Letter #103

Dear Dr. Bernstein,

I had been losing my hair from the crown for 7 or 8 years when it started to fall out from the top and front as well. I could tolerate the crown loss as I couldn’t see it, but by the third year of top and front loss my fragile ego could no longer tolerate it. I set about searching the internet for information on hair transplants.

During my search I discovered follicular unit transplantation and Dr. Bernstein’s seminal research on the topic. I was very impressed with both. Shortly thereafter a business trip took me to New Jersey and I took advantage thereof to attend an open house at Dr. Bernstein’s office. The doctor’s open and honest approach to hair transplantation closed the deal for me and I arranged for my first session some 10 weeks later.

When the time for my session came, my wife and I flew out to New Jersey. We preceded my hair transplant session with a day in Manhattan. It was highlighted by an afternoon at Broadway’s presentation of The Lion King whose tickets we managed to get at the Times Square half-price booth. Our time in New York was worth the trip by itself.

My wife dropped me off at Dr. Bernstein’s New Jersey office the first thing the next morning. Upon entering the office I was provided with a uniform-of-the-day and shown to my “operating room”. I most remember the large comfortable chair and the T.V. which was made available for my viewing pleasure along with a wide selection of video tapes. Once I was seated the doctor came in and drew my new hair line. He then administered the local anesthetic which facilitated the painless removal of the donor hair strip from the back of my head. Then, while the follicular units were being harvested from the donor strip, he generated the first set of implant sites – kind of recalled my days of planting pine trees.

The follicular units were planted in the recipient sites which the doctor had prepared. I was left to occupy the time as I saw fit subject to the constraint of staying in the chair and keeping my head moderately still. This set of operations was repeated until around noon when my wife came in and we were given an opportunity to have a very nice lunch together in the “operating room,” courtesy of Dr. Bernstein.

Following lunch the routine was resumed until the some 2000 follicular units were successfully planted. This was accomplished by about 3 o’clock. We then spent an hour or so cleaning up and being given our post-operative care instructions. My wife then drove us to the hotel and following a night of modest discomfort – eased by the drugs provided upon our departure from Dr. Bernstein’s office – we flew back home.

I had scheduled the procedure at the beginning of a 2 week vacation. I had done such to provide sufficient time to recover from the hair transplant. This turned out to be unnecessary as there was very little negative residual affects from the procedure. However, it did provide time for the obvious physical appearance changes to recede and allowed me to cover those remaining with a comb over. Consequently, when I returned to work, none of my workmates ever mentioned noticing anything different about my appearance. During the following 6 months my transplanted hair went through its break in period and became at one with the hair which had preceded it. I was very glad that I had undertaken the hair restoration and that I had chosen Dr. Bernstein to make it happen.

Unfortunately, with the passage of time my original, non-transplanted hair continued to depart my company. Several years later I returned to New Jersey and Dr. Bernstein to counteract this impact of time. The 2nd transplant was pretty much a repeat of the 1st except for being a bit shorter owing to the need for fewer follicular units to be transplanted. By this time I was retired from work and had no worries about encountering any workmates. But it really didn’t matter as the 1st procedure provided me sufficient hair cover to venture forth bareheaded on the day following the hair transplant confident that no one could see anything different. Looking back, I am very satisfied with my decision to undergo hair transplantation and to have done it with Dr. Bernstein and his staff.

Sincerely,
J. Q.