I made a decision the other week about getting hair transplants after I saw a few images and videos of myself from angles that I can't see in the mirror. A lot of men are plagued with baldness and I guess you could say that I am fortunate that I made it as far as I did - I'm in my late 40's - that it didn't really start to be a problem until I was this age. I know people that were starting to lose their hair when they were in their 20's and that must have been very tough for them.
It is an extremely common problem with men my age and different people have different ways of dealing with it. I have friends that spend a lot of time using hair care products to push their hair this way and that in order to try to cover up the fact that their hair is thinning, and I have friends who just wear hats all the time. ALL of them are very aware of the fact that they are doing this because they are missing their hair and this affects their mental health negatively.
Vanity has never really been a thing of mine and while I am not a jerk, I am one of those people that doesn't really care what other people think of me. I am not mean to people, I'm actually probably one of the nicest people that you could meet in your life. I'm just not someone that buys nice clothes or shoes and I can't remember the last time that I dedicated any sort of period of time into making my hair look "just so" with some gel or something like that.
This wasn't a decision that I took lightly, and a lot of this is because the process is actually quite expensive as well. While they can't tell me exactly how much it is going to be until they see me, it is looking like it will be in excess of $3000. I don't like to spend a lot of money but I suppose there are some things that are worth it.
That is not me in the picture above, but it is one of the few testimonials that the clinic I have chosen features a foreigner. As you might expect, a majority of the customers at a Vietnamese hair clinic are Vietnamese people.
I have been watching a bunch of videos on YouTube about people who have had hair transplants and I am happy to report that they are overwhelmingly testimonials about how delighted the people are that had the process done. It is not an easy road though, and this is what has me a bit worried about the immediate future.
For starters, after you first get the procedure done, you can't really do anything and you especially must never touch your head where the transplants just happened. If you do so, you run the risk of removing the transplanted hair and obviously you do not want to do that. Some people have reported that the areas they worked on are extremely itchy and of course, you cannot scratch them. This is going to be absolutely horrible if it ends up being the case with me.
The worst part, according to people that have had it done up to now, is during the first 6 days. You have to sleep upright, you can never touch your head, and you have to be very careful to not let anything else touch your head. It is advised that you don't even wear t-shirts but instead just wear button down shirts because even slight contact with the newly planted follicles can destroy them.
Of all the testimonials I have read and seen, the people say that the first week after the procedure is pretty bad but I suppose that is to be expected with almost any cosmetic surgery. I knew a girl that got a boob job and while she is very happy today that she got it done, the first month to 6 weeks following the surgery were as she described, the "worst period of time in her life."
Such is the price we pay for vanity i guess. I am extremely nervous right now and am not looking forward to this at all. I do however, realize that this is something that I really want to do and in the long run I think it will do a lot for my self-image. I have heard from a lot of folks out there that once they got their hair transplant, they felt compelled to improve other aspects of their lives as well such as getting in shape and eating well. Maybe, just maybe this little step for me will make the same thing happen.
Either way, this is a big step for me and I would be lying if I said I wasn't extremely nervous. The clinic promises all sorts of things like it not being painful and what not but I don't see how that can possibly be true when they are going to be poking 6000 holes into my scalp.