Let me take a minute to share some of my story with you. At the time of this writing I am 39 years old and I live in Los Angeles. My hair loss started at age 22 and progressed slowly. All the younger guys reading this trust me I know how you feel and trust me when I tell you that there is hope for a good pair of hair for most of you. Anyway, I was always aware of my receding hair and in the early 90’s I started interviewing doctors in the general Los Angeles area. You name them, I can tell you that I had interviewed them, I was at Bosley, Dr. Wolf, Dr. Meshkin, Dr. Rassman, Medical Restoration Center and many others that I do not remember. Looking back, I was very lucky that I didn’t have surgery at the time because if I had, I would probably have plugs of doll hair sticking out of my head.

So at the age of 35 I got married and settled in with my beautiful wife. I started to realize that I was losing my hair at the age of 36. Someone at work pointed this out to me, as it was my upstairs neighbor looking at my crown area.

I decided at that moment to stop my hair loss and change my appearance forever, for the better. So again I started my research online for months. I read articles, visited websites, and spoke with patients. In my research, a name came up over and over again, “Hasson and Wong,” based in Vancouver, Canada. . In almost every forum, they received positive reviews time and time again from patients who had either Dr. Wong or Dr. Hasson performed transplant procedures. After 4 months of research, I decided that Hasson and Wong were the right ones for me. Why did I choose surgeons outside of the United States? Simple, they were one of the best, if not the best, in the whole world and a hair transplant is a life-changing surgery. You can’t hide a hair transplant, once it’s done, that’s all, you’re stuck with it for life. So, traveling 3.5 hours from where he lived to his office to have the best guys do the transplant work was a no-brainer for me. I would travel to China if the best doctors were located there.

But which doctor, Dr. Wong or Dr. Hasson? Everywhere I read they both had equally good reviews, one did not stand out above the other in his skills or practices as a surgeon. One day, I read the blog of Jatronics, who was a patient of Dr. Wong and who also works for Hasson and Wong today. On his site, he described in detail his own hair loss experiences and why he chose Dr. Wong and his entire transplant procedure with Dr. Wong. After reading that post, I decided that Dr. Wong was the one for me. I made my first contact with Hasson and Wong by email; in fact, my entire hair transplant consultation was done online. I sent in a couple of pictures of my current hair loss condition and Dr. Wong made a guess as to how many grafts I would need and how much the total cost of the surgery would be. I told him I wanted as much as possible, that we agreed on about 3800 grafts, the cost at the time was about $ 11,000, which was fine by me as most surgeons here in Los Angeles doubled that amount. airfare and hotel where it is also included. Hasson and Wong pay for 2 full days of room and airfare. We were given a great room and at the Great Granville Hotel on Granville Island in Vancouver. My wife and I decided to take a short vacation for ourselves.

When we arrived in Vancouver in mid-2004, we went directly to our hotel in Granville. We unpacked and had lunch, and as I insisted on meeting Dr. Wong in person for a face-to-face consultation before surgery, we went to Hasson and Wong the day before surgery. My wife and I met with Joe Tillman and Dr. Wong that afternoon, which turned out to be more than I bargained for. We talked about how the surgery will take place, the donor scar, the density of my donor, etc. It was a great meeting that helped me prepare for the next surgery the next day at 6:00 am. My wife and I went back to our hotel and had a great dinner and relaxed.

On the day of the surgery, I was really nervous and reality set in. Believe me when I tell you right before I go to have my donor area taken, I was having a panic attack, my heart was beating and I was saying to myself, if this goes wrong, I will be scared for life. No one knew this was happening except my wife and she calmed me by saying that she had no doubt that the procedure would be done correctly. So I lay down on the chair and Dr. Wong came in, gave me some anesthesia, and started cutting my donor area. Now let me tell you everything, I have a low tolerance for pain and I can honestly say that going to the dentist is more painful, I personally did not feel any pain when Wong cut my donor area. After the donor area was taken, they stapled me and took me to another room to harvest. They had 6 to 8 nurses, not including Dr. Wong, who collected the implants, which took 10 to 12 hours. We start at 6:30 am and finish at 4:00 pm. I watched 2 DVD movies, “Lord of the Rings”, talked to Dr. Wong, talked to nurses, my wife, and had sushi for lunch. I did all of that while the implants were being harvested. There was absolutely no pain. After the surgery they gave me some painkillers, they gave me a hat, they paid me, I thanked everyone for their precision and professionalism and I went back to the hotel. We left for Los Angeles the next morning. The next day my face swelled due to the anesthetic medication that was inserted into my head to numb the transplant area.

This swelling lasted for 1 day after which the transplanted area was red for about 2-4 weeks. This redness of the transplanted area depends on the completion of the skin of the people. If you are white and pale skinned like me, the redness lasts longer, if you are tanned and dark skinned, the redness may not even be noticeable. All transplanted donor hair fell out within 10 days. The next phase that lasts approximately 3-6 months is the resting phase. I started to see hairs come off around the 4-5 month mark, which was amazing for a guy who got sassy every year before this. At 8-10 months I noticed a whole new me with a new set of hair, absolutely amazing. For the first time in 10 years I can use a brush and not a comb to brush my hair. Visit my website for before and after photos.