www.CostaRicaTicas.com

First off, let me qualify myself by saying that I am in the aesthetic surgery business, and that I, too, have been losing my hair on the top for well over 5 years now.

My bottom-line, final answer is... don't do it.

Hair transplantation is a very funny thing. Because it's still, for the most part, a novelty type of procedure (i.e. not many people do it, and out of those, only a small percentage do it WELL), it is very VERY dangerous to "bargain hunt" on this... You'll find a killer deal out there somewhere, but man, you'll regret that decision for the rest of your life.

Hair transplantation has many potential negative effects. First off, there are like little "pock marks" that remain where the hair follicle was implanted. This is a sure-fire, tell-tale sign of a hair translplantation. The good news about this is that certain medical groups has gotten so good at this that they significantly have minimized the visibility of the small scars all over your head. RISK #1 if you go with cheaper... be prepared to have those visible red dots everywhere on your head for the rest of your life... they won't go away.

The second potential negative effect is the risk of cornrowing or having a symmetric pattern implantation technique done on you. We've all seen them... Guys that look like their heads are doll-head, and others where the hair follicles are so evenly spread out that it just looks... WRONG. Hiar is not only assymetrical in all senses of the word, but it also grows out of the head in many different angles. Again, groups that specialize in hair transplantation (i.e., Bosley, MHR, etc.) will make the transplantation look more natural than others, but not the cheaper, more inexperienced groups.

Finally, the scar. It's funny, people that were once obese who lose tons of weight never realize that even though, yes, they will be thinner, they will always look just as bad, or even worse than when they were fat... The excess skin must be removed surgically and the "Frankenstein scars" left all over the body makes you look like a horror-flick-mangled-mess. Well, be very aware of the fact that when doing hair transplantation, you will have a pretty significant horizontal scar on the back of your head. The traditional way of harvesting hair for this procedure is to make a football-shaped excision of hair and skin from the back of your head (right around the natural crease where your skull ends and you feel that "peak" on the back of your head) and then suturing up the skin. From that harvested patch of skin the doctor will remove hair in incrimints of 1, 3, and more hair (less-quality doctors wil get much bigger numbers of hair per group to "plug in") and start "plugging" it into your bald areas. You must be aware that the scar on the back of your head will always be there and visible, so it you like to wear your hear "high and tight" or with any kind of fade on the back, you probably won't be pleased with the fact that the scar is so noticable.

Besides all that, I ALWAYS tell my friends that you should NEVER go bargain hunting with something as serious as a procedure that affects your aesthetics (your looks). Moreso, you should NEVER, EVER, EVER go abroad from the U.S. for these kind of procedures, it's just not wise on many levels. No liability, no real way of verifying if they are good or verifying their credentials (i.e., there are associations and societies in the U.S. that verify through membership that the surgeon is in fact VERY WELL qualified in their specialty), and the risk factor is just much much higher... Don't save a buck on something as big as this, as a matter of fact, throw cost completely aside and go with the absolute best you can find (which is not necessarily the most expensive, but most of the time it is)... I promise you that this is the best way to go and you will guarantee yourself the kind of outcome that you want.

Hope this helps,

Ruffnutz

look to the aging english rock stars like zep and the stones
sure they can afford every procedure known to man but they don't
there is dignity in going in w what god gave you or took from you
although cutting their hair so they don't look like old grandmas would help lol