Gho Clinic - Follicle Transplantation
 Patient's Journal
View from hotel room.

HairSite's Personal Journal, September 2002
First Three Weeks After Follicle Transplantation at Gho Clinic

1st Day After Surgery 

Slept like a baby
I slept surprisingly well the night after the surgery. It was definitely not how I remembered when I had strip excision surgery as the pain from the suture kept me up for many nights. The donor site from Follicle Transplantation still felt a little tender but definitely no pain and no problem sleeping. 

Greasy, Bloody, Medically Scented Hair
According to the post-op instructions, I was not supposed to wash my hair about 2-3 days after surgery in case the new grafts were damaged. August in Maastricht can get somewhat humid, and on top of that I had anti-biotic cream on the donor site the night before, not to mention that the scabs were starting to form over the grafts - need I say more? Women simply found me irresistible !!

Playing tourist in Maastricht
My follow-up appointment with Dr. Gho was scheduled for 2 pm. So I decided to go out with my bloody red scalp and greasy hair to scare all the locals in Maastricht. Maastricht has a lot of history. Personally, I think Maastricht has a lot more 'personality" than Amsterdam. Some churches are like half a century old, quite fascinating.


Maastricht tourist info pack, courtesy of Gho Clinic

Follow-up visit & a chance to meet other patients
The car service arrived the hotel at 1:45 pm and I was taken to Gho Clinc for my follow-up visit. There was no suture to remove. Dr. Gho examined the donor site and the recipient site and took some more pictures. We discussed about the possibility of swelling and shock fallout which I should find out very shortly if I would be a victim or not. However, it was encouraging to learn that there was not one single case of shock fallout at Gho Clinic so far. Dr. Gho then gave me a CD-ROM and a pile of before and after pictures that were taken throughout surgery day. It turned out that I was not the only one who was having a follow-up visit that day. I was introduced to two other patients who had work done several months ago. Both patients were Dutch and they both commented that they were very pleased with their results. I was pleased with what I saw. All in all, the follow-up visit was pretty routine, nothing unusual to report. 

The next 3 weeks after Follicle Transplantation

Swelling usually occurs 2-3 days after surgery and I am happy to report that there was no signs of swelling at all. 

As for my biggest concern, ie: shock fallout, I am now in day 21 after the procedure and I am thrilled to say that I do not see any signs of shock fallout at this point. However, I feel that I need to wait a bit longer before I can give a more definitive conclusion. 

Scabs and crusts were formed over the grafts soon after the procedure and now about 95% of them have fallen out by the third week. 

Somewhat unusual is that I still have all or substantially all of the grafts on my scalp. Unlike my strip excision surgery, no grafts were attached to the scabs and crusts when they fell out. I can definitely feel that the grafts are continuing to grow as I touch them with my fingers all the time. I know I shouldn't touch the grafts with my fingers because that is the most common reason why people get infection. But I am intrigued by how long these grafts would stay on my scalp. This is certainly different from what I remembered when I had my strip excision surgery. Back then, the newly grafted hairs would fall just after a few weeks followed by a resting period of 3-4 months and then the new hairs started to grow. This is almost the norm for most traditional hair transplantation. 

I am surprised I do not hear more horrible stories about how difficult it is to sleep on the suture associated with traditional strip excision surgery. When I had my first procedure back in 1995, I did not have a good night's sleep for more than a month. When you have a suture measuring 5-6 inches wide, the natural thing to do is to avoid putting pressure on it. You can imagine how it feels like to be sleeping directly on a 5-6 inches suture every night. With Follicle Transplantation, I could feel a light tenderness on the donor site when I slept the first week after surgery but it was nothing like what I remembered with the linear suture associated with strip excision transplantation.

By the end of the third week, I resumed all regular activities. I started going to the gym about 1 week after the procedure doing only light exercise and working on my lower body only. But by the end of the third week, I started running and lifting the same weight like I used to. I also started to shampoo like I used to without getting overly conscious about disturbing the grafts. 

Final Thoughts

When Gho Clinic first published patient pictures for Follicle Transplantation, everyone including myself was somewhat alarmed by how unsightly the recipient site looked. I then researched patient pictures from other hair transplant doctors and I found that Gho Clinic was the only one who posted close up pictures of patient immediately after the surgery and of that magnitude. I brought that up to everyone in the forum and some accused me of trying to sugar coat and paint a different picture for everyone. I wasn't saying anything unusual in my posts other than to ask people not to jump to conclusion. The truth was that I brought up the facts about Dr. Gho's pictures in comparison to other hair transplant doctors' pictures but people chose to ignore the facts and concluded that I was guilty of taking sides. The facts are there, anyone can still go on the internet and locate pictures from other hair transplant doctors and compare that to Dr. Gho's. 

Now I had Follicle Transplantation done myself and I could very well see for myself that the incisions in the recipient area were no bigger than others that I had seen in person. As a matter of fact, the incisions that were done without tissue removal were so fine and minute that I think they were definitely one of the smallest I have seen. I am not sure what Dr. Gho's rationale was when he chose to put the close up pictures in his website. But somehow those close up pictures may end up hurting his clinic when others in the industry choose not to reveal the same.

Now would I recommend Follicle Transplantation to people? After all, it is a surgery. People should NOT consider any forms of surgical hair transplantation procedures unless they have come to their last resort and they are desperate for a treatment. Even so, I feel that they should consult at least 3-4 hair transplant doctors and talk to people in the Hair Transplant forum before they make a decision. This is NOT to be taken lightly. As for Gho Clinic's Follicle Transplantation, patients should know before hand that they will NOT get thousands of grafts in one session. In most patients, they average 300 - 400 grafts at most per session. If the patient is really desperate for a solution now, I feel that Follicle Transplantation can be a great alternative to the conventional strip excision surgery especially if the patient is looking to touch up small balding areas. It is also true, from my own experience, that Follicle Transplantation is many many times less invasive than traditional procedures. The difference is night and day. 

Comparison - Follicle Transplantation (Dr. Gho) vs Traditional Strip Excision Surgery (Dr. Gore).

See Page 4

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HairSite's HAIRmultiplication (HM) & Follicle Transplantation (FT) Coverage

Both HM and FT are prepared by HairSite based on actual interview and conversations with Dr. Gho. 
HairSite takes full responsibility for any information that is misrepresented to the public. 
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