May 2004

Keep YourHair Forever

His noggin was bare.He wanted hair.All he had to do was spend a week insunny Florida--and let a doctor cut2,200 holes in his head.

Y VACATION PLANS were set: a week in a nice hotel inbeautiful Boca Raton. But while other guys would returnfrom such a trip with golf scorecards and stealth bikiniphotos, I'd be coming home with the ultimate souvenir-a

full head of hair. Or the seeds of one, at least. I'd decided that I was donebeing bald, so I signed on for a $10,000 procedure called follicular-unitmicrografting, a new surgery that lets you treat your scalp like a wheatfield and grow your own.

My intended crop: hair. Lots of it.I was nervous, of course. A lot could happen. My seedlings could die

in the field. It could look terrible. It could hurt. (The doctor told me I'dbe awake the whole time.) Nursing these anxieties, I sat in the lobby ofmy hotel, jittery, waiting for the Town Car the surgeon sent for me. ThenI ran a hand across my smooth scalp and smiled. It would all be oversoon. My indecent scalp exposure, that is.

Here's what the first day of my vacation itinerary included: Afternumbing my skull with lots of anesthetics and some quality drugs (agreat selling point for any surgical procedure), the doctor would peel along, thin strip of hairy skin off the back and sides of my scalp-a eel offlesh with one greasy yellow side and one long, hairy, buzz-cut - side.Medical technicians would then separate every tiny, egg-shaped hairfollicle from this "donor" tissue. Next, the doctor would incise thousandsof 3/16-inch-deep slits in my scalp. Then the surgical team would plant4,800 of my own healthy, productive hair follicles into the open wounds,one, two, or three at a time.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought that sending a driverwas the least the clinic could do. A cigarette and a blindfold might bemore like it.

The sterling service continued when I arrived in the wood and earth-toned lobby of the Bauman Medical Group. A pretty, redheaded nursebrought me water and Valium. (Should I have tipped?) Smooth jazz

dripped from speakers. After I was shown to Dr. Alan Bauman's office, Irealized that he was Valium in human form-so calming, experienced, andreassuring. Plus, he'd assembled a team of two M.D.'s and fournurse/technicians to work the assembly line of my bead. And this is theguy who is a nationally recognized leader in microsurgical hairrestoration including eyelash transplants. My head is the Capitol dome incomparison. How could he miss?

Dr. Bauman made sure that I'd adhered to the pre-op regimen ofabstinence from alcohol and aspirin (blood thinners) and had refrainedfrom strenuous exercise. (Impact workouts can hinder clotting.) Why theprecautions? Well, you've heard about how head wounds bleed. In thename of progress, Dr. Bauman was about to inflict thousands of them.

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The next stepwas for me to sitback with myhead in a machinethat used tiny,h i g h - p r e s s u r ewater jets-like ab r u s h l e s sc a r w a s h - t ocleanse my hairand scalp in ana n t i b a c t e r i a lrinse. It felt nice.So did theValium. Kickin'in. Yeah.

I was thenseated in a

surgical lounge chair with a tape of Hannibal playing on the TV acrossthe room. Wait, didn't Anthony Hopkins perform some interesting scalpprocedure on Ray Liotta in this one? The drug buzz wouldn't let me care.Dr. Bauman strapped a band around my head. Dozens of tiny needlesembedded inside delivered continuous doses of painkillers into my scalp.

I smiled dreamily. "Give me the highest dosage ... and some moreValium, please!"

I was feeling no pain as the doctors went to work behind me. Thesurgical team's small talk distracted me from the fact that somethingmajor was happening. Then I heard a tearing sound. It was the thin tapeof skin being peeled off the back of my head for the donor follicles.

Dr. Bauman immediately went to work suturing the wound.Meanwhile, several medical technicians using microscopes andmicroscalpels extracted and transferred thousands of gelatinous, seed-shaped hair follicles from the fleshy eel to petri dishes.

Now it was time for Dr. Bauman to put the "scalp" in "scalpel." Hisweapon of choice: a shiny, custom-made blade with an angled tip, like aslim X-acto knife. This is the truly artistic phase of the procedure. Withdeftness and precision, he made several thousand incisions in arandomized pattern through the bald areas of my scalp-all the whiletaking into account the natural direction and density of each follicle as hemade the cuts. This would determine how natural my new hair wouldlook once it sprouted.

My mantra: Relax, he does eyelashes!After lunch (I recommend the meatball sub), they converged on me

once again – a combination of at least two doctors and/or techniciansfilling Dr. Bauman's incisions with my uprooted follicles, which lookedlike servings of fish-egg sushi. They hovered over me for hours with tinyforceps, plucking, poking, pushing. Slowly, all the sites in my scalp werefilled. The drugs continued, and I happily munched Doritos whilewatching incomprehensible images flicker on the TV screen in front ofme.

I didn't lift a finger, but when it was finished, I was exhausted.Around 4 in the afternoon, Dr. Bauman did his final examination,

using forceps to push back the occasional recalcitrant seedling that hadpopped up out of its little furrow. Then it was back to the washingmachine for one last antiseptic bath.

My debriefing consisted of an introduction to the specialpostoperative take-home kit I'd be using for the rest of my vacation. Nobandage was placed on my scalp. Instead, I was issued gauze pads and

liquid-filled packets. My instructions: Soak the gauze in the solution andplace it on my head for an hour, twice a day. The solution was a hydratingtreatment containing an infusion of copper peptide that would help healmy skin. "Copper is an essential nutrient for healing skin cells," said Dr.Bauman. "The more you use it, the sooner you'll heal." There was also aset of shampoo and conditioner full of similar compounds. And, best ofall, they gave me a series of little manila pill packets: Percocet andMotrin (for pain), prednisone (to reduce swelling), and Propecia (toprevent future loss of my untransplanted hair).

Dr. Bauman nodded at my shredded head and gave me a satisfied grin."Six months from now, you won't believe how much hair you have."

The next morning, I woke up with spotty smears of blood and othereffluents on the sheets and pillowcases. (Note to self: Tip maid.) Igingerly washed and conditioned my hair. The streams from theshowerhead felt like individual flamethrowers, and after I dried off, thegeneral, viselike pressure all over my head was worse. But that's what thePercocet was for.

I reviewed some notes I'd tapped into my laptop the night before,under the influence of my whole prescription cocktail: "My scalp is atight, hard helmet, both numb and prickly at the same time. As Icontemplate the rending of the hairy strip of flesh from the head, it occursto me that the appropriate metaphor is 'adult circumcision."'

But in my case, I'll have more to show for this cutting, not less.Later that day, Dr. Bauman gave me another computerized scalp wash.

Then I was introduced to a new machine: the Low Level Laser TherapyHood. It looked like an old salon hair dryer, but retrofitted by Q: Insidewere rotating red laser projectors that stimulated scalp cells and hastenedhealing of the thousands of mosquito-bite scabs.

A daily field trip came onto my vacation schedule: I was to travelacross town to Integrative Therapies, a sports-medicine clinic, where forthe next 5 days I'd spend an hour a day in a hyperbaric chamber-youknow, the kind of oxygen tent that Michael Jackson sleeps in. It lookedsort of like an inflatable, clear plastic coffin. Once I got inside, theypressurized it to a few times normal atmospheric pressure and fed in pureoxygen. The pressure forced oxygen into my lungs and even into mypores, to accelerate healing.

Afterward, I felt pretty good, but there was absolutely noimprovement in my moonwalk.

The rest of my vacation flew by. After 5 days, I was off pain medsentirely and feeling pretty normal. Dr. Bauman told me that all was well.The implantation scabs would fall off in about a week; the stitches woulddissolve soon after that.

He lent me another cool gadget-a LaserComb, which worked like thelaser helmet I'd been using in his office. "Run it slowly over your entirescalp for 15 minutes every other day," he said. He also told me that innine out of 10 cases, the spiky little shoots that I could feel stickingstraight up like a crew cut would fallout, and those roots would godormant for a few months, then gradually-yes! -regenerate hair

He shook my hand and said, "This will be the longest 6 months ofyour life. Be patient and then enjoy your new hair."

One year later: The results are nothing short of miraculous. I've gonefrom Costanza to Kramer-a Chia Pet on Miracle Gro. Every week that'sgone by has brought noticeable improvement. It's a pleasure to look inthe mirror. My whole life has improved-the person I always felt like onthe inside is now visible on the outside. And he's one hairy guy. Mycurrent girlfriend – young, beautiful, fun – is unfazed by it all. She likesmy full head of hair. Her only response to the work I've had done is,"When do I get my implants?"

© 2004 Rodale Inc. All Rights Reserved. Produced under license by Reprint Management Services. ® is a registered trademark of Rodale Inc. For more information about Men’s Health®, visit www.menshealth.com.

# Reprinted by Reprint Management Services, 717. 399.1900. To request a quote online, visit www.reprintbuyer.com.

Located in beautiful Boca Raton, Florida For more information, free consultations and online consultations, contact Dr. Bauman today:

1-877-BAUMAN-9 toll free • 561-394-0024 • www.baumanmedical.com • doctorb@baumanmedical.com

State-of-the-Art Hair Restoration for Men & Women

Alan J. Bauman, M.D.