The Stitches Are Out !

This morning on my way in to work I stopped in for my 7 day appointment, to have my stitches removed. Luckily Dr. Cotterill's office is right along the same Bloor St. (Toronto) subway-line as my work, so i just had to hop off on my way into work, and snip-snip-snip, and hop back on. Only took about 10 minutes total.

It has now been a couple hours since I had my stitches out, and I've realized that the bit of discomfort I experienced on the back of my head, was actually becaue the stitches were in! As soon as they were out, my head felt... practically normal. I don't feel anything when I press on the back of my head where the stitches were! I've never had stitches before, so I guess it's because they pull slightly when your skin moves around on your head.

Dr. Cotterill examined the suture line, and said that it was looking "excellent" and that I took great care of the area, so my scar will eventually be virtually undetectable, a very slight pencil line. I'm really glad to hear that. I was very religious about following the instructions on soaking the area and massaging it. I was also using vitamin E on the suture line for the last three days, to help it along.

I thought getting a hair transplant was going to be a bigger deal than it is turning out to be. I was pretty much fine after 4.5 days. On the 6th day I was back in the office, and my natural hair was hiding the transplanted area just fine. Today (7th day) and I'm almost 100% back to normal.

I'm almost saddened as it means my blog is going to go stale for a little while... The only thing I have to do now is sit back and watch it grow over the next several months. Zzzzz...

Hopefully when Dr. Cotterill's website gets updated with my hair transplant procedure video, I will be able to link to that video, so there will be a full account on this blog of what I went through. I told Dr. Cotterill that I was doing a blog of the entire experience from start to finish, and he has asked if he can put a link to my blog on his web site, which I said was fine. So between the two of us, there should be a full account of the whole process... which is pretty cool I think.

So check back again soon. I'm bound to find something to post in the weeks to come!
Cheers,
Mark

Hi Rez image of where the sutures are

This shot is a better example of how well hidden the donor site is. My fingers tips are actually resting on the corners of the suture line. So as you can see, it's quite a long elliptical slice they take from the donor spot. But it's a thin one.

Directly between the two green lines is where the sutures are. You can see that it lifts the hair ever so slightly. In fact at first I thought it was a line from where my hair cut used to taper, as I haven't had it cut in a while. So it confused even me. It wasn't until I took a photo with the hair a little wetted in back and lifted the hair that I saw the line dips a little due to the angle I took it and that the slight ridge of hair was in fact due to the sutures ever-so-slightly lifting the hair that was flowing over top of it.

But I am really happy with how unnoticable it is.

Monday - 5 evenings after...

I decided not to do a video entry tonight, so I'm just going to post a photo I took and give a little explanation of what has been going on today.

In the photo above, you can see that my healing process is going very well. If you look closely at my temple corners you will see very short hairs starting to poke through. I almost would swear that they've grown since they've been implanted...but it may be more likely that the swelling just went down, OR that the scabs are just falling away more, thus exposing more hair. As you can see there are only a couple of red clots left, the rest have turned white from all the soaking, and are starting to drop away in the bath.

I have been soaking my head as perscribed in a tub 2 times per day. I have been adding Epsom salts to the bath each time, and this evening I decided to squeeze two vitamin E capsules into the water, just to help the skin retain some moisture - as 2 baths a day and washing hair twice a day dries you out a bit.

My swelling has subsided almost entirely, so I'm quite happy about that - since it's been less than 4.5 days since I got home from the procedure (Thursday 1pm, to Monday 8pm).

I will be working from home again tomorrow. Luckily I work in I.T. for a financial institution, so I'm all set up with VPN and can do all my work from home. However, I'm fairly confident I could go to the office tomorrow, and nobody would be the wiser.

I enjoy lightly touching the top of my head... It's prickly like I had a really short buzz cut. The odd sensation is that the scalp in the area of the transplant has lost some sensitivity, which is normal. It's due to nerve endings all being disturbed, so it feels a little like you're touching somebody else's head. My doctor has told me that this just takes a little time to return to normal.

To combat the swelling over the last couple days, I do the following:
Right after my bath, while my circulation is still going, I do a cold compress on my forehead, while laying at an incline of 45 degrees to help take the swelling away. For the past couple days I was religiously applying ice every hour for 10 minutes.

Starting today I added a few things to my routine (and these were not the advice from my doctor, but rather something I decided to do)
1) I began alternating a cold compress with a warm compress, to keep the swelling down and the circulation going. I figure the swelling is mostly gone, so this will just speed the last bit away.

2) I drank a lot of green tea today too as a diuretic, just to flush out my kidneys as much as I could and help the get fluids from the swelling out of me. This again - my idea, not the doctors. I figure it couldn't hurt so why not.

3) I ate a couple cucumbers and some asparagus today for the sulphur and asparagine. Helps to stimulate the kidneys. Can you tell I've been doing a lot of Googling lately? I never usually go for weird medical ideas, but I like both cucumbers and asparagus, so I decided - hey why not, they're good for you anyway.

OK enough typing for tonight. Time for a good night's sleep.

The back of my head where the hair was taken from

So I just realized that I hadn't posted any photos or pictures of the back of my head! I'm sure some people must be wondering what the donor site looks like. So the following picture was taken today (Monday) following my procedure last Thursday. I should point out that the site looked like this from day 1. It was well hidden. I usually wear my hair shorter in the back - about 1/4 inch long. But I decided to let it go to a half inch just to make sure that things would be well hidden when I got the procedure done.

In the photo, my fingers are pointing along a horizontal imaginary line where the stitches are hidden beneath my hair. The doctor uses a process called "Trichophytic closure" which causes hair to actually grow through the scar, making it even less detectable.

Part 6: Hair Transplant Results - Sunday Morning

It's Sunday November 9th, 2008, following my hair transplant which took place on Thursday November 6th. Feeling pretty good. I'm almost back to normal in terms of the swelling.

Hair Transplant - 2 days later

This is my second full day following the day of my procedure. Below is my video blog entry.

If you haven't read all the previous posts a here's a quick recap:

I had a hair transplant procedure on Thursday November 6th, in Toronto Canada from
Dr. Paul Cotterill (www.drcotterill.com). I chose this doctor because he was one of the best in Toronto, and because I saw first hand some of the work he had done on a friend of mine a couple years ago. He was recently the president of the ISRHS.


Here are the latest developments for Saturday:

The second evening after my hair transplant

Photo of my head the next day

Dr. Cotterill was kind enough to send me a photo he took of my head the day after my procedure. As you can see I had a lot of work done... The little dots you see are the little transplanted hairs. They only poke above the surface a little bit, so you can't actually see the hair yet. Once this has grown in it will look way better.

The day after the hair transplant

Below is a video from the day after my procedure. You will notice that my hair has been washed by Dr. Cotterill, and that it is now hiding the site of the procedure.

Hair Transplant - Dr.Cotterill performs surgery on CityTV

Found another video on YouTube, where Dr. Cotterill does a hair transplant on CityTV. I actually remember seeing this when it first came out on television a couple years ago.

Hair Transplant Specialist Dr. Paul Cotterill - Virtual Tour

This is a video clip I found on YouTube of Paul Cotterill giving a tour of the office where I just had my hair transplant. It's a very cozy atmosphere.

Post Transplant - A few hours after my transplant

This is my video blog from about 8 hours after my procedure. I'm feeling fine, not really in any significant discomfort. A little tender, but very worth it. I'm really excited to see how well this grows in. My doctor was great, extremely informative and attentive. His website is at http://www.drcotterill.com/ He will eventually have videos of my procedure on his site, so I will like to them once he posts them, so that people following this blog can follow the entire procedure.

My First Post - The night before my surgery

This is my first time creating a video blog. Please be patient.

The reason for my blog, is so others can see what hair transplants are all about, and to show that you don't have to be bald to need or want a transplant. There are lots of options out there.

The reason I am gettin a transplant is that I really like my hair the way it was... And now it has started to get to a thinner point in the front. Some people go the other extreme and shave their head, and I just couldn't bring myself to that. Also I didn't want to be the guy who in 5 years looks like he is doing a comb-over. I'm already camoflaging the thinning in a couple ways.

1) I do highlights. Highlights may be a bit out of fashion for guys these days, but all my friends say I look odd without them, so I keep them. That and they actually help distract the eye from how thin the hair is. I don't know HOW it works, but whenever my highlights would grow to the point of being cut out, I would notice the thinning of my hair a lot more...so I would get back on the highlights.

2) My hair style - I do the messy hair in front thing, and use a bit of the messy hair to hide the receding corners a bit.

So people have this misconception that you need to be partially bald to get a transplant. Not so, my friend and I are about to have transplants, and we have full heads of hear... but we also have receding hairlines. I'm only 35. I just want to have a few more years of youth left in my hair to enjoy. I find thinning hair makes people look older than they are...so I'm fighting the aging process tooth and nail.

The website of my doctor that I mentioned in the clip is: http://www.drcotterill.com/