Turned Away by Dr. Rahal

[epipapilla]

I appreciate your concern epipapilla. I actually work in an emergency department mental health unit and I think the disorder you are looking for is body dysmorphic disorder, not OCD.

I never once undermined that others may be experiencing worse hair loss than I am. When it comes to your own self, everything is relative and deviations in your appearance can affect you regardless of if it is the same level of severity as others.

Very kind of you though to berate me for something that causes me a good deal of insecurity. Nice to know their are folks on this forum like you!

I think you have OCD and BDD! Just look at the amount of pictures you posted of your hair. You are trying to show something which no one else can see: you are not going bald in your vertex or crown and there is no visible hair loss in your temples.

Cases like yours belittle the experience of guys who have far more visible hair loss. What you see as flaws in your hair no one in real life will see or even care about!

You make a post on here ranting on about how you have been refused a hair transplant as if some great injustice has been done to you. No injustice has occurred! You need to look for other sources to try to appreciate what you do have and stop moaning about minor, frivolous flaws.

Does your hair really look "unsightly"? Do you really think any one in the world will walk past you with the current state of your hair and think that? If you do then you are seriously deluded. No one really cares. Everybody has got their own problems.

[VictimOfDHT]

I wish I'd been turned away by the crooks at Bosley in LA when I had my first HT back in the late 90s. I had virtually no hair loss except for maybe 1cm on the sides (temples) but the hairline was solid like a wall. They were more than happy to charge me $3000 for 300 grafts. Yeah. Being OC can make things much worse than they really are.

[RU58841]

Cases like yours belittle the experience of guys who have far more visible hair loss!

And fit or thin bodies belittle the experience of fatter people, and happy experiences belittle the experiences of depressed people, and on and on.

What you see as flaws in your hair no one in real life will see or even care about!

Unfortunately the person who does see them and does care about them is the only one whose issue it is.

The reality though is that there's a lot more information that's perceived subconsciously when you look at someone's visage than the sole consideration of "how much hair have they lost?"

It's probably true that few people will make a deliberate decision to judge you based entirely on how much hair you've lost when you're a norwood 2-3; but they will certainly perceive that you look older, different than you used to, and potentially less attractive than you otherwise would. They probably won't even be able to put their finger on why that is, but that makes no difference to their feeling about you. A person's perception of you is based on a sum of things, and the impression of hair/face/visage is probably the strongest factor. Best you can do is try to address what you can.

[DAVE52]

...... How long should I wait before it is safe to go through with an initial procedure?

From your pics , I don't see the loss/thinning that you see .

As some have mentioned , if you were to get a procedure now ( @ 26 ) to touch up what you feel is some loss, there's a strong chance that as you get older you will "need' another procedure(s) to fill in what you have really lost .

You will set your self on a path of continued HT's for the rest of your life .

[brocktherock]

I can't see any loss unless your hair is soaked and all pulled apart. He is right, any procedure is going to do more harm than good. From someone that obsesses about this myself, I think you're working yourself up over nothing. Get on Fin and enjoy the hair you have, I'd trade shoes with you in a heartbeat

[win200]

I can't really see the loss you're talking about, but the pictures aren't great and I assume you know your own hair better than I do. Ignore the people giving you a hard time; they're being petty, and what matters is that your hair is bothering you.

But here's the thing; every hair transplant is risky, especially when performed on someone with a thick, reasonably full head of hair like yours. Like jamesst11 mentioned, shock loss is a real thing, and the risk is more pronounced when you're transplanting alongside thick native hair. Dr. Konior once told me, when I was considering a transplant akin to what you're thinking, that "things get broken." He wasn't trying to be glib, but rather to be realistic about the fact that when you have a great head of hair, you stand to lose quite a bit by going under the knife.

You know one thing for certain now: even with the loss you feel you've experienced, you have a GREAT hair of hair. It's full, thick, and textured. If you have a procedure that goes sideways, you stand to lose a lot. You're not like someone who's a NW5 at 26 and is going to look pretty awful without a procedure. It's the one bird in the hand versus two in the bush scenario. I had a transplant at 29 with a bit more recession than you, and that was the ABSOLUTE youngest age I'd advise anyone getting a transplant without significant loss (I was a NWII at worst). There's no harm in consulting, but you could end up truly miserable if you have someone operate on you now.

And, for what it's worth, I think Dr. Rahal is your guy. He specializes in relatively aggressive, dense procedures on younger guys. As others have said, the fact that he turned you away speaks volumes. He accepts somewhat more aggressive cases than many others, so I would take his verdict EXTREMELY seriously.