Well guys, being the decisive type, after posting in this thread I went for a consultation a couple of weeks ago and was told that there was a spare slot on short notice... which was basically yesterday. The cost for 2000-2500 grafts was £6600 when converted from EUR to GBP.
After only a weekend of thinking it over I came to the conclusions that
a) I don't want to lose more hair and I would hate shaving my head.
b) The best time to do it is Winter as no there is no heat or sweat pervading everything like in Summer.
c) The best time to do it, in addition to it being Winter, is certainly while COVID is making socializing difficult so I can be hidden away safely for a few weeks.
So, I accepted the appointment. I went there yesterday and was operated on by an Iranian husband and wife with almost 10 years experience of doing transplant and they were lovely people who made me feel really at ease. They were also very supportive of me on getting the op done before I had experienced too much noticeable hair loss, as people often leave it a lot later when loss has got to the point when people are already used to seeing their lack of hair and it can then be more jarring/obvious to people that know you that you have had it done.
It started with shaving my head... holy ****! Since I was a baby there has never been a time where I have not had hair on my head, so looking in the mirror and seeing myself with a shaven head was a real shock. I looked a lot like someone out of American History X, a lean and mean looking member of a skinhead gang. Grim!
The doctors were telling me I looked like some well-known rapper whose name I forgot, but I told them that I considered that a mortal insult.
They then drew on my head the areas suffering from loss that needed to be replenished which was my crown area and front hair line. Next came the injections of local anaesthetic, which were of course very unpleasant but not too bad with little pain. Then came the incisions, which were worse as the front of the head is very sensitive so i could feel it and needed more injections to compensate. Graft removal was fine, no pain, just the feeling of the drill going to work as by that point my head was numb to the world. Thankfully, my donor area was ideal so lots of 2 and 3 sprouts of hairs to use. After that it was just the grafts being put into the incisions, which was also ok but by that point I had started to lose a bit of the numbness so was getting a gradual headache as well as feeling muggy from the anaesthetic. The entire procedure took 6 or so hours including lunch. Afterwards I was given a saline salt spray for my head along with antibiotics and painkillers and then sent home.
Later that evening I had a banging headache so went to bed at around 730pm, using a travel neck pillow which was not the softest. Managed to sleep in fits for around 6 hours so got up this morning very early and will hopefully be exhausted tonight for a better sleep. Head feels much better today, thankfully, so again have the day off work and will just chillax and eat well and nap if I can.
So yeah there you go... executive action taken and by Summer I will hopefully have a restored growth of hair and no longer have to worry about the premature genetic hair loss on my crown that my dad and granddad gifted to me. I'll report back if anything significant happens.
