Day 2 (Sept. 11, 2012)

On Tuesday morning I was picked up by the Hair Mobile and delivered to Carolina Hair Surgery.  About 9:00am one of the assistants washed and then cut all of my hair off similar to what I would call a military cut.  This is done so Dr. Vories can have a good visual of the donor hair as well as the recipient area.  About 9:30am, Dr.Vories used a medical marker and began drawing lines on my head where he would be moving my hair.  After explaining the process.....he began injecting Lydocaine as a local anesthetic in the area where he would be working.  There was very little pain with this.  It was sort of like going to the dentist to get a shot of Novocaine.  He used a vibrating machine which helped mask the sticking of the needles and help distribute the medicine to numb my head. The numbing process was very quick and he began extracting the grafts from my donor area with the FUE machine (which is an incredible instrument).  He said I averaged 2 hairs per graft which was a very good ratio.  He continued extracting grafts and I absolutely did not feel anything.  I laid back and listened to some good music from his I-Pad.  He also gave me antibiotics and a small dose of medicine which made me drift off to sleep at times and the entire procedure passed by quickly.  This is a 360 degree video you can view prior to Dr. Vories beginning the FUE process.

Around lunch time, we all sat around a large table and had sub sandwiches ordered at a local shop and then got back to work.  It was time to place the new grafts in the needed areas.  He began filling the area with 1,250 grafts extracted earlier.  He explained that he was starting in the crown area and working forward.  By 4pm he and his staff had completed implanting the graphs and it was time to go back to my hotel.  I was delivered there by the Hair Mobile, was given a bottle of solution to mist the area on the hour and was given medication for any pain and a sleep aid.  The sleep aid was basically for me to sleep without moving around for the purpose of not displacing any of the implanted grafts.  I did have some pain early on and took only one tablet (Hydrocodone) for the pain.  This was a mistake because the nagging discomfort did not go away.  I took a second pill about 10pm along with some ibuprofen and the sleep aid (Ambian) but I did have a hard time falling to sleep.  I think I finally drifted off about midnight but it was an uncomfortable night.  I really think I over-compensated for where the grafts were implanted and the circular pillow (that you use on plane flights) was uncomfortable.  I just could not find comfort to fall asleep.  I did manage but it was a very difficult night.