My Story
According to the American Hair Loss Association, nearly two-thirds of American men will suffer from some degree of hair loss by the age of thirty-five. Androgenetic alopecia, commonly known as male pattern baldness (MPB) can cause devastating effects on a person's self-confidence.
Even before I was born, I was unfortunate that my family genetics weren't on my side as both my maternal and paternal grandfathers were bald (Norwood 6-7). My father isn't completely bald and if I were to place him on the Norwood chart, he'd probably be somewhere between a Norwood 3 to a 3V. My maternal grandfather was also bald and many of my mother's siblings had some degree of hair loss.
Growing up, I've always had a wide and high forehead and I remember not being able to style my hair in certain ways. I hated the way my hair looked and even during my childhood, I've had friends who would comment on the size of my forehead. It wasn't until I was around 18-19 years old when I had a college roommate telling me that my hairline and temples were receding. I pulled out my photo album with pictures from my teenage years and compared it to my current hair and realized that I indeed was suffering from male pattern baldness.
My hair loss wasn't that significant during my late teenage years and I was probably somewhere between a Norwood 2-2.5. Despite this, my receding hairline made me extremely self-conscious and made me feel and look a lot older than my age. I started avoiding certain hairstyles that would expose my hairline. I ended up growing my hair long so that I can put the front hair down to cover my massive forehead and kept that hairstyle for many years.
Certain things that I did without consciously thinking was now something I had to consider for the sake of my receding hair. Simple activities such as swimming and biking were avoided in fear of someone pointing out and seeing my receding hairline. I couldn't enjoy putting the windows down and enjoying the breeze while driving. Among the many insecurities men have in life, whether it be their careers, height, or even their social status, hair loss has tremendously affected me at a young age. My experience with hair loss has limited me to a lot of things that I should've enjoyed in life and made me more and more conscious as the days passed on, until one day.....I decided to have my very first FUE hair transplant.
After years and years of careful research on hair transplant doctors, I finally decided to get my very first FUE hair transplant at Motion Clinic in November 2016 in South Korea at the age of 28. For those that don't know, South Korea is THE plastic surgery capital of the world. South Korea has the most plastic surgeries per capita in the world, and after my researching, I've decided to go with a well-known doctor in the Gang-nam district of Seoul, South Korea. Towards the end of November 2016, I ended up getting 1700 FUE hair transplant grafts implanted into the frontal portion of my hairline and temporal peaks to lower my hairline and to rebuild a natural-looking forehead that would frame my face nicely.
Before
Post-Op
1 Year Later
3 years after, I decided to get a 2nd hair transplant (and hopefully the last one!) at Motion Clinic to further add in density and to slightly bring down the hairline to a Norwood 0!
To document my whole journey to looking hairliciously good, I've built this website for those who were interested in getting a hair transplant as well as for those who wanted to follow my journey and progress, as well as tips and useful information pertaining to hair transplants. Make sure to follow my hair transplant journey to stop hair loss and feel free to ask me any questions that you might have.