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This is my story. Back in the mid 70’s, only just in my twenties, at my most self conscious and vain as many young men are, I was devastated by the realisation that I was losing my hair. This was an era where plentiful male long hair was THE look (so were loon pants by the way). I had just gotten over acne for lords sake now I was going bald. My youth was going and I was never going to look cool.
I went to Pountney, saw a slick salesman with a thick head of hair, who had so obviously never had any sort of surgery, who convinced me his magnificent mane was a result of a hair transplant, and that he had an answer for me. So that is how I came to have a large no of holes about 4 cm each punched out of the back of my head and punched back into my temples. The look was ridiculous from the start. However once the surrounding hair started to fall out it was even more ludicrous. The solution of course was to have even more holes punched. I spent the next 2 decades trying to cover up in some way, combing over, spraying stuff on which only made it worse, or just hoping that most people would not notice, only to be painfully reminded when someone publicly humiliated me. That did not happen very often, but it happened enough times, to turn me into a recluse.
Fast forward to the 90s. I decided I had to do something about it but I was not going to be fooled again. This time I paid a “ leading trichologist” for a consultation. He recommended Dr May in London who apparently “pioneered” follicular unit grafting (strip) and was a “Leading exponent”, apparently. It kinda worked for a while. I achieved a thinning look that just about disguised the plugs around it. But I had little donor to start with, thanks to the shotgun scarring all over my head, and as my hair thinned further, not just in coverage but in thickness of shaft, it was obvious that I was back to square one, but with even less donor.
Not sure what started me looking again in the 2000’s but thank god for the internet. If only it had been around when I started out. There were now websites and independent forums, where guys with more common sense than me wrote about their experiences. I researched many HT Drs and consulted with those who had a solid reputation for HT. Of those only a few stood out as specialising in repair work. I chose Dr Bisanga mostly because despite months of searching I could not find a single negative post about him, and believe me I searched for it. I was impressed by his frankness he suggested that perhaps my best option was a reversal. I just did not have enough donor or density for anything else. Bernstein and Epstein also had similar conclusions by the way. I was aware that I was never going to get a smooth scar free scalp, but the plugs just had to go. My case is detailed under the repair section. So I will wind up by saying I am glad I went to Dr B. My reversal has significantly improved my life. After 3 decades of slow but steady erosion of self confidence I now find my lifestyle is much more outgoing than it used to be. It’s just a case of being comfortable , confident and secure that no one is going to look twice at me, for the wrong reasons.
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