad ass with the blond hair, and don't listen to 2020, you look like you're in your late 20s. As for Topcat's shot at you for having a strip, that was of course uncalled for and pointless since you've already undergone your procedure. Topcat will always pull his passive aggressive bullshit to make his point on this forum even at the expense of a another person's feelings. You look great and you obviously made the right decision for you! Congratulations!

[topcat]

Delphi not only do you work for the forum but you are delusional. It was an honest comment and not made to make the patient feel bad in anyway. I was just surprised with a his hair loss pattern that he opted for strip and I wish him all the the best regardless.

Maybe you work is needed on other threads.