Hair today, gone tomorrow - Part Two

In my quite bald head it only seems like about one, at most two years ago when I told you that I was investigating the idea of having a hair transplant here.

But no, on rereading that post I've now realised that it was over 5 years ago, which might explain a lot!

I promised to keep you posted, so finally I am, with a post.

For some months after February 2014 I did exactly what I committed to do. I made appointments with about  4 or 5 of these hair transplant places to see what the possibilities were for me.

And not a single one of them inspired any level of confidence in me. One in particular, the Private Clinic in Harley Street would you believe, gave me downright incorrect medical advice. I've put their full name here as it's all documented and was never resolved to my satisfaction.

But the gist of it was that the nurse who was giving me the consultation said that they wouldn't go ahead with a procedure as I was type 1 diabetic and the Doctor would not operate on a type 1 diabetic. She steadfastly refused to accept that I am actually type 2 diabetic even though I take insulin and got quite shitty with me when I argued the point.

"In all my twenty years of nursing I've never come across someone taking Insulin who's not type 1" she said at one point. 

The clinic refunded me the £100 or so for the consultation and, when I complained, offered me another free consultation with a different nurse, but never really dealt with the issue that a nurse had got her medical facts wrong. I'll be bolloxed if I'm going to go to a clinic that demonstrates its medical "expertise" like that, then fails to deal with it.

To be fair the other clinics did not demonstrate medical incompetence, more just an air of snake oil salesman trying to close a deal regardless of whether it would result in a happy customer.

One bloke kept calling me for some weeks afterwards reducing his price every time and trying to get me to buy that way. Another called a few times saying that they had had last minute cancellations and gaps to fill so could offer me reduced rates because of that.

Not once did I feel that I had been given decent impartial advice with my best interests at heart. Perhaps I had been naive in my expectation but that was what I wanted and felt I needed in order to make a good decision.

So, what with life getting on with itself the way it does and things being busy, as well as the fact that my Dad rather selfishly passed away a little after, I decided to put it all on the back burner as it just didn't feel right.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. For some algorithmic reason an ad popped up on my Facebook page for a clinic with what seemed to be an excellent reputation and was also local. I bunged an enquiry in and got myself another consultation and off I went.

The very nice Doctor, and it actually was the Doctor, not a nurse or salesperson, started off by asking me why I want to have a hair transplant. I immediately told him that I'm not sure if I do, but that I want some good advice on my prospects.

He took some photos of my head, did some computerish stuff, then gave me the news.

If you're bored and want to skip the details let's just say you can't polish a turd or you can't grow grass on a busy road.

He refreshingly and I assume honestly told me that I simply don't have enough hair left on the donor area to fill in the rather large empty bit and give me a full and flowing head of hair. There would be patches left on the donor area and I'd end up with a head of hair looking like it did around 5 years ago, not like it looked in my "are you Shehan Karunatilaka?" days.

One option would be to have a transplant and combine it with scalp micropigmentation, when they effectively tattoo fake grade zero hair on your head. I'd had a look at this anyhow some time ago and decided against it because you have to keep your hair at around grade zero constantly or you look like a total arse. Clippering my hair twice a week is way over my vanity boundary.

I pondered for some minutes and came to a decision. First of all I figured that there was no motive for the Doctor to be lying to me. Then I realised that his advice had made things clear; I simply am not that bothered and don't want to spend around £6k to look like I did 5 years ago. If he'd promised a full head of hair things might be different. But even then it's only a 'might'.

My feelings, for I know lots of you are interested in these feeling things, were mixed, in a surprising way.

Rather than feel massive waves of disappointment I felt about 10% disappointment. The remaining 90% was a sense of relief, of putting the whole thing to bed and getting on with life. It was good to feel that I'd finally got good quality information and made an informed decision.

Embrace the slaphead I guess!

Anyone want to buy some nearly new hair gel?